Most Apple users agree that iTunes needs a makeover. But one part of the iTunes Store more than all the rest fails to live up to Apple’s “simple & intuitive” credo: the App Store. Here are 10 things about the App Store that just drive me bonkers.

1. The App Store doesn’t belong in iTunes.

Apple first picked that moniker when they launched their digital music store a decade ago. Since then, the iTunes Store has grown to encompass movies, TV shows, books, and yes, apps. So why is it still called “iTunes”? Better yet, why isn’t the App Store a store unto itself? We have a solo Mac App Store. Why not a Mobile App Store?

2. The iTunes Store user interface works well enough for music, but for apps it sucks.

Its sloppy product pages fly in the face of every design principle Apple usually exemplifies. Perfect example: iTunes does a terrible job of making it clear what minimum hardware specs are needed to run its apps. The fine print where these specs are displayed is so microscopic that most app developers have to put things like, “WORKS WITH IPAD 2 ONLY!!” in all-caps so that iPad 1 owners don’t make the mistake of buying something they can’t run. Which means that lots of older-gen iDevice owners have bought those apps by mistake.

The problem is that the App pages are simply too busy. Where’s the elegance, the simplicity that Apple usually does so well? It’s not that the information iTunes provides about apps is all that bad (though it could use some serious refinement). The problem is that it’s presented in a counter-intuitive design. (It’s not as bad as the likes of Amazon’s product pages, which are so bloated with information they’ve been known to cause spontaneous brain explosions.) It’s hard to believe the exacting Steve Jobs ever signed off on this design template. It may have looked okay in the beginning, but one size does not fit all.

3. The App Store’s design makes it hard to discover the best apps.

For every great app, there are five terrible ones. But that still leaves thousands of quality apps that rarely see the light of day. Only the apps that Apple chooses to highlight on iTunes’ front page or one of the category pages stand a real chance of making it big. But those front pages can only display so much, so loads of the good stuff gets lost among the noise. There has to be a better way of separating the wheat from the chaff. Which brings up a huge gripe…

4. iTunes search is the worst possible way of discovering apps, when it should be the best and most powerful way.

This is such a huge issue, I don’t know where to begin… Let’s start with the filtering options. Or rather, the utter lack of them. You can’t filter search results by user ratings, by language, or even by device versions (i.e., iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, etc.). These would all be extremely useful, but the only filters we get — and you have to hunt for the “Power Search” option to access them — are “Title/Keyword,” “Developer Name,” “Category,” and “Device Compatibility” (which limits its queries to the very generic “iPad,” “iPhone,” and “iPod Touch”). These are redundant since Apple already provides pages that list apps by developer name, category, device, etc.

Search is also painfully lacking in anything resembling finesse. Searching from a specific part of iTunes — like the App Store, for example — does not give priority to search results from that section. Example: Navigate to the App Store, and search for something. I have two kids, so I’ll search for “spelling” for apps to help them learn. The search results I get show music first (I assume because music is still iTunes’ biggest selling item), and then the app results. And then all the other stuff — books, audio books, podcasts, TV shows, and so on. Why not just show me the results I was looking for, from the part of the store I was already in?

It also doesn’t tell you know how many apps your search has turned up. Nor does it tell you how many pages results there are; it just starts on page 1 and lets you move forward into the great unknown. And then there are the results themselves, presented as huge grids of icons. Beside the icons you get a minimum of information: the app’s name, its category, the date it was released or last updated, and its price. In other words, you learn absolutely nothing about what an app does, how it functions, what it looks like, or if it in any way will suit your needs. You’re left with the worst sort of “judging a book by its cover” imagineable, because you have to judge an app based on nothing but a 75px by 75px icon.

These aren’t proper search results — not even close. Apple, we expect better from you.

5. The App Store has a terrible time remembering your preferences.

Say you look at “All Finance iPad Apps.” In the top right corner, you can see that the default method of sorting is by “Release Date,” but you can change this to sort the apps alphabetically by name. Once you change the sorting order, click on any app on the list to go to that app’s page. When you click the “back” button (top left corner), you go back to the Finance apps list, but it’s reverted to the default “Release Date” order. Why should I bother sorting my search results if iTunes can’t remember how I want them sorted?

This becomes extra tedious when you move past the first page of search results, because clicking the “back” button from an app always takes you back to the first page. It’s not just bothersome, it’s downright stupid.

