Apple

Apple released iTunes 9.0.2 today an update that included additional improvements to app sorting for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

In early September, we offered a bug fix for arranging apps on iTunes after the release of iTunes 9.0 and later that same month Apple released iTunes 9.0.1. Progress was made in squashing some of the bugs we found, but the app sorting feature was still pretty tedious to use and nearly impossible to use if the number of apps on your iPhone exceeded 176.

Apple has resolved this problem by displaying the apps past the first 176 onto home screens that are grayed out. These home screens, numbered 12 or higher, will not currently display on your iPhone, but at least now you have a chance of grabbing apps from these screens and moving them to another visible screen. You should keep in mind that any apps on the home screens past the first 11 will only be accessible via a Spotlight search.

iTunes app sorting note grayed out home screen.

Problems sorting apps were not completely resolved by this iTunes update if all the home screens and the extra ones are completely populated. In this case, you lose any chance of moving the apps around effectively. However, there is a work-around--simply sync one more app back to your iPhone and iTunes will add another grayed out home screen. The exception being that this screen will now be mostly empty giving you the work space you need to get your apps sorted the way you want them. When you are done, make sure that extra app is the only one left on the extra home screen and delete it once you are satisfied with the way your apps or home screens are arranged.

This last step is optional; however, I recommend you perform it to prevent apps from accidentally being placed onto this screen. If you add more apps by syncing or purchases iPhone OS will recreate it.

iTunes app sorting--make some room for temporary workspace by syncing one extra app back to your iPhone.

Additional information about iTunes 9.0.2 enhancements, bug fixes, and download links for Windows or Mac OS X can be found at download.com.

Graphic artists who work with Pantone colors may appreciate the latest iPhone offering.

Designed for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the $9.99 MyPantone app lets mobile users create and share palettes of colors drawn from the familiar Pantone libraries.

MyPantone

(Credit: Pantone)

The app opens with a fan deck of Pantone color swatches, a virtual replica of the print Pantone swatch guide that designers carry with them. A color bar also resides at the top.

MyPantone offers colors from virtually all of the standard libraries, including Pantone Matching System (PMS) and Pantone Goe, which provides more color variations than PMS.

To create a palette, move your finger along the colors until you find the swatches you want to use. Clicking on any swatch displays its colors in a more detailed view. You can then drag any color down to the palette well below to store it.

From the fan deck, tapping on a specific color displays its values in Pantone, RGB, HTML (hex), and L*a*b (a color scale that plots values for luminance, red-green, and blue-yellow). From the palette well, tapping on a color brings up additional buttons, including a window that displays a cross-reference of harmonious colors.

You can also create a palette from a photograph. Load any photo stored on your iPhone, and the app will grab its dominant colors and automatically save them to the palette well. You can even move your finger around the photo to select a specific color shade.

Once your palette is created, you can view your colors against a different background rather than just in the palette well. This shows you how the colors might play against each other in an actual image or application.

You can save each color palette in formats compatible with popular graphic apps, including Adobe Creative Suite, QuarkExpress, or CorelDraw. You can also share your palettes by e-mail or by posting them to the MyPantone Web site.

Andy Hatkoff, Pantone's vice president of technology licensing, recently told me more about MyPantone.

Pantone thought it was important to move to a mobile environment because the company had noticed a shift in the way people work. "Designers, in particular, don't have to be or don't want to be at their desks or carry their laptops around them," said Hatkoff. "But they do take their phones everywhere, in particular their iPhones."

Pantone felt the iPhone was the right playing field for its first mobile app because, more than any other mobile device, graphic designers probably have iPhones.

MyPantone lets designers take their Pantone library with them. But it's not meant as a replacement for traditional color guides, more as a supplement. Hatkoff sees the app as playful and fun to use but with a serious side that renders it a useful tool.

"We wanted to let people use the Pantone language in a creative way, but still take advantage of a lot that the iPhone has to offer with a playful and touchable user interface," said Hatkoff.

MyPantone isn't the first color palette app for the iPhone. Color Expert from Code Line ($9.99), Palettes ($9.99) by Rick Maddy, and Color Stream ($2.99) from Sahil Lavingia serve up similar features.

The iTunes App store also offers color picker applications, more for homeowners and hobbyists, than for graphic artists. Free apps such as ColorSnap from Sherwin-Williams and Ben Color Capture from Benjamin Moore fit into this group.

But Hatkoff pointed out that most apps don't support Pantone colors (Color Expert was the only one of the bunch), and that MyPantone is the only one that can display harmonious colors.

MyPantone does have two significant limitations. It doesn't offer CMYK conversion data, disappointing to people who need to bounce between RGB and CMYK. But Pantone said it's received requests from many users for CMYK data, and that it's considering this and other features for the next update.

Also, because it's on an iPhone, you can't calibrate colors or adjust for ambient light as you can on a monitor. So the app can't offer the precise colors that a print swatch or a calibrated monitor would provide.

