For several years now, colleges and universities have posted for free academic courses via iTunes podcasts. But now in iTunes U, Apple is expanding the service by providing access to complete courses from leading universities and other schools.

For now the courses are completely free–requiring only your time to work through the lectures and assignments.

iTunes App

The iTunes U app can be used on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. When you subscribe to a coure all the core material for the course will be automatically downloaded to the app on your device.

Links to supplemental material will also be provided for download from the App Store, the iBookstore, and the iTunes Music Store. While the supplemental material may come at a cost, most of the video lectures and PDF document handouts seem to be available for free.

The beauty of iTunes U is how it packages core material into one application. A downloaded course typically includes a brief overview, a detailed course outline of lectures and assignments, a built-in Notepad, and links to course materials. The interface and setup is similar to how you might organize an analog three-ring binder.

Though courses are best viewed on the iPad, you can sync your notes and course information between your iOS devices. Unfortunately, however, Apple has not created a Mac client for iTunes U. Nor has it done so for its iBooks 2 textbook reader.

You can access and view all the courses in iTunes U either through the iTunes U application itself, or in iTunes on your Mac or PC. iTunes U already includes several dozen courses on a wide range of topics—from Basics of Culinary, Beginners Chinese, Masters of Photography, to Stanford University’s highly rated iPad and iPhone App Development course.

Standford CS193p

The Stanford apps development course, for example, includes 19 actual live lectures, slide show presentations, in course assignments.

Even better, the course doesn’t require you to purchase any additional supplemental material. And if you’re running OS X Lion you can download Apple’s app developers application Xcode for free from the App Store. All that is required on your part for this course is your time.

Copyright Course

Another interesting though lightweight course, titled Rights, Remixes, and Respect, is a five part series about the differences between creative inspiration, appropriation, copyright and fair use.

Kirby Ferguson, the developer for this course, provides short definitions of copyright related terms, and then presents excellent song and movie examples about sampling and remixing and creative productions. His video presentations are are linked to a website which means you don’t have to download those files to your device.

You can work through the course in less than a week, and it even ends with a couple of short quiz reviews. The course also requires a few paid download of songs from the iTunes Music Store.

Notepad

Another useful and practical tool in the iTunes U app is a built-in notepad. If you want to do pretty much all your work within your mobile device, this notepad will come in quite handy. It works similarly to to the default Notepad app in Apple’s mobile devices.

While iTunes U will never be as popular as the iTunes Music Store or the App Store, it’s a great opportunity and resource for self-motivated learning. And because courses are free, you learn as much as you like without taking out a student loan.

Let us know what you think of iTunes U.

This is a very in-depth topic, and I can’t possibly write a tutorial that will cover 100% of cases or every problem you might come up against. What I can do is give an overview of the entire process so you have an idea where you’re getting stuck; some tips that might help you out on the way; and some pitfalls that kept me searching for days.

Getting Started

In case it isn’t obvious, you need a paid iOS developer account ($99/year) in order to submit applications, free or otherwise, to the iTunes App Store. Ensure your Apple ID includes up to date information, and that the address is accurate. You will need to verify your address and identification details, usually by way of faxing a passport copy and utility bill. If in doubt, call developer support for your local country – I found the UK team were more than helpful in getting my old Japanese Apple ID transferred to a UK address.

I’m also going to assume you already have an app that’s been tested on the simulator, with no bugs or memory leaks. Getting your app to that state may be a monumental task in itself, but I can’t help you there. Crucially, make sure there are no serious compilation errors – though in my case there were lots of “semantic issues”, those are acceptable. Test, test, and test again before you think you are ready for release. Adding icons and debugging code is outside the scope of this tutorial, I’m afraid.

Here’s a quick summary of the whole submission process:

• Create a unique App ID for your app and change your bundle identifier in Xcode
• Create a secure Distribution Certificate for yourself
• Create a Provisioning Distribution Profile for the app
• Code-sign your app with the distribution profile
• Archive it, ensuring Project is set to Skip Install-> Yes and Target is set to Skip Install -> No
• Create an App on iTunes Connect with your meta data and sales information.