6. Developers aren’t required to put their apps in the right Store categories. Not really.

Oh, I’m sure Apple has some heavy-handed guidelines about how apps are expected to be submitted to the category where they truly belong. They probably even list some terrible consequences of sending your apps to the wrong categories. And maybe there are loads of cases that we never find out about, where Apple catches the really blatant policy violators.

But you wouldn’t believe how many apps I see popping up in the wrong categories. There are loads of Games that are wrongly categorized as Entertainment apps, for example. And that’s just one example. Already, it’s incredibly hard to find the best apps, and now we can’t even trust one of the more powerful filters (categories) to always be accurate. Regardless of whether developers do it by mistake or with some malicious intent… I can’t imagine why Apple lets them get away with it. And speaking of what Apple does and does not approve…

7. Apple’s review and approval procedures are so subjective, they’re all but useless.

Supposedly, a team of Apple workers review all app submissions for quality control, but often their approvals and rejections are awfully arbitrary, with more heavy-handed, entirely subjective control, and not nearly enough concern about quality. How many times have you heard of a really useful app being rejected by Apple (or approved and then quickly yanked a few hours later), while piles of mindless drivel (stuff made based on popular trends, intentionally made to take advantage of consumers who aren’t savvy enough to know a scam when they see one) are allowed into the Store on a daily basis?

The approval procedures need a major overhaul, one based on objectivity and quality. You’ve probably heard the infamous story of how not so long ago, Apple revised their guidelines to tell devs that “we don’t need anymore fart apps.” So why are they okay with never-ending Angry Birds clones?

8. Multitouch gestures confuse iTunes.

The iTunes software seems to be built partially on Safari technology, because when Safari was given multitouch gestures with the advent of OS X Lion, iTunes got them too. Sounds okay in theory, but it’s horrible in practice. Swiping to go back a page or forward a page is fine I guess; the problem is that there’s another use in the App Store for horizontal swiping: viewing screenshots.

Say you’re on an app’s page, checking out the details, and you scroll down to the screenshots. You’ve always been able to two-finger-swipe left and right to scroll through screenshots. So why does Apple allow “forward” and “backward” to be mapped to those exact same gestures? iTunes can’t tell the difference between a swipe to scroll through screenshots and a “back” or “forward” navigation swipe, and trying to do one and getting the result of the other is just maddening.

9. Curated content is only updated once a week.

This may seem like a little thing to you, but spending as much time as I do looking through apps (it comes with the job), I find it incredible that Apple only changes its selection of highlighted apps once a week. Modern Internet users are accustomed to visiting blogs, news agencies, ezines, and even plain old webpages that are constantly in flux. We expect to find new content every single time we visit a website. If I visit a website twice in two days and find that it hasn’t been updated with anything new, I don’t have much reason to keep coming back.

Apple, on the other hand, is content to change the front page of the App Store weekly. That’s one time every seven days (it usually happens around 4:pm EST on Thursday, fyi). App Store metrics (tracked independently of Apple based on app’s published release dates) tell us that on average, about 500 new apps are added to the App Store every single day. Five. Hundred. Even if only 10% of those apps are worthy of consumers’ attention, that’s 50 new apps a day — 350 a week — competing for our attention among Apple’s “New and Noteworthy” front page list. On the main front page, Apple usually selects between 20 and 40 apps to highlight once a week, and at least half of them aren’t even new! They’re “recently updated” or leftover new apps that were listed before the current week.

The numbers don’t lie. We’re missing out on finding out about a ton of the latest and greatest apps. And surely Apple, with all its money and resources, could easily do something about this. An easy and obvious fix would be for Apple to update its curated lists daily instead of weekly. Personally, I’d love to see iTunes’ front and hub pages switched to something more akin to a blog format, where great new apps are highlighted on the App Store’s front page by Apple staff members as soon as those apps are released — not just daily, but up-to-the-minute.

10. The iTunes web interface isn’t made for browsing.

If you’ve made it this far, you know that most of my issues with the App Store boil down to an inability to easily find high quality new apps. And this is entirely the fault of the limitations of the iTunes software. A web interface for iTunes is one area that could easily compensate for this, since it could take advantage of all of HTML5 goodies like CSS, JavaScript, cookies, Ajax, and so on. On the web, Apple could offer users a significantly better experience, with stuff like: a more powerful search engine, better search filters, stored user preferences, more elegant app details & specs, and probably lots of other stuff I can’t even think of.

