Webware

If you're a frequent iTunes user, you're probably looking for some helpful tools that will allow you to get more out of the software. If so, you might want to check out Yahoo Widgets. They're simple, fast applications that run on your desktop to provide a little more functionality than you'll find in iTunes itself.

To save you from doing all the footwork yourself, I've compiled a list of some really neat Yahoo widgets that extend the functionality of iTunes. Let's check them out.

Music time

iPhones: If you're wondering what the top songs are on iTunes at any time, iPhones is for you.

iPhones is designed like an iPhone. It displays the top 10 albums and songs, as well as new releases, featured content, and more. When you click on one of those options, you'll be brought to the song's individual listing page in iTunes. There's not much more to the app than that.

iPhones shows off all the top content on iTunes.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

iTunes Alarm Clock: If you want to personalize alarms and reminders with your favorite songs, try out the iTunes Alarm Clock widget.

iTunes Alarm Clock is what you might expect: an alarm clock that uses your music to wake you up or alert you to an event. In the app's preferences, you can set the alarm, choose any song you want from your catalog, and have it play at a specified volume. It's an extremely simple app, but I found it useful.

iTunes Alarm Clock is what you might expect.

(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

(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.

The Downward Spiral, the Nine Inch Nails album that caused Trent Reznor's big rant against Apple.

Well, Apple has finally approved an update to the official iPhone app for industrial-rock band Nine Inch Nails, after previously rejecting it due to objectionable content pertaining to the band's 1994 album "The Downward Spiral." No changes were made from the rejected version

Maybe Apple relented just to shut up NIN frontman Trent Reznor, whose bloggy rant against Apple was pretty much the equivalent of trashing Steve Jobs' hotel room. Not only did he tell Apple to "think your policies through and for f***'s sake get your app approval scenario together," good heavens, he compared Apple to Wal-Mart!

But he had a point. Apple's commitment to standards of decency in the App Store has been schizophrenic at best: it yanked the otherwise harmless "I Am Rich," a moderately hilarious ploy at making well-moneyed doofuses cough up $1,000, but approved the disturbing "Baby Shaker" until a flurry of press saw it taken down. Don't even get me started on fart apps.

But fans of Reznor rage needn't worry. The rocker has plenty of other beefs with the evolving digital music industry, particularly when it comes to experimental online retail. And he's got that five-word Webby Awards speech to look forward to. Let's hope he chooses his words well.

Apple Insider has spotted a a newly released patent filed by Apple back in late 2007 that shows volume controls that can be integrated into various Web browsers. Described as a way to control "audio signals which may or may not be welcomed by the user" the patent depicts a new panel that sits in the top, right-hand corner of a user's browser and allows per-site controls over incoming audio signals. There's also a mute button that can cut out just the sounds from the browser entirely while leaving sound from other desktop applications untouched.

According to the patent, the key goal is to add a volume control overlay over sites that do not provide it, as well as a system that will remember the user's preferences between browsing sessions. This would be useful in Flash-heavy sites where the controls may be hidden away, or entirely absent. It would also let users create custom sound profiles, so you could have YouTube videos on your computer at work always start out at a low volume level, or your Internet alarm clock site always play at 100 percent.

The patent also describes situations where users can create specific rules that will change how audio can be played back based on whatever other applications are running. So you could theoretically set it to mute all your browser audio only when you're listening to music in iTunes, or using an audio-centric application like Skype, then bring the sound back as soon as you're not getting audio output from those applications. Apple has done something similar on the iPhone by interrupting music when you're getting a phone call, or slightly lowering the volume on notification sounds when you're using other apps.

What makes this patent filing notable is that it's not just for Safari, and is listed as being applicable to multiple browsers, which means it could either be a part of an upcoming OS or as a standalone application. As the usual disclaimer goes though, patents are often filed for technologies that never make it to market.

I've embedded the entire patent after the page break. (Thanks to Patents.com and Scribd for that.)

Update: Several readers have pointed out that Windows Vista has had a similar feature since its release called Volume Mixer that lets you pick out the maximum volume level for each application. However it's worth noting that in Apple's proposed implementation, the user would be able to control it on a per-site basis.

The browser audio controls would sit in the corner of the browser, and allow users to mute sound from sites they're visiting.

