tuning

In the world of "so bad, it's good," this may well qualify as bad. Or good.

It's Domino's Pizza selling a new iTunes app in Japan. Because if there's one thing pizza needs, it's an iPhone app.

Domino's wants you to know that no expense was spared in the creation of this app. So it wasn't going to sink to using Brad Pitt, Jack Nicholson, or Leonardo DiCaprio to sell it.

No, it was going to employ that versatile performer Scott Oellkers. Should you have been unaccountably held up in North Korea playing basketball, Oellkers is the president of Domino's Japan.… Read more

Want to sell that movie you bought on iTunes but never watch? You may be able to one day if a new Apple patent filing ever comes to life.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and filed last June, an Apple patent application named "Managing Access To Digital Content Items" conjures up a system for legally selling or loaning iTunes items to another person.

The method involves transferring digital access rights from the original owner to someone else. Once those rights are transferred, the new owner would gain access to the content while the … Read more

This post is really just an excuse to tell you again about Skip Tunes, an app I covered last year and have used pretty much every day since. If you are a Mac user and a frequent user of iTunes, Spotify, or Rdio, you need this app. It places a small icon in your menu bar, providing quick and easy access track information and play controls.

I finally got around to updating Skip Tunes this week (unbeknownst to me, the update was released months ago) and discovered that the play/pause and fast forward buttons disappeared from the menu bar. … Read more

Japan is the newest country to get Apple's iBookstore. The tech giant announced today that it is rolling out a diverse array of books for Japanese readers in its iTunes bookstore.

"We're excited to launch the iBookstore in Japan with a wide selection of Japanese publishers and authors," Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue said in a statement today. "We think customers are going to love how engaging and interactive the books are to read, and how beautiful they look on iPad."

The books range from novels to … Read more

Slacker Radio (free) This is a great option for listening to streaming radio, with an intuitive interface that makes it easy to find what you want quickly. To use Slacker you must sign up for an account or log in with your Facebook credentials.

You can search for artists using a field at the top; check out the Music Guide curated by Slacker; or search by genres, stations you've previously listened to, specialty stations, or news, talk, and sports stations. Each selection on the first screen leads to another list where you can swipe to browse selections to find … Read more

This is an update of a deal I wrote about last year. Hopefully it won't sell out as quickly this time!

Looking to add a decent sound system to your laptop, or even an HDTV? When you're doing an end run around tiny, tinny built-in speakers, there's nowhere to go but up.

Today only, and while supplies last, Overrunz.com has the refurbished Logitech Z313 2.1-channel speaker system for $24.99, plus $5 for shipping. It sells elsewhere for at least $40, and new for $50.

This 25-watt system includes two satellite speakers and a subwoofer. … Read more

Commercial MP3s and other digital music files provide a wealth of information about the songs in addition to the audio-playback itself. This metadata makes it easy to display the track name, artist, album, and other facts about the songs in your playback device or program.

When you use an application such as the free Audacity audio-editing utility to convert music from LPs, cassettes, or another analog source, the only metadata accompanying the tracks is whatever information you provide when you create the digital file. There's the rub.

In July 2011 I described how to use Audacity to convert LPs and audio cassettes to digital. … Read more

That old college try seems to be working. Content downloads from iTunes U have surpassed 1 billion.

Apple today announced the passing of the milestone for the repository of free educational content from schools, libraries, museums, and other sources. iTunes U hosts more than 2,500 public and thousands of private courses from over 1,200 universities and colleges, and 1,200 K-12 schools and districts.

"There are now iTunes U courses with more than 250,000 students enrolled in them, which is a phenomenal shift in the way we teach and learn," Eddy Cue, Apple's senior … Read more