Right now, iTunes’ web interface is limited to individual product pages. Nothing else. No home page, no search, no category lists or lists of any kind, and no navigation from app to app. Click on any link on an iTunes product web page and it forces open your copy of the iTunes software itself.

Yet another area where iTunes either drops the ball — or is intentionally ignoring it.

What do you hate about the App Store? Share your gripes in the comments area below.

The new features show up in movies such as “The Other Guys”, “Salt” and “Resident Evil: Afterlife.” The features setting them apart from DVDs? Being able to search the movie’s script for that amazing and memorable quote, selecting and sharing clips on social sites and being able to buy the movie’s score on iTunes.

This is great news for movie lovers and more importantly those hoping for a quicker death to the physical format. Digital downloads are set to overtake DVDs and will compete toe to toe with Blu-Ray. Whether Apple will beat physical media with movie downloads is something only time will tell.

Apple has owned itun.es since 2006 which has been speculated to be used as an eventual URL shortening service. The new shortener is being used with Ping when users Tweet which song they liked or bought.

Apple added new features to iTunes — playlist creation and sharing — to enhance the social sharing aspect of Ping.

The new features were added quietly and are part of Apple’s interest in making Ping more social. Anyone part of the social network can import their playlists from iTunes and share it with their friends. Ping also supports playlist creation which remain editable once published. Users can choose if their friends can add songs to their published playlists.

While Ping has gained new features, some think it’s failing in terms of user adoption. Apple’s inability to strike a deal with Facebook that would have integrated Ping in to the social network essentially knee-capped its potential. Apple has since moved to Twitter to extend the social functionality of Ping but fails to capture interaction with users.

A new feature is rolling out in iTunes tonight: 90 second previews for songs. The extended previews are only available on songs longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds — anything shorter and only 30 second previews will be available.

Will the extended previews make it easier for you to buy music from the iTunes store?

According to TUAW the song “Much Too Soon” will be streamed for free until next Thursday.

“Much Too Soon” was written at the time of Thriller. Michael always liked the song but never found the right home for it; here it finds its place as the bittersweet closing to the stellar collection.

This could be a last ditch effort by Apple to attract more interest in Ping which has steadily declined in popularity and was deemed a flop by Business Insider.

Since The Beatles’ debut on the iTunes Store a little over a week ago, the quartet has sold over 2 million songs and 450,000 album downloads. According to Billboard, The Beatle’s top-selling album on iTunes is their 1969 hit Abbey Road. A track from the same album, “Here Comes The Sun” is the band’s top-selling song.

iOS 4.2 was believed to arrive last week but a WiFi bug in the Gold Master release delayed its public release. Since then, Apple has fixed the issue and released a second GM build to developers. The newest build, technically 4.2.1, will arrive today according to a snippet from Apple’s press release that was sourced from Everything iCafe

“iOS 4.2 makes the iPad a completely new product, just in time for the holiday season. Once again, the iPad with iOS 4.2 will define the target that other tablets will aspire to, but very few, if any, will ever be able to hit.”

iOS 4.2 brings many highly anticipated features to the iPad such as multitasking so you can run more than one App at a time and switch between running Apps easily; folder support which allows for easier App organization; AirPlay and AirPrint which streams content to any supported device and prints documents respectively.

Apple didnt give an exact time for 4.2′s release, but keep checking iTunes periodically for an update. These are just a few of the many features in iOS 4.2 for iPad and e’ll be playing with the final version in the next few days. Expect to see a review shortly.

Update:

According to Macworld iOS 4.2 will arrive at 10 AM today.

The Beatle’s 13 studio albums are available for download from the iTunes Store at 99¢ to $1.29 per song. The band’s complete box set is available for download at $149.

The addition of The Beatles’ catalog to the iTunes store has been the center of much rumor and speculation as litigation delayed the quartet’s music from being released digitally by Apple. EMI, The Beatle’s label was scrutinized by Paul McCartney for their absence from the iTunes Store.

After a long and storied process, The Beatles are now on iTunes. While Apple’s big reveal isn’t iTunes in the cloud or the public release of iOS 4.2, The Beatles on iTunes is big enough.

Visiting Apple’s home page today reveals a teaser, in typical cryptic Cupertino fashion: “Tomorrow is just another day. That you’ll never forget.”