Most of this occurs within the Provisioning Portal, XCode, Keychain Access utility and iTunes Connect.

Create An App ID

• First, you need to create an App ID – a unique identifier for your app. Head over to iOS Provisioning Portal – the link is one the right side once you’ve logged into the iOS Developer site, and choose App ID from the sidebar.
• Click the button to create a new app ID. The first description field is just a name for your reference. The bundle identifier is a kind of coded name for your app, usually written as your company domain (in reverse), followed by a dot and the app name. For example:

com.makeuseof.demoapp

• Over in X-Code, click Target -> Summary, and change the Identifier to be whatever you decided above (com.whatever).

Create A Distribution Certificate

This is a secure certificate stored on your profile which confirms your developer identity and signs your code. There’s an elaborate version of this process detailed on the Distribution tab of the Provisioning Portal, but the simplified version is:

• Open up Keychain Access, and turn off OCSP and CRL from the Preferences.
• From the Keychain Access menu, choose Certificate Assistant -> Request Certificate from Authority.

• Enter your email address (no CA email needed), choose Saved to Disk and Let me specify key pair information, then Continue
• Choose key size of 2048 bits, and RSA algorithm, Continue.
• This creates a .CSR file on your desktop.
• In the Provisioning Portal, choose Certificates -> Distribution -> Add Certificate, and upload the file created.
• It may take a few seconds to approve. Download and install the WWDR intermediate certificate in the mean time (just download, double click it).
• Refresh the page, and you should be able to download your certificate. Again, install it.

• As a final step, open up Keychain Access, highlight your private key that you just installed and select Export Item from the menu. Keep this key safe with a backup somewhere, as without it you won’t be able to submit apps in the event of an OS reinstall or on different systems.

Create A Distribution Provisioning Profile

Yes, there are an endless number of certificates and profiles that need to be made here. Bear with me.

Again, from the Provisioning Portal, select Provisioning -> Distribution and create a new profile. Choose App Store as the distribution method, a profile name, and choose the App ID you created earlier. Submit that, refresh a few seconds later, and again download and install the profile – this time it will be added to XCode, but there are no further steps needed here.

If you want, you can check it’s there from the Window -> Organizer -> Devices tab, and select Provisioning Profiles from the sidebar.

Check Code Signing & Build Settings

As a final preparatory step, open up XCode and find Code Signing in the Build Settings area. Ensure that the Release option (for both Project and app Target) has your Distribution Profile selected (the one you installed just now).

Select iOS device as the build scheme, and move on to Archiving.

Archiving Your App

Nearly there! Before you can actually submit your app, you need to create an archive of the whole project – the final set of files that will be uploaded to iTunes Connect. Assuming everything has been done correctly until now, the first step is check you have an Archive scheme to build the release version with.

Click on Edit Schemes from the top-left, and either make sure the Archive one is set to Release, or create one now with the appropriate settings. Using the Auto-Create Schemes function within manage schemes should also create this for you.

Next – and this is the bit that really induced headaches for a week in my case – if your app uses external libraries of any sort, you need to change the Build Settings for the project to be Skip Install. To do this, click the main project (not the target) -> Build Settings -> type Skip into the search field, and ensure Yes is selected for the Deployment -> Skip Install option.

The TARGETS Build Settings for Skip Install should be No. Double check that – Project Skip Install, Yes; Target Skip Install, No.

This tripped me up because every tutorial I could find simply said “set Skip Install to Yes” – but with these both set to yes, the archive just mysteriously wouldn’t materialize.

The final step then is to build your deployment archive to upload. Select Product -> Archive from the menu. Once completed, you should be able to find your app in the Organizer -> Archives section.

Create An App On iTunes Connect

iTunes Connect is the commercial side of the app store, which handles the actual sales of your finished app, which countries to sell in, description and screenshots etc. It’s actually quite easy, but there’s a lot of information to be filled out, and it’s at this point that you’ll decide whether to sell the app, give it away, enable iAds to be displayed, enter bank information, and sign any contracts needed for release.

