Tag: iTunes

About iTunes

Subscribe Feeds

Son Buys First Apple TV Show

Posted on by Jerad Hill

A few months back, I had a heart to heart with my son about how iTunes works on the Apple TV. This came after he had purchased a couple of $2.99 shows on the Apple TV without my permission. Apple does not make it easy to set parental controls on the Apple TV. If you enable parental controls, you have to use a four digit passcode for just about everything, even launching Netflix. We often let our kids select their own shows on Netflix because we have a kid-safe profile set up for them. I would have to give them the four digit passcode so they could get into their Netflix shows, but that would be the same passcode that would allow them to purchase shows. Kind of a lost cause.

Tonight, my son came across a show he really wanted to see. It was a Paw Patrol Christmas Episode. I explained to him that the show had a cost of $2.99. I said to him, “The show you want to watch is not free. It will cost us two dollars and ninety-nine cents to watch that show.” After explaining to him what I meant by “cents” by using play money in the toy room, he expressed an interest in paying for the show himself. I took the opportunity to turn this into a teachable moment.

My kids each have a piggy bank. It’s not in the shape of a piggy, it’s in the shape of R2D2, but we still call it that. When they earn money for going over and above what they are asked to do, or a task outside of their regular responsibilities was completed, we occasionally give them some change. We don’t compensate them for everything, we actually don’t compensate them very often at all. However, my son wanted to buy this show and was prepared to pay for it with his own money.

Teaching kids about money

He brought out his piggy bank and we counted the money he had. He had enough for the $2.99 show. I took some time to discuss what spending money on a show would leave him with. I explained that if he spent $2.99 on a show, the next time he was at a store with us, he might not have enough money to get something that he really wanted. His response was, “I don’t need anything, I just got a lot of new toys for Christmas. I can wait until my Birthday.” I explained to him that his birthday was six months away and that he would need to save up again if he wanted to buy something before his birthday. He was ok with it. He really wanted to buy that show.

We counted our $2.99 and set that aside. We then counted what was left. He had $2.08 remaining. I explained to him that he was about to use more than half of what he had in his piggy bank. He was still ok with his decision. I also explained that he would only get to buy one show, because he did not have enough to buy two shows and that this show was only 24 minutes long. He said, “It’s ok, I can watch it twice.” Smart kid.

I looked over at my wife, who had been listening to our conversation and confirmed that she was ok with the transaction that was about to take place. She nodded yes. I explained to him that I was going to buy the show for him and that I would take his $2.99 to pay for it. I explained to him that when we buy shows that cost money, that money is taken from Daddy and Mommy’s bank account just like we took money from his piggy bank to pay for the show.

We purchased the show and it started to load. I asked him if he wanted to play the show now and share it with his brother and sister, or save it for later when he could watch it alone. He said that he wanted his brother and sister to be able to watch it with him. I then told his brother and sister that they were going to get to watch a show that their brother paid for. They both said, “Thank you brother,” and they watched the show together.

After the show was over I asked my son if he thought the show was worth $2.99. He said that it was and that he would like to watch it again tomorrow.

It’s hard to teach kids about money these days. We live in a world where we just swipe a card to get immediate gratification. I want my children to grow up knowing that money is real and it’s a limited resource. It takes hard work to get it and even harder work to save it.

What are some money saving teaching moments you have had with your children? If you have a moment, please share them in the comment section below.

And They Said We Can’t Innovate

Posted on by Jerad Hill

This week Apple is holding it’s yearly developers conference in San Francisco. Each year thousands of people attend and even more watch online to see what Apple has been working on for the last year. Because Apple has been riding the momentum they had created over the years, people felt that Apple had started to slip. New tech comes out so fast and companies like Samsung have been training us to believe that new tech should come every couple of months. At Apple’s keynote presentation yesterday it was apparent that Apple is smarter than most think they are. I watched the keynote from my iPhone as I waited in the airport to catch my flight to the Search Marketing Expo in Seattle. Since several people ask me what I think about Apple’s newest announcements, I thought I would write about it.