Rumors and speculation have fueled the notion that Apple will be moving iTunes to the cloud. A subscription service become a rumor when Apple purchased LaLa, a music streaming service and shut down the site to new users.

Apple’s announcement tomorrow regarding iTunes is cementing the thought that Apple is revamping Ping, launching iOS 4.2 for iPad and the addition of The Beatles’ catalog. While these seem logical, it doesn’t live up to the hype Apple is pushing for this announcement. Even more intriguing is the time: 7 PM PST. A typical Apple event doesn’t start so early, but then again, this might not be your typical announcement.

However, my thoughts line up with analyst Gene Munster’s. Apple has invested significantly towards building data centers located in North Carolina. Moving iTunes in to the cloud to stream content to an iDevice could supplement flash storage.

The argument could be made that while flash storage is small, slim and doesn’t drain batteries as quickly as hard drives do, they’re still costly and limited in capacity. Being able to access your library of music anywhere versus having to load content for it to be instantly accessible is powerful and would be a great way to bring new life to iTune’s current music distribution model. Apple did it with the AppleTV as costs plummeted when the device become nothing more than iOS powered gadget that streamed purchased content.

We’ll be covering Apple’s announcement tomorrow and giving our opinion on what mystery thing is announced. I’m personally hoping it’s iTunes move in to the cloud or else quite a few people will be disappointing.

The backend update allows iPad users to access the social network and connect with music fans or their favorite artists on the go. Ping for the iPad doesn’t differ from its desktop brother very much. You can view your stream of artists and people you follow, comment on and like posts and view your profile.

One of the cool features in Ping that I personally like and I think Apple could really develop further is concert listings for artists. You can view concert dates, local shows and buy tickets from Ticket Master through Ping.

Twitter integration is present in Ping but you can’t directly Tweet from the iTunes App; it automatically Tweets from your account when you like or comment something. You can add your Twitter account to Ping through iTunes on your Mac. While adding Twitter in to the Ping equation creates something fresh for the social music network, it’s only a bandage to heal the hemorrhage caused by Facebook’s inclination to be a part of Ping. Twitter updates are only useful to notify friends about what new song you bought but the experience falls short on its face.

ITunes fans have bemoaned Ping’s existence — it’s a watered down social network that’s lumped in to the ‘Facebook killer’ category. While I appreciate Apple’s interest in developing Ping, the network can’t stand on its own without integrating with Facebook. Even then, Ping will be buckled under Facebook as the former will be reliant on the other.

For people like me, CopyTrans is something that might be useful. It is software that makes it easy to transfer music from iPods/iPhones to the computer. I am sure that, at one point or another, you’ve found yourself looking for a program that will allow you to transfer the contents of your iPod to your computer. CopyTrans does just that – with a single click.

It actually has two modes – Smart Backup and Manual Backup. The former mode is that one that beginners will find helpful. One click and your iTunes library will contain whatever it is that is in your iPod. This will work perfectly if iTunes is empty or has missing tracks (that are in your iPod). And yes, you can say that this option is perfect for us who cannot afford to spend too much time figuring out which tracks to transfer. The Manual Backup mode, on the other hand, gives a lot more control to the user. In this mode, you can pick out tracks to transfer. You can even decide which details (of a track) to include in the transfer. If you’re in a finicky mood, then this mode will match that perfectly.

Even if your iTunes library is more organized than an accountant’s balance sheet, you might still find some use for this software. In the unfortunate event that you lose all your music in your hard drive, CopyTrans should come in handy.

You can check the software out for yourself at the CopyTrans web site. Oh, and yes, the latest version is compatible with iTunes 9 and iOS 4, but the suite doesn’t run on Mac.

What’s the big rumor today? Well the headline pretty much says it all, but let’s go to Bloomberg for the big report.

Apple Inc. is in advanced talks with News Corp. to let iTunes users rent TV shows for 99 cents and is in discussions with other media companies about similar deals, said three people familiar with the plan.

Viewers would be able to rent programs from News Corp.’s Fox for 48 hours, said the people, who declined to be identified because the discussions aren’t public. CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co. — where Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs is a board member and the largest shareholder — also are in talks about joining the effort, the people say.

The content deals would give Apple users access to some of the most-watched shows on TV and increase the appeal of its devices, including the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Adding programming also would build on iTunes’ role as the biggest retailer of music and mobile applications, and help Apple ward off companies like Netflix Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., which offer their own online video services.