To get started, just head to iTunes Connect and Add a New App. You’ll need to choose the bundle identifier from the drop selection box (the com.whatever name you created earlier), but I won’t walk you through the rest of this as it’s really self explanatory – Apple will tell what’s waiting to be done at every step of the way.

Eventually, your app will be added, and be in the Waiting for Upload status, at which point you can go back to XCode Organizer -> Archives, and hit Submit to upload. You’ll asked to log in and check which app it is you’re uploading, and now you need to just wait for it to be approved – usually a few weeks.

This has been a totally new experience for me as I’m sure it will be for many of you also. Hopefully you’ve got a clearer understanding of the process now – personally I was a bit daunted by it all and found myself muddling through most of it. Is it as complicated as it sounds? Yes – but only the first time. And in fairness, it’s this rigorous process that prevents insecure apps and malware from ever making their way onto the app store, so that’s something I’m eternally grateful for.

Let us know your experiences submitting to the app store in the comments.

The program finally launched, and we here at MakeUseOf offered a handy guide for getting started. However, upon launch it was not available in all the countries people wanted to use it. Now, Apple is working to rectify that situation by launching the service in 19 new countries. They are mainly focusing on Latin America, the Baltic States and the Netherlands.

The full list of new countries are as follows – Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela.

iTunes Match is now available in a total of 37 countries. Apple is obviously trying to expand their service, which costs $24.99 per year, to all kinds of new markets. If it is not available where you live, don’t fret, because you can assume Apple is going to do everything in their power to get it there.

Source: MacRumors

What Is iTunes Match, Really?

iTunes Match is cloud storage for up to 25,000 songs. Wherever possible, your music files are matched to a DRM-free, 256kbs high quality version on Apple’s server, if available. If not, your songs are uploaded as is.

You can overwrite your local, lower quality media, with higher quality 256kbs version from iTunes Match. And yes, this includes songs you have pirated, downloaded, borrowed off a mate, or ripped at a low quality from your own CDs. Bear in mind that a 256kbs file is going to be twice as large as one encoded at 128kbs though.

Once in the cloud, your entire music library is available to download or stream on up to 5 devices registered to your iTunes account.

Limitations

• Songs less than 96kbs cannot be matched.
• Only music and music videos are valid for matching – not audiobooks (there is a workaround with that if you classify audiobooks as media type: music and if they are ripped at 96kbs or better, they will be uploaded and stored in the cloud with every other track).
• Your ID3 tags will not be overwritten – if you have a track 01, iTunes will NOT automatically fix that for you. It will replace the audio with a higher quality version, but it will not give you missing tags, artwork, or lyrics. The meta-data associated with each song remains the same, even if it it’s broken. On the upside, this means your handcrafted ID3 tags won’t be replaced either.
• As mentioned, there is a 25,000 song limit, on up to 5 devices.

Getting Started

Once subscribed, you’ll see one of the following icons next to every track.

iTunes is then in the process of scanning your tracks to see which it has a match for.

Out of 7,400 songs in my library, it matched roughly 2,800 songs. The additional items took a total of about 4 days to fully upload, but you can start using everything else that has already uploaded in the meantime, and begin upgrading tracks that are eligible.

To Upgrade Songs to 256kbs Versions

This isn’t as easy as it should be, but basically you need to delete matched songs from iTunes, then download them from the cloud. The problem is figuring out which songs are eligible for an upgrade. To do this easily, create a new smart playlist with the following options:

• Media type – music
• Quality – less than 256kbs
• AND ANY OF THE FOLLOWING (option click on the + symbol to create this ANY rule)
• - iCloud Status is Purchased
• - iCloud Status is Matched

Any songs on this playlist are matched in the cloud and therefore a higher quality version is available to replace any you have locally. To trigger that upgrade, you need to delete those tracks from your library – by either right clicking and selecting delete or pressing option-delete.