As a result, Hatkoff explained, MyPantone is not intended to be a color-correct environment, but more of an inspirational or directional use of color. For accuracy, designers would still need to rely on the traditional Pantone guide or a calibrated monitor.

I asked Hatkoff if color calibration and ambient light adjustment would even be possible on an iPhone? "I'm not going to say it would be impossible (to calibrate an iPhone), but it's something we are certainly investigating," he said. "We don't know the feasibility at this point. It certainly would address some interesting questions, although I don't know if iPhone users would want to calibrate their iPhones."

Correction 11:35 a.m. PDT: This story initially gave an incorrect title for Andy Hatkoff. He is vice president of technology licensing.

Apple now has the support of a USB industry standards group in its battle to keep the Palm Pre from using the iTunes music service.

The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) said in a statement Tuesday that Apple can block the Pre from connecting to iTunes. The group issued a letter to both companies warning Palm that further attempts to use iTunes would violate the group's policy.

The voice of the USB-IF is strong in this case since the group is responsible for issuing Apple the hardware vendor ID that lets its devices connect to iTunes via USB. Palm has used this process to its advantage by simulating the same ID for the Palm Pre, tricking iTunes into thinking the Pre is an Apple device.

That scheme worked until the recent release of iTunes 9, which broke the Pre's access, prompting Palm to complain to the USB-IF that the vendor ID blocks competitors.

But the group supported Apple's stance and cautioned Palm by letter that any further attempts to use the code would be a violation of its rules.

In its initial complaint, Palm told the USB-IF that the latest update of its WebOS would restore iTunes functionality to the Pre. In response, the USB-IF quoted policy and reminded Palm that it may use only its own issued vendor IDs, not those of any other company. The group asked Palm to clarify its intentions within seven days.

Palm and Apple were not immediately available for comment.

Even before the Palm Pre was released in June, people discovered that the device could connect to iTunes. Since then, Palm and Apple have fought a tug-of-war over iTunes access. Apple has issued various iTunes updates to block non-Apple devices, triggering Palm to find a way past them. Despite not-so-subtle warnings from Apple, Palm has remained persistent.

If you were hoping for Apple to announce a subscription-based music service for the iPhone and the iPod Touch on Wednesday like I was, suppress your disappointment: early this morning, Apple approved Rhapsody for iPhone, and it's available in the iTunes Store.

It's the second such service Apple has approved, but the first, Spotify, is not available in the United States. (The Rhapsody application is not showing up in search results quite yet, but it is showing up within iTunes.)

(Credit: Rhapsody)

Rhapsody was a pioneer in subscription-based music, and I'm a big fan of the service; in 2005, it was the first one to turn me on to the thrill of chasing your whims and surfing randomly among genres, which you can't do with per-download services like iTunes.

In my most recent trial late last year (in conjunction with the Sonos multiroom audio system), I wasn't able to find any significant gaps--if anything, there was too much music, including more versions of the novelty song "Kung Fu Fighting" than I ever imagined--and there is some excellent curation and editorial work, particularly for indie rock artists.

The iPhone app is pretty straightforward: you can search for songs, surf genres and chart-toppers, and create queues and playlists. If you're a fan of Pandora, you'll also appreciate the Rhapsody Radio feature, which creates tailor-made stations built around particular artists or genres. As long as you have an active Wi-Fi or 3G connection, the music should keep playing without interruption.

It's a free download, but to use it, you'll need a Rhapsody to Go subscription, which costs $14.99 a month. That's not quite as good a deal as Microsoft's Zune Pass, which costs the same and gives you 10 permanent MP3 downloads a month, but of course that service requires a Zune, which means that it applies only to about 1.1 percent of the MP3 player market (according to a statistic that Apple snarkily included in its presentation Wednesday) and exactly zero mobile phones.

Apple appears to have seen the light, as it is now allowing subscription-based music to come to the iPhone. It makes my phone's 8GB storage size seem a lot less limiting.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

This post has been updated. See details below.

I was excited to try out the new Home Sharing feature in iTunes 9. The feature isn't as new as some reports suggest--it's been possible to share iTunes libraries among computers in a home network for years now, but the experience was pretty limited.

You couldn't play DRM-protected songs in a shared library, couldn't create playlists from a shared library, and most importantly, couldn't physically transfer songs from a library on one computer to a library on another. Home Sharing promises to change all this, so I gleefully updated iTunes on my Windows XP PC and my MacBook (which my wife has adopted), and enabled Home Sharing on both.

For a brief shining moment, my Mac (which is almost music-free) was able to see the 3,500 songs stored in iTunes on my PC. The transfer button was just sitting there, waiting for me to start moving as much of my music as I wanted over to my Mac.

Now you see it...

But instead of moving ahead, I had to mess around. Long story short, my wife and I have separate user accounts on the PC. There are some songs by some artists (like Journey) that are in my wife's iTunes library on the PC but which I've made sure never show up in mine (I can't stand Journey). So I decided to try to share her library with the Mac.

