Marking the first anniversary of the iTunes Music Store, Apple has release iTunes 4.5. Crazy Apple Rumors Site provides an exclusive look at the landmark application’s new feature set.
- Apple has provided numerous features, including automatic artist, song and album links to the iTunes Music Store, designed to take as much of your money as possible. Really, they’d prefer it if you just sent them a blank check. And all those coins in the ashtray on your dresser. And little Billy’s piggy bank.
- Party Shuffle feature is actually not a random playlist generator as described on many other sites. It is, in fact, a new dance step of Apple’s own devising.
Actually it was Rubinstein. He is the Fred Astaire of Apple.
- iTunes Music Store now has “You know that song…” search capabilities. For example, searching on “You know that song that goes ‘Nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah, nah-nah-nah-nah-nah-nah…” brings up Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.” Searching on “You know that song that’s got the girl saying ‘I find you very attractive’ and ‘Would you go to bed with me?’ and then there’s just some horn music… ‘Dah-dah-daaaaah-dut-dah, dut-dah-dut!’ You know that song. Dude, yes you do. They were playing that song at that party we went to over at… at, um… you know that dude’s name…” brings up Touch and Go’s “Would You…?”
- Free songs celebrating the iTunes Music Store’s first anniversary might be songs you’ve heard so many times you could play the chords yourself without ever having taken a guitar lesson in your life, but… they are free, just as God intended online music to be.
- In addition to being able to publish your playlist on the iTunes Music Store, you can also “publish your ass.” Although documentation was sketchy on how, exactly, that would be accomplished. Actually, there’s just a bullet point that said “iTunes 4.5 allows you to publish your ass.” I don’t know what that means, really. I talked to some other people and they weren’t sure either. We’ll make some calls. I don’t think it’s a typo, because it was on the press release, too. It actually says “…publish your ass, bitch.” It goes on to add, “Yeah, back that fine thing up and publish that ass.” I don’t get it. See, if it was iPhoto, I’d think you could publish pictures of your ass. But iTunes… Hmm. And, anyway, I’m just not sure I want to see most Mac user’s asses. Andy Ihnatko? Shawn King? Jef Raskin? Yeesh.
- Radio Charts feature provides a convenient way to buy those songs that you can’t remember the name of but can’t get out of your head. Which is so much better than attempting to pry your head open and physically extract the song with a pair of needle-nose pliers. Trust me.
- In the digital right managment area, Apple has upped the number of computers you can authorize to five, but reduced the number of times you can burn a playlist of purchased music to seven. It has even capped the number of times you can listen to a song at 27 and the number of times you can look at it in your playlist at 123. Apple’s also asked white male iTunes users to completely stop doing that “white guy” dance where you just move your legs a little, move your fists up and down, tilt your shoulders first one way and then the other, and bite your lower lip, because… really… nobody likes that. It’s not even a dance.
Apple expects to celebrate the second anniversary of the iTunes Music Store by cold-cocking you and stealing your wallet.