When asked if you’d like to delete the tracks from iCloud too, make sure you DON’T. However, do move them to the trash / delete from your local computer. The tracks won’t disappear from the list though, instead they’ll be there still but with an iCloud download icon next to them. Highlight them again, right click, download.

Once downloaded, they’ll disappear from this smart playlist – that’s because they’ve been replaced with 256kbs versions, and therefore don’t match the list criteria anymore. Congrats, you’ve upgraded them. Continue for every other song on the list.

Note that this isn’t necessary for your iOS devices – they will automatically use the higher quality matched version when you attempt to stream or download to the device. This playlist is only to facilitate replacing the existing, lower quality songs on your computer.

Setting Up iTunes Match On iOS Devices

From the Settings -> Music menu, enable iTunes Match from the top of the list. You’ll be given a warning about the music on your device being replaced with iTunes Match. Continue.

Give it about 10 minutes to sync up with the cloud. Now when you launch the iPod / Music app, everything in your iCloud library will be there. If you still have some songs in the process of uploading, they’ll be greyed out.

You can either stream songs just by clicking to play them as usual (I experience about a 5 second lag before it starts sometimes), or you can download them to your device by clicking on the iCloud icon.

If you want to download a full playlist or genre, artist etc, just scroll down to the bottom of the list where you’ll see a button to download all.

Conclusion

I just upgraded about 2,800 songs to high quality 256kbs, legal DRM-free versions, which I can keep forever, legally. I can now stream my entire music collection to any of my iOS devices (including family if you share an iTunes store account). Of course, any music you add in the future to your library will also be automatically matched, if available, or uploaded if not. The library remains in sync across all devices. This is personal music streaming done right, and it’s even legal, which always gives me a nice fuzzy feeling inside.

What do you think of iTunes Match (assuming you’ve actually signed up)? For you, how does it compare to similar services like Google Music? Got any problems or questions about the service? Ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer!

Google Music is leading the pack with its $4.99 “Blowout Sale.” Over half a million albums are available at the discounted price and over ten million single tracks are available for just $0.49. In fact, it’s hard to find content on Google’s store that isn’t discounted right now, though Sony has apparently opted out of the sale.

Amazon comes in second with its “Fuel Your Kindle Fire” promotion. Despite the name, you don’t need to own a Kindle Fire to enjoy the 1,077 albums that are being sold for an even $5.  The selection seems to tilt towards indie hits, though some pop albums are available.

Bringing up the rear we have iTunes, which is running a “Great Albums, Great Prices” promotion that focuses on bestsellers of 2011 as well as some classics from the last few decades. The selection of titles is good – these are top hits, after all – but you’ll have to pay $7.99 for each.

None of the sales offer a specific end date, although Amazon’s sale is slated to stay active until January of 2012. You’ll have to buy sooner rather than later if you’re salivating over these prices.

Source: Mashable

Customers who signed up prematurely on Wednesday soon encountered problems using the service and were notified via email that they would be receiving refunds. Today the service appears to be officially available via iTunes in Windows or Mac OS X.

iTunes Match scans personal storage for music and delivers it across a range of devices, offering up streaming and downloadable options. If iTunes detects a song it recognises then a DRM-free 256kbps AAC file is made available. If iTunes fails to recognise a song then that file is uploaded and made available instead.

Audiophiles around the world can find the iTunes Match service in their “Quick Links” bar on the right-hand side of iTunes if the service is available. Users should also be aware that the scanning and uploading process can take a while, especially when it comes to particularly large collections.

Current pricing from around the world puts a year’s worth of iTunes Match at €24.99 in Europe, £21.99 in the UK, CAD$27.99 in Canada and AUD$34.99 in Australia.

Have you subscribed to iTunes Match yet? Happy with the price in your country or territory? Talk about it in the comments.