The networks are in trouble right now, and I’m pretty sure that they know it. Although many of them view iTunes to be the devil, the problem really lies in the masses running away from cable to services such as Hulu and YouTube. It’s getting easier and easier to find content free today. By getting a piece of the rental market from iTunes, at least they’re getting something for their hard work. I know I’d like to see it happen.

As you may know, I’ve been working on building a media center for my home, A few months back, I bought a portable hard drive and started burning DVDs – ones that I legally own, mind you – and putting them into iTunes. I had a few hiccups, but it was going well until I started working on TV shows.

Pictured above is a still from The Family Guy, Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story [iTunes Link]. I burned it onto my computer with Handbrake, using the exact same settings that I had for every other DVD. As you can see, there is this weird transition that happens anytime anything moves on the screen. Were this just an issue with animated programs, I’d go on my way. But this is happening with other TV shows such as Dexter and Caprica, so I know it’s nothing having to do with that. From what I can tell, it’s all TV programs, no matter what they are.

So. I have two questions for you all, the dedicated readers of Apple Gazette.

1. What is this problem and how do I fix it?

2. What about BluRay discs? I know I’ll need a BluRay drive and I know that OSX doesn’t recognize the format, but what do I do to rip the drive and keep it hi-def?

If you have an answer or a link to one, please let me know. I’d really appreciate it.

[Image via Fortune, Video Shot By Bill Wagenseller]

For the past little while, Apple has been building a data center out in North Carolina. It’s apparently going to be a server farm, presumably for iTunes. There was an interesting article in TechCrunch yesterday about the Q3 earnings call. Here’s the scoop:

During Apple’s Q3 2010 earnings call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer fielded a question about the massive data center Apple is currently building in Maiden, North Carolina. The reporter wanted to know how it was coming, and if there were any updates? “It’s on-schedule,” Oppenheimer quickly said. “We expect it completed by the end of the calendar year,” he continued, noting that it should be fully operational after that.

TechCrunch goes on to theorize about iTunes moving to the cloud, and a streaming music service. Does that make sense?

Well, it does to me. We heard about this rumor earlier this month, but truth be told, this has been floating around for a while now. It makes sense for Apple to move iTunes to the cloud, because eventually, people won’t have the hard drive space to hold all of those 4K movies. If they can stream them to their device anywhere they have an internet connection, it’d be perfect. And let’s not forget the international component to this when international data service centers start pushing the agenda with Apple.

Guess we’ll found out by the end of the year, huh?

There are quite a few people out there who have official cut the cord with the big cable companies, instead deciding to go with Hulu and iTunes for their daily dose of TV. Frankly, it’s something that I’ve considered doing myself. I pay $90 a month to DirecTV, and I don’t have anything special with the exception of Showtime, mostly for Dexter. Sometimes, I really wonder where that money is going.

I’ve heavily considered going the iTunes Season Pass route, but I didn’t think it was cost effective. Besides, I don’t want tons of TV shows littering up my hard drive, particularly when space comes at such a premium. There’s also the “live” problem, which mostly is a problem with news and sports. Now though, there may be an option that works for me, and others as well.

Rumor has it, Apple is working on setting up a 99-cent rental cost for TV shows. I first found out about this via PC Magazine:

Insider sources are saying that Apple’s is looking to launch a new streaming rental service that would give consumers the opportunity to watch TV episodes for $0.99 a pop. That’s half-off a typical standard definition episode purchase at $1.99, and one-third that of a high-definition episode buy ($2.99).

Ryan Lawler of NewTeeVee has the details of the plan: users would be able to view a rented episode within 30 days of the purchase but, once they start watching, the 24-hour countdown clock begins. As well, users won’t actually be downloading the video itself—it’ll stream right through iTunes, analogous to how one currently watches videos on YouTube or Hulu.

The rumored move comes in the wake of equally rumored suggestions that Apple’s planning a major overhaul to its Apple TV service, potentially developing a new, $99 device that runs its iOS operating system and sports Flash storage in iPhone-like capacity ranges instead of a physical hard drive.

This would solve part of my problem with cable, but not all of it. If I wanted a little bit of both, I could drop down my DirecTV plan to a lower level, then subscribe to my favorite shows via iTunes to save some costs. Will it work? Until this rumor becomes true, we’ll never know. I’d love to find out, though.