I closed iTunes on the PC, logged off, logged onto my wife's user account, opened iTunes, and tried to set up Home Sharing. It let me authorize with iTunes--which is necessary for turning Home Sharing on--but as soon as I authorized, the Home Sharing icon in the left-hand column disappeared.

OK. So I logged off my wife's account, logged back on to the PC as myself, and went back to my iTunes library. Now I couldn't see Home Sharing at all. I used the Advanced menu item to turn Home Sharing off and back on--no luck. I went to the Mac and turned it off and back on--no luck, and that made Home Sharing disappear on that copy of iTunes as well! I rebooted both machines multiple times--no luck.

Now every single time I want to turn Home Sharing on, it lets me authorize, then as soon as I hit the "Done" button, the Home Sharing icon disappears. My guess is that it has something to do with trying to authorize two libraries on the same PC with the same iTunes account, but there's no online support for iTunes 9 yet, so I can't tell. (And before you ask, yes, I have both the "Share my local library on the network" and "Look for shared libraries" boxes checked on iTunes on both computers.)

Now you don't.

Lesson: if it's working, don't touch it! Transfer that library, and get the heck out. And if anybody else has had this bug and knows how to fix it, please let me know in comments below.

Update, September 11: I turned on my Mac and PC this morning, started up iTunes, and the Sharing folder and Matt Rosoff's Library icon appeared on both. I haven't changed any settings in iTunes or in my firewall software. I'm not sure what happened, but my advice to those of you who are seeing this apparent bug--and judging from the comment stream, it's not uncommon--is to shut everything down, start up again, and make sure that iTunes is open on both computers.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

Our cameras were rolling Wednesday morning at Apple's San Francisco press conference as the company played up iTunes 9, iPod price cuts, games for the Touch, a video camera for the iPod Nano, and much more.

But the real spotlight was on Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who made his first public appearance since returning from medical leave after receiving a liver transplant earlier this year.

Here's a roundup of our video coverage, beginning with Jobs' standing ovation and opening speech.

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

One of Apple's smaller announcements at Wednesday's music-focused event was that you'll be able to share your deepest iTunes hopes and dreams through Facebook and Twitter.

Well, more specifically, you'll have "Share on Facebook" and "Share on Twitter" options in a drop-down menu on album purchase pages in the iTunes Store to broadcast which music in which you're interested.

Basically, this means that you can show off your music taste or attempt to convince friends to buy albums for you. The links in Twitter tweets and Facebook posts will likely go straight to the option to purchase the album, potentially driving up sales.

An example of what you can get when you 'Share on Twitter.'

(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)

This is a pretty standard practice likely accomplished through implementation of the social sites' APIs rather than a formal partnership--the latter of which was probably required when Apple brought Facebook Connect to the iPhoto desktop software.

The more interesting part? It looks like this officially proves that an extremely dubious set of screenshots that hit the Web last month--showing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and social-music site Last.fm integrated directly into the iTunes app--are indeed fake.

Disclosure: Last.fm is owned by CBS Interactive, which publishes CNET News.

Promotional page for iTunes LP, which appeared in the iTunes Music Store on Wednesday.

(Credit: Screenshot by Matt Rosoff/CNET)

I'm following Apple's "It's Only Rock and Roll" event along with the CNET staff, but even before the event started, I saw that Apple has revealed its new LP format for iTunes.

It's called iTunes LP, and you can access it by clicking the top item on the "More to Explore" box in the left side of the iTunes Store front page. The new format includes more album art, lyrics, writing about the record, video (such as interviews with band members), and perhaps additional songs.

There are only a handful of albums available in the format right now (see screenshot for the six that are advertised on the iTunes LP page), but I'm sure that more are coming.

So far, I haven't been able to download the iTunes 9 software, but it's available in earlier versions as well.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

Apple wrapped the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts with its trademark iPod look Tuesday in preparation for Wednesday's music-related event at the San Francisco venue.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

After a long summer of swirling rumors, Apple's now-annual September music event is finally just around the corner.

It's happening Wednesday at 10 a.m. here in San Francisco, and CNET will have full, live-blogging coverage for you. I will be joined by CNET Reviews' Donald Bell, who will be offering his own commentary on all the music-related product announcements. What exactly that will be isn't a complete mystery, but Apple could have a few interesting surprises for us.

It looks like we won't be seeing a touch-screen tablet at this event, but there's plenty left to speculate about. The event, as per the invitation above, is obviously about iPods. Our money is on an updated iPod Touch with a camera, and ready-made ringtones. Plus, we've also heard that the new interactive album format--referred to as "Cocktail"--will also get a lot of play.

But what else? Some are saying there could be cameras in the iPod Nano as well, and even an update to the seemingly forgotten Apple TV. Then there's CEO Steve Jobs. Will he or won't he make an appearance? If he doesn't, the buzz about why he wasn't on hand, when he's been officially back at work since July, could threaten to get louder than whatever his stand-in does end up announcing.

We'll be there to chronicle it all, of course, so be sure to come back to CNET News Wednesday at 10 a.m. PDT.