Source: GigaOM

But after subscribing to and exploring iTunes Match, I find the paid service not as useful as Apple’s wireless iTunes syncing, its Home Sharing feature, and music streaming service sites like Rdio.com and Spotify.

iTunes Match

iTunes Match is a music streaming service ($24.99 per year) that essentially allows you to sync all the songs (including the ones you purchased in the iTunes Music Store and ones you imported from other sources such as CDs) from your iTunes Music Library to your iCloud account over Wi-Fi or 3G. In turn, you can access your songs in the cloud from any iTunes supported Mac or PC and on your iOS devices.

With iTunes Match, your song files are not physically uploaded to the cloud. Rather, iTunes scans your iTunes Library and matches your song content with the vast catalog of songs in the iTunes Music Store. The matched music is added to your iCloud account. Songs in your library that are not found in the Store don’t of course get matched, and thus don’t appear in iCloud.

If you’re an avid user of iTunes and customer of the iTunes Music Store, iTunes Match may very well be a useful subscription service for you. In addition to having access to your music in the cloud, the paid service backs up your music to cloud; and if your songs are ever deleted on your local drive they can be re-downloaded from your iCloud.

But there are problems with iTunes Match that you might want to consider. First off, though you can stream your music from your iCloud account over Wi-Fi onto your iTunes supporting computer(s), you can’t stream music in the same way to your iPhone and other iOS devices. You have to actually select and download those songs from your iCloud account to your device, which means that it will take up memory space in your device. In fact, when you turn on iTunes Match on your device, it replaces the iTune library set up for your device prior to iTunes Match.

Wireless iTunes Syncing

With the release of iOS 5 for the iPhone and other Apple devices, you can now sync data between your device and the iTunes library on your computer over your local network.

With this wireless syncing, you can add and delete songs and playlists in your iTunes library for your devices and sync those changes without having to make a wired connection to your computer. In fact, after the initial setup, your iOS device will automatically sync your iTunes library when you have the device plugged into a charger and connected to your local Wi-Fi network.

You can also manually execute wireless syncing in the Summary page of your iTunes or in the Settings app of your iOS device (General > iTunes Wi-Fi Sync > Sync Now). I prefer this approach over iTunes to managing music on my iPhone. This method allows me to select and deselect songs in my iTunes library instead of having to download them (and manually remove them) individually from my iCloud account.

I even use a Smart Playlist in iTunes that automatically removes songs I’ve played on my iTunes and/or my iPhone in the last 2 weeks. When songs are dropped off they are automatically replaced with new tracks from my library.

This wireless smart playlist requires no manual downloading on my part and it keeps my iPhone updated with different music from week to week.

Home Sharing Features

iTunes Match may be most useful to iTunes users who travel frequently and want to have access to their music in the cloud. However, for the rest of us, the Home Sharing feature of iTunes (see here for how to set it up) will probably be sufficient for sharing and accessing all the content in your iTunes library with your computers and iOS devices. With iTunes Match, on the other hand, you can only share your songs, not your other content such as downloaded movies and TV shows.

Streaming Music Services

Lastly, I would argue that streaming music services like Spotify, Rdio, and MOG may be a better and much more affordable option for those of us who have a good Wi-Fi connection.

An affordable $5 per month subscription to one of these music streaming services allows you to stream, commercial free, all the songs and albums in their catalog. For $10 per month you can stream music from these sites to your mobile smartphone. These music streaming sites also have free ad-supported options as well. See my article, The Pros and Cons of Streaming Music vs. Downloading MP3s for more about this option.

So what is your view of iTunes Match, iCloud and other streaming music services. Which do you prefer and why?

QR codes are typically printed in magazine and newspaper adverts and products. To use the codes you need a QR Reader on your mobile phone. The reader scans a code and opens the linked content in your mobile device’s web browser.

Coca-Cola has launched its U.S.-based QR code program in partnership with World Wildlife Fund, to conserve the polar bear’s Arctic habitat. Coca-Cola has used polar bear images as one of their major advertising icons since 1922, and in turn has supported WWF Arctic research and conservation efforts.