I’ve been watching a lot of movies recently, and when you spend your days watching a flick in the corner of your screen while working, you can burn through a lot of movies quickly. Since I’m in the process of digitizing my movie collection, I figure that it makes more sense for me to buy my movies on iTunes than at the store, so that way I save myself the burning routine.

I’m also cheap. Well, not cheap I suppose, but I’m not the guy  guy who buys a new release the day it comes out, because I know I can save a few bucks if I wait a few weeks to make my purchase. As a general rule of thumb, I buy HD flicks when they drop to $14.99, and DVDs at $9.99. Sure, there are a few exceptions here and there, but that’s the basic plan.

A few months ago, The Hangover was all over iTunes. HD versions, unrated, etc, all of them there for the taking. I decided I’d wait it out, and sure enough, yesterday I decided to pull the trigger on the HD version of the flick. Yet when I went looking, I couldn’t find it anywhere in the iTunes store. No movies at all.

Now at first, I thought this might be a random occurrence. Then I did a bit of searching for other movies that I wanted. Strangely enough, that also is the title: Wanted. I had rented it a while back in HD on my AppleTV, and I could’ve sworn it was available in HD for sale. I looked yesterday, and it’s still available for rent in HD. On the iTunes store on my MacBook Pro, it’s listed as only available in 480P, except for on the iPad and AppleTV.

So what gives? Why is The Hangover gone from the store completely, and why is Wanted only available in HD on the iPad and AppleTV? My current guess is that it has to do with the studios. They sign deals with Apple to sell certain movies for specified periods, and then the movie disappears. This doesn’t make sense for tons of reasons, but it’s not something that I pin on Apple. I think the studios worry that the movies sold on iTunes will get pirated and it’ll turn into Napster all over again. But it’s also costing them sales. I had $40 that I was going to spend on movies this weekend, and I didn’t do it.

I’ve sent a letter to Apple PR for clarification, so I’ll update once I find the results.

We’ve got another rumor going here, and this one is a doozy.

The folks at Boy Genius Report tend to have their rumors straight, and this time, they’ve got Apple news. I’ll let them explain the good stuff.

One of our reliable Apple sources has just filled us in on some of the company’s iTunes plans, and they’re exciting. We have been told iTunes will be getting a huge cloud capability that many people have been asking for (and logically thought would happen sooner or later). These new capabilities are broken down into three groups:

1. Streaming music and movies from Apple’s servers to your computers, devices, etc.
2. Streaming music and movies from your home computers to your other computers, remote devices, etc.
3. Wireless iTunes syncing with devices

If this is true, this is definitely welcome news. I, for one, would love to have my devices sync wirelessly, beyond what MobileMe does for me now. This does bring up an interesting question though. Will this all be done for free, or will it become integrated into MobileMe? If it’s free, I think it will get mass adoption, making life easier for everyone. If not, well, then I’m guessing not many people will go for it. I don’t know too many people who will pay $99 a year to sync their iTunes libraries. Well, except for me, anyways.

I have a plan. It’s not the best plan ever, and I’m sure it’s not the best idea, but here’s how it goes. I want to put my entire DVD collection on a hard drive and then have access to it via my AppleTV. Here’s how I’m going to do it.

First, let me talk about what I’m not doing. I’ve heard of Plex, and Boxxee, and all of those related items. I’m not doing any of those. I’ve purchased movies through the iTunes store in the past, and since I don’t want to have to buy them again, I’m stuck within the iTunes infrastructure. It’s not ideal, but it’s how I have to run it for the moment.

So to get everything in iTunes, I started by first using RipIt to copy all of my DVDs onto a portable drive. I did this for two reasons: One, I wanted a main copy of the DVD so that I could then use that to make whatever other conversion necessary, and two, so that my drive wasn’t spinning constantly with every disc I needed converted to .m4v format. I figure that I’m saving my iMac’s DVD drive, but also keeping things as quick as possible. This also provides me a way to rip my TV shows to iTunes, although I haven’t yet figured out how to set it up as a TV show recognized by iTunes.

Once RipIt is done, I then move on to Handbrake, where I rip everything under the AppleTV format. Whether or not this is the best format for me, I’m still not sure. But by having copies on RipIt, I can run through this process all over again should I have to. For now though, I think it will work out OK.