(Credit: Apple/CNET)

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that a dedicated Hulu application is indeed on its way to the iPhone and should be here in just a few months.

SAI says the application will work over Wi-Fi and AT&T's 3G network, meaning that users will be able to view programming anywhere with a fast data connection.

Rumors suggesting that an iPhone-friendly version of Hulu swirled around this time last year, however, they predated the launch of the App Store, and Hulu flat-out denied that one was being worked on.

This time around, though, it's far more plausible, with the upcoming iPhone OS 3.0 software update, which lets developers bake streaming media into their applications. For Hulu, this means that the advertising could be stuck into the mobile stream and that users would be able to watch videos without leaving the application.

One of the things that keep this rumor from holding water is that Hulu is in direct competition with Apple's iTunes business. Users of Hulu can watch ad-supported, full-length television shows and movies on their personal computers for free, instead of paying Apple to download a copy for offline viewing.

If such an app were available on the iPhone, it would also offer portable TV and movie watching, something not yet offered in Apple's own mobile iTunes app, which is limited to video podcasts. In past instances of this, the company has simply denied applications such as Podcaster from making it through the app approval process, only to launch it as a first party feature later on.

On the other hand, some of Hulu's competitors have already gotten a foot in the door, including Joost and CBS-owned TV.com, which has its own iPhone application that streams in content in chunks. In addition, Google's YouTube, whose application comes preinstalled on the iPhone, has recently reached an agreement with major studios, including Sony Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS (publisher of CNET News), to offer visitors full-length TV shows and feature films.

If Hulu can't manage to pull off getting advertisements in the stream, using this system, it would be fairly simple to force users to sit through advertisements between clips.

(Credit: Apple)

As an iPhone user, one of the things I've found to be increasingly irksome is the customer review system built into Apple's App Store for the iPhones and iPod Touch.

It's as basic as you get, which follows the design ethos found in the many of Apple's hardware products, such as the no-button Mighty Mouse, disappearing MacBook buttons, and I/O ports on its notebook computers and LCD displays.

While simplicity is one of the qualities that makes Apple's products more approachable for the basic user, it's something that doesn't translate well to a crowd-powered review system.

In its current state, the review system lets you very easily rate a software application from one to five stars, along with the option to write in any thoughts or feelings you have about it. This sounds great, in theory, but a good majority of the reviews found on App Store applications seem to prove otherwise.

More often than not, you'll see one-star reviews in which people are raving about the quality of an application. There are also people who give an application five stars, then go on to spend two paragraphs discussing how often it crashes and larger off-topic issues like international pricing and the handset's lack of a copy-and-paste feature. You also get a lot of comments written in ALL CAPS, with lines of Emoji icons, colored stars, and superfluous exclamation marks.

Some sample reviews taken from Tower Bloxx Deluxe 3D FREE, currently the top free title on the App Store.

(Credit: Screenshot by Josh Lowensohn/CNET)

In every sense, it's like the Wild West: untamed and full of interesting characters.

To Apple's credit, on Friday, the company (as promised) removed reviews from customers who had not purchased the application they were reviewing. This may cut down on spam and ill-conceived or written reviews, but it's not a big step in improving how the review system works.

Problematic by design
The problem stems from the fact that Apple has treated software reviews with the same level of simplicity it's approached movie and music reviews. These two mediums are not interactive, nor do they have hangups like development schedules and performance issues.

While you can rate an album or music track based on your enjoyment of it, it's not speaking to a truth about frame rate jitters, buggy code, or a developer who has not put out a necessary update in six months--all things you may find in iPhone applications and that can be good to know before plunking down money on a purchase.

One reason there's a lack of these types of clarifications in user reviews is that Apple has fragmented its reviews system based on platform. Mobile users don't get the same quality of review browsing as those using iTunes do. For instance, when viewing user reviews in iTunes, you get the option to flag a bad review and say whether it was helpful. You can also sort by best and worst reviews, along with the most helpful and recent.

On the iPhone, users have none of these options. In fact, there's currently only one way to view reviews--in chronological order. For a device that's slowly gaining independence from having to sync up with a computer (as seen in recent improvements to podcast downloading on the device), this is troubling.