Coca-Cola’s QR code will appear on soft drink cups distributed in 7-Eleven convenience chain stores. The code will link to an iTunes page for downloading the SnowBall Effect app, which is an iPad and iPhone game that “challenges your Facebook friends to a snowball fight and scoring points to grow your snowball. The more snowball fights you have, the more awareness you raise on the polar bear.”

You build the game by checking in at 7-Eleven stores and entering codes on specially marked cups with Coca-Cola packaging.

Snowball Fight gamers can also link to donate and support the polar bear and its Arctic home. The game app also includes a promotional sweepstakes prize drawing to be held on January 7, 2012.

Source: Practical Ecommerce

Developed by MTA, Tunesque locates keyword related items in the iTunes Music Store and the Apple Mac store, and displays results in a single display. An app like this simply makes sense and you wonder why Apple didn’t develop it itself.

Quickly Search iTunes

Tunesque resides in your menubar where you click on its icon and enter a search query in the text field. After clicking the return key, Tunesque presents the results of search items in all categories of Apple’s online stores.

For example, a search for “Steve Jobs” reveals related songs, TV shows, iOS apps, e-books, podcasts, audiobooks, and iTunes University downloads.

So you can easily see how Tunesque saves you the trouble of opening the bulky iTunes application, and/or the sometimes the buggy App Store app, and then having to make several clicks in order to perform searches.

Incidentally, I also like how Tunesque doesn’t do intuitive searching—that is, start performing searches, Google style, as you type a term. That approach seems to sometimes complicate or slightly slow down the search process.

Search Results

As you might expect from looking at the user interface of Tunesque, when you move your cursor over an item, you get an instant preview of that item, including an image and description along with the listed price. Album descriptions, however, for some reason, don’t show up.

Clicking on an item of course will link you to its respective place in the iTunes Store or App Store.

If the drop-down interface of Tunesque seems a little too cluttered with results, you can simply narrow them using to specified keyboard shortcut.

Tunesque will also maintain your most recent search queries, so when you return to the application you don’t have to retype the search term again.

In my tests, the search results in Tunesque matched most of the results I got when I did the same keyword search in the iTunes Store. Results may vary for particular searches, but Tunesque is certainly a great place to get started.

Customized Searches

The developer also had the foresight to enable users to customize search results. In Tunesque Preferences you can disable store categories (like audiobooks, iTunes U, and podcasts) you’re not particularly interested in.

And on top of that, Tunesque searches in a local store of your choice, from the U.S. to the Ukraine and beyond.

And for users who don’t like the dark side, you can change up the color scheme to Light.

Tunesque may not be for those who like to click and browse around Apple’s respective stores, but it is certainly a welcome solution for those of us who like to quickly search itunes with a lot less clicking.

Tunesque can be downloaded free from the MTA web site or the Apple Mac Store. It does however require your Mac to be running Mac OS X Lion—10.7 or later.

Let us know what you think of Tunesque. Will it be a regular log-in item in your menu bar?

Cloud music services have been available for months from other sources, but Apple’s service has a little something extra. As the name implies, it can search through tracks in your library, identify them, and then sync them with your iTunes Match account. This will give you access to a DRM-free, 256-Kbps AAC version of the music straight from Apple’s servers, even if the music wasn’t purchased from iTunes or was originally in a lower quality format.

Of course, iTunes can only match what is in its database, which isn’t universal. However, even if you have music that isn’t on iTunes, it can be uploaded, making it too accessible through the service. A maximum of 25,000 songs can be synced, but songs you’ve purchased through iTunes do not account against that limit. At launch, users with iTunes libraries that already exceed 25,000 songs not purchased through iTunes are locked out of signing up for iTunes Match until they eliminate some songs from their library.

Given all that iTunes Match can do it’s little surprise that it’s not free. There’s only one subscription tier, which is priced at $24.99 and provides unlimited access to your iTunes Match music on any iOS device or computer with iTunes. Unsurprisingly, Apple isn’t providing Android owners with a compatible app. It will be interesting to see if some app developers can come up with a solution for this.

Source: Ars Technica