Doing all that though loses all of the metadata for the files, so at first, I was changing the images manually. I would go on Amazon.com, find an image for the DVD that I was ripping, then spend a quick moment editing it to size. When the DVD was in my iTunes library, I would attach the image to the DVD, and I was good to go. But this wasn’t the ideal result for me, as when I look at movies on my iPad, all the date on one half of the screen was blank. That’s when I discovered another option.

When I first found out about iFlicks, I heard it was essentially a replacement for Handbrake. It is, but not for raw DVDs like I’m trying to convert. But one thing it does exceptionally well is add metadata to my iTunes library. I highlight a film, go to the Applescript window in the corner and select Automatically Update Metadata of Selected. A few seconds later, the DVD has box art (or a movie poster), and all related metadata such as the director, actors, etc, are all appended to the file. Now when I look at the movie on my iPad or on Front Row, I’ve got everything I want there in front of me.

All my movies now stream to my AppleTV, which is my temporary solution. Eventually, I’d like to get a Mac Mini for the living room, and I think that would solve a lot of my problems.

This may not be the perfect solution, and I’m not saying that it is. In fact, I’m pretty open to suggestions. But since I need to use iTunes to keep my iTunes movies, I think this is the best option right now. Thoughts?

Songs streamed directly to cellphones, once touted as the next big thing in digital music, failed to take off and is now rapidly losing ground to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes Store.

I understand that they’re talking about other systems, but the iTunes store does stream music to a phone, it just happens to be one phone.

I guess I’m not really sure why this is a bad thing, because the tone of the Fortune article seems to be that the world is ending because Walmart doesn’t have a bigger share of the pie. Maybe I’m just reading too much into things (I’ve been known to do that) but to me, this is kinda awesome.

The only CDs that I’ve purchased in the past five years are ones that are out of print, not available on iTunes, or from indie artists. Otherwise, when I find a song or CD that I want, I go on iTunes and download it. And why wouldn’t I? I then have access to the music on my iPad, iPod, iPhone, and both computers. I can even send it to my AppleTV if I want to listen to music on the TV – something I’ve never really understood.

Now this is a problem if you don’t own an iPod I suppose, but then you have other options. Let’s say you bought yourself a Zune. You’ve got the Zune Marketplace for music and apps, and then you can burn your own CDs into the Zune interface. It’s just as convenient. Or if you don’t even own an MP3 player, you can just buy regular CDs. Sure, brick and mortar CD stores are all but gone, but big stores like Walmart and Best Buy are going to be carrying hard copies of music for the foreseeable future, so you’ve got options there.

I suppose this is also an issue if you’re worried about Apple taking over the world. I have no problem with running my music through iTunes, but I know people who do. If you want to run something other than iTunes, then support a platform. Right now I can’t think of many real competitors to iTunes in functionality, but I’d love to have one. Competition breeds innovation, and the more competitors Apple has, the better it is for all of us. I hope Zune catches up so that Apple starts feeling the pressure and changes things up. Nothing wrong with that.

I will get scared when Apple owns 50% of the market. Why? Because that means no one is even trying to take on mobile music, and at that point, people are going to start throwing around the “M” word about them.

In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my easy access to music, whether it has DRM or not, and hope that someone tries harder than the competition is currently.

I’ve never listened to lala.com, but I know people who do. At the end of this month, they’re going to have to find another option for their streaming music needs. That’s because lala is closing up shop come May 31st.

You might remember that back in March, Apple bought lala and no one knew what they were going to do with the company. There’s been lots of talk that they’re going to use iTunes as a basis for their own streaming service, and then the other rumor is that they just wanted to buy the company to scalp their employees. Now, almost two months later, we still have no better idea of what Apple is going to do with lala and their employees, but now the rumor mill is stirred up all over again.

There’s another reason for this rumor to come up now, and that’s WWDC. It’s coming up on June 7th, and this is also traditionally the event where Apple announces the new iPhone. Although that’s most likely the case this year again, there is always another opportunity for “one more thing.”

I personally don’t think that this is the time to introduce a new iTunes streaming service. Last I heard their new server center wasn’t done yet, and I would imagine that would have to be up and running before they took on something of this magnitude. My guess is that it will come in with iTunes 10, sometime next year. I’d love to be wrong, but I’m a bit more realistic. I think this WWDC will be all about the next iPhone, and not much else.

But man do I hope I’m wrong.

There’s a good selection, with something for almost everybody, from Edgar Allen Poe’s Stories to Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (my personal favorite), to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, which you might want to download if you enjoyed Tim Burton’s recent production.