A better system
There are a three things Apple could do, explicitly to software application reviews, that would beef up the system and make reviews really matter to the potential customers who read them. All three can be found on Amazon.com, which has done a really fantastic job of creating a single ratings system that works on multiple genres of products:

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

Interscope Geffen A&M, a division of Universal Music Group, announced Monday that it has released iPhone and iPod Touch applications centered on some of the label's most prominent artists, including The All American Rejects, Soulja Boy, The Pussycat Dolls, Lady Gaga, and Keri Hilson. The applications are built off a new iPhone framework from mobile developer, Kyte.

Each artist-specific app will feature video content produced by the individual singer, along with custom branding, an RSS reader that will be updated with artist news, and a built-in chat feature that allows users to talk to each other and rate some of the artist's latest concerts.

But perhaps the most important aspect of the announcement is how Interscope hopes to monetize the apps. Instead of charging for them, the free applications will include ads and links to purchase the artist's merchandise or their songs on iTunes.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET Networks)

Interscope is just the first partner of what Kyte's executives hope will be many. The company's iPhone Applications Framework is specifically designed for media companies and not just record labels. Once those companies license the platform, they can use it to create live, on-demand video and picture content, broadcast that content to online and mobile destinations simultaneously, and use the framework's chat feature to let users communicate with others.

Interscope's apps are free, but Kyte's senior communications manager, Ulysses King, said its future partners won't necessarily follow suit. In fact, its up to those partners to decide how they would like to monetize the app, meaning that some might sell it for a fee.

Interscope's five apps are available now in the iTunes App Store.

Procrastinators, rejoice! You can print a great gift in minutes.

(Credit: Amazon)

Need a last-minute gift for an office party, your trusty mail carrier, a beloved blogger, or anyone else on your list? As long as you have a printer, you can churn out something special in a matter of minutes. Here's a list of four stores that let you print your own gift certificates for in-person giving:

• Amazon.com On any Amazon page, click the Gift Cards link, then choose Print at Home. The minimum amount is $5, but you're not limited to increments: Your certificate can be in the amount of $10.57, if you want.
• Gifts.com The recipient of a Gifts.com certificate can redeem it at one or more of a hundred-plus stores and restaurants, including Barnes & Noble, Pottery Barn, and Starbucks.
• iTunes Obviously, you can grab an iTunes gift card in just about any store on the planet, but did you know you can print your own? Just fire up iTunes, click Buy iTunes Gifts, and then choose Printable Gift Certificates. Amounts range from $10 to $200.
• Restaurant.com Once again, Restaurant.com is offering $25 gift certificates for just $2 (with coupon code HOLIDAY). Not familiar with the site? Get the details from my previous post.

We last took a look at the iTunes plug-in The Filter way back in 2006, so it's high time to see what this alternative to the Genius playlist is up to. Of course, when it first came out there was no Genius playlist, nor a Mac version--now that there's both, does it hold up?

Certainly the most obvious benefit is that although you do need to register to use the playlist, you don't need to hand over your credit card number to this Peter Gabriel-supported plug-in. These days many people probably don't care, but to me this is a strong vote in The Filter's favor.

Paranoia aside, The Filter seems to have made some serious, quality improvements. It still uses Bayesian mathematics algorithms and evidence models to make its suggestions, and it still takes what feels like forever and a day to scan large collections. That's not an improvement, of course, but it no longer lives on top of all other windows, either.

Instead, its icon lives on the Quick Launch bar. Right-clicking accesses a context menu, and from there users can jump to Preferences, thefilter.com, or change the default playlist generation from being based on the song to the genre. Double-click on the icon and it automatically generates a playlist, as long as a track is currently playing. Aside from scanning your collection I found The Filter to be reasonably responsive, if not zippy.

The Taste Profiler is a mandatory aspect of using The Filter. Before it can recommend playlists, and before you even finish installing it, The Filter requires that you rate at least three musicians and movies. In addition to music and movies, you can also rate TV shows and Web-only video.

The overall experience is slower than using Apple's Genius playlist, probably in no small part because it's a plug-in. However, The Filter now works with Windows Media Player and Winamp, although not MediaMonkey, on the PC, so non-iTunes lovers will probably be willing to suffer through the one- or two-second delay in getting their playlist kicked back to them. Rolling in all kinds of videos make this even more useful to today's mediascape.