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Tag: iTunes Store

  • 56 More Countries Get iTunes Store

    56 More Countries Get iTunes Store

    Apple announced today that it has launched the iTunes Store in 56 new countries, including Russia, Turkey, India, and South Africa. It is now available in a total of 119 countries.

    “The iTunes Store features local artists including Elka in Russia, Sezen Aksu in Turkey, AR Rahman in India, and Zahara in South Africa, international artists including The Beatles, Taylor Swift and Coldplay, and world-renowned classical musicians including Lang Lang, Yo Yo Ma and Yuja Wang,” Apple says. “Customers can choose from over 20 million songs available to purchase and download on the iTunes Store.”

    “Movie fans can choose from a wide selection of films available for rent or purchase from the iTunes Store, with many available in stunning HD, from major studios including 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures, as well as leading local distributors,” the company notes.

    Users, of course, have access to the App Store, which features 700,000 apps, which are actually available in as many as 155 countries.

    Apple launched iTunes 11 last week. The company also recently announced the addition of AC/DC’s music to its catalog, which was apparently a really big deal.

  • Hong Kong iTunes Store Gets Apple In Trouble With The Locals

    Last week we told you that Apple had launched the iTunes Store in twelve new regions, mostly in Asia and the Pacific. One of those was Hong Kong. While the launch appears to have gone smoothly from a technical standpoint, some of Apple’s translation choices have raised eyebrows among Hong Kong’s natives.

    According to the Wall Street Journal, the controversy stems from Apple’s choice to use Mandarin pinyin to transliterate the names of certain songs and albums, particularly from the Cantopop genre. (Pinyin is a method of transliterating Mandarin Chinese into Roman letters, so that speakers of languages like English can attempt to pronounce it.) The bulk of Hong Kong’s population speaks Cantonese, not Mandarin, however, and regards Beijing with suspicion at best. To them, Apple’s use of Mandarin pinyin to transliterate the titles is just another example of the increasing intrusion of Mandarin in Hong Kong.

    Hong Kong has only been under Chinese rule for 15 years. The island city was captured by Great Britain during the First Opium War in 1841 and officially ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. In 1984, the UK and China signed a treaty agreeing that Hong Kong would revert to Chinese rule on July 1st, 1997. Under the terms of the treaty, Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China, and enjoys an usual degree of autonomy. Locals tend to resent attempts by the Chinese government to increase its influence in the region.

    I contacted Apple to try and ascertain their thoughts on the situation, and whether there were any plans to change the transliterations from Mandarin to Cantonese. They have not yet responded.

  • iTunes 11 To Get Better Sharing, iCloud Integration

    Back in April we brought you news that the next version of iTunes, iTunes 11, was working its way through Apple’s internal testing. Little was known about what iTunes 11 would look like, except that it was supposed to bring improved iCloud integration and iOS 6 compatibility.

    A recent report from Bloomberg has confirmed the improved iCloud integration and offered a few more details about the update as well. Citing “people with direct knowledge of the matter,” Bloomberg says that Apple is preparing “one of the largest changes to the world’s biggest music store since its 2003 debut.” Specifically, the new update will include the aforementioned deepened iCloud integration, as well new ways to share music.

    With Ping on its way to the chopping block, the music sharing feature will likely center on Facebook and Twitter, just like the App Store sharing announced with iOS 6 earlier this month. The sources also said that Apple has been negotiating with record labels to allow people to share entire songs for free.

    The report doesn’t give any specifics about when iTunes 11 will be launching apart from “by year’s end.” It will almost certainly be launched in the fall, though. Apple has traditionally rolled out major iTunes releases alongside the iPhone. At WWDC two weeks ago Apple promised that iOS 6 would ship in the fall, meaning that the new iPhone will as well. Odds are that that’s when we’ll see iTunes 11, too.

  • iTunes Store Goes Live In 12 New Countries

    Apple’s quest for global domination – at least when it comes to selling music and mobile apps – continues today with the launch of the iTunes Store in 12 new countries. Last week we brought you news that Apple had brought the App Store to 32 more regions around the world. Apparently they weren’t quite done.

    The new countries are all in Asia and the Pacific. Here’s the full list, per Apple: Brunei, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Cambodia and Laos are also on last week’s list of new App Store markets.

    iTunes Store customers in these new markets will get immediate access to all of the iTunes-related goodies Apple has been adding in recent months, including iTunes Match and the full catalog of iTunes Store music and movies. The latest version of iTunes – iTunes 10.6.3 – is available in all twelve countries and is, as always, a free download from Apple’s website.