The recording quality could be better, I suppose- but the voices are crisp, and plays clear enough on my iPod for me on my ancient, somewhat noisy, treadmill.

You can go directly to the iTunes page of Lit2Go, which doesn’t include their entire library, or search through their huge database on the web.

Movie trailers are everywhere nowadays, mostly with crappy resolution and horrible frame rates. You can find almost any movie you want on YouTube, but that doesn’t mean that it’s going to look good, even in HD. It’s then that I almost always come back to Apple for the good stuff.

It’s easy to forget about the iTunes Movie Trailers site, because it doesn’t get a lot of press. I usually forget about it until some new Pixar flick comes out and you can only watch the preview on the site, then I spend an hour flipping through various trailers, seeing what’s coming out next. There’s a lot of cool stuff in there if you just dig around for a little bit.

But better yet, it’s easy. Click on a link and pick which movie size you want to download, as shown below:

Just pick the size you want and download away. You can watch it in glorious 1080p if you’ve got the time to download it, or just send it off for iPhone size and watch it as you go. It’s a great way to see new trailers in all of their glory from the convenience of your computer.

Now, you’re not going to see any red-band trailers here, but it is good stuff in high quality. It’s just another little Apple touch that’s easy to forget about until you’re reminded.

Here’s your reminder.

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Apple bringing iTunes, music and video streaming to the cloud. They’re building a mammoth data center in North Carolina, they just bought Lala which is a streaming media service, and then there’s all this iPad talk. Now, CNET is reporting that Apple is working on letting iTunes users store content in those data centers, and stream their music and video on demand.

The company’s representatives have recently spoken with some of the major film studios about enabling iTunes users to store their content on the company’s servers, two people familiar with the discussions told CNET. That’s in addition to streaming television shows and music.

Apple has told the studios that under the plan, iTunes users will access video from various Internet-connected devices. Apple would, of course, prefer that users access video from the iPad, the company’s upcoming tablet computer, the sources said. Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said Apple doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation.

The news comes a month after Apple spoke to the major record companies about a similar plan involving music. Apple’s vision is to build proverbial digital shelves where iTunes users store their media, one of the sources said. “Basically, they want to eliminate the hard drive,” the source said.

I’ve never been a huge fan of the cloud concept. I’m a big fan of having my stuff here, locally, where I can touch it. That way, I know it’s not going anywhere and that I never have to worry about it. On the flip side, I wouldn’t have to ever buy a big hard drive again just to store music if I had it all online. The data center isn’t done yet, so this may be a moot issue for the moment. But I think by sometime next year we’ll be hearing more about this cloud-based iTunes.

Well, you may not have heard, but iTunes just hit 10 billion songs downloaded. Actually, you probably did hear, because I mentioned it last week. You also know then that Apple is giving away a $10,000 iTunes gift card to anyone who’s bought a song from the service in the past few days. Of course I did, so I automatically assume that I’m going to win. That’s how I work, really. So I spent some time working out a list, but I didn’t get very far.

After 30 minutes of hunting, I came up with the list of movies and TV shows shown after the break. I really felt like I was splurging there for a bit, and I was sure that I was in the big money zone. Total? A little under $1500.

Then I figured that I would throw in iTunes Plus, since I never redeemed that back when it was first released. Throw another $110.10 to the mix.

Seriously? Holy crap would it take me a long time to reach $10gs.

Movies/TV:

• The Hurt Locker HD $19.99
• Iron Man HD $19.99
• Zoolander HD $19.99
• Terminator 1-Salvation $52.96
• Gone in 60 Seconds HD $19.99 (Classic movie. Seriously)
• Ratatouille HD $19.99
• Pirates of the Caribbean collection in HD $59.97
• Invincible HD $19.99
• National Treasure 1&2 HD $39.98
• Bolt HD $19.99
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off HD $19.99
• Wall-E HD $19.99
• Cars $14.99
• Star Trek I then III-X $89.91
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 1 $34.99
• Every Kevin Smith Movie $82.94 (Yes, even Jersey Girl. Never seen it, but with $10gs to blow, I can buy Glitter if I want and not feel guilty)
• Firefly Season 1 & Serenity $31.98
• The Office, all seasons $225.77
• Family Guy, all seasons & extras $242.86
• American Dad, all seasons $124.96
• Dexter, all seasons HD $107.64
• Battlestar Galactica, all seasons $228.55