New Services

Apple continues to add value to their platform by adding new services like iTunes Radio, AirDrop for iPhone and iWork for iCloud.

itunes radioiTunes Radio: Many have said that an unlimited listening platform would hurt music sales in iTunes but I think it will work to their advantage. These days, when people listen to music and hear something new that they like, they go and download it. I have been an Rdio user for a few years now and when I really like a song, I often download it. Those who like to own their music and be able to access it anywhere will buy songs. iTunes Radio will work as a radio. It does not look like you will be able to listen to entire albums. From what I can tell, iTunes Radio is like Pandora but integrated into the music app. You will have to listen to ads but if you are an iTunes Match subscriber, you will have ad free listening.

iTunes Radio is very similar to Google Play Radio which was released at Google I/O just last month. Both services have curated music variety channels they produce. You can create your own channels based on a specific genre of music, artist or song. It’s pretty cool. Being that I have been using Rdio for so long, I tend to listen to an album or create my own playlists of music I know already. I am looking forward to moving back to a radio style listening experience.

AirDrop for iPhone: AirDrop for iPhone will be fantastic. I have been very tired of emailing myself photos or using a third party app that usually crashes or wrecks my photo library. The ability to share files with someone near you through AirDrop will make sending photos to my wife much easier. When I take a photo of our boys she always wants me to send it to her and this is usually a pain. With AirDrop enabled on your iPhone or iPad, you can send files to others who have AirDrop enabled and are near you. I will learn more about this feature once I get back to my office. Here in the conference center in Seattle I am pretty sure nobody else has iOS 7.

iWork for iCloud: I have not spent much time looking at iWork for iCloud but it will be nice to be able to edit docs online with out having to open them up in an app. Being that my workflow is entirely Mac and so is my office, we don’t really need to worry about collaborating with those who use other platforms such as Windows. What I am hoping for is an easy way to collaborate with documents that are saved in iCloud. Google has done well with this. Being able to share a document with others and work on it together is a neat feature. For Apple, I think that taking iWork to the cloud will make it easier for those unfamiliar with iWork to experience it. It will also make it easy to edit documents should you find yourself on a computer that does not have iWork installed on it. For people like me who have their MacBook Pro with them at all times, it will not matter as much. Apple even said that the native iWork apps will provide a better experience than the iCloud version. I am sure that there will be many more features added in the future as this is just the beginning of cloud document management for Apple.

OSX Mavericks

It’s not as catchy of a name but it’s the new OS coming for Mac and it looks fantastic. Apple has added many features that users such as myself have wanted. I am very excited about the features that will make it easier for multiple displays to be used with out effecting your single display use. Using a second display with my MacBook Pro has been a pain because when I disconnect that screen, all of my windows get reorganized. I like things to be where I left them and it looks like Apple has made it easier to use a second monitor.

There are a few hacks that I have used for years now that are being introduced into OSX Mavericks such as tabs in finder. I always hated having multiple finder windows open. Using tabs has made it easier to manage and get around different folders. I use TotalFinder which makes it easy to do this and easy to hide your finder window and bring it back when you need it. We will see if tabs in finder will be enough to get me to remove TotalFinder altogether.

I am super excited for Tagging. I always try to create a file structure that will help me remember where I saved files. I always end up with a couple of copies of files because I forget that I had already downloaded something and saved it. Tagging will make it easier for me to view items that may be in different folders but are part of the same project.

Battery life is going to be drastically improved in the new version. I have often struggled with the desire to have a long lasting battery and a powerful laptop. My MacBook Pro is maxed out with the most powerful processor and memory on the market because I need it to work quickly so I can get on to the next task. Longer battery life with out having to buy a new laptop sounds great to me.

Safari is looking great. Since Google announced the decommissioning of Reader, I have been trying to decide what I will use to read websites using RSS. I may end up using Safari for this. I currently use Google Chrome because I like having access to bookmarks, tabs, browsing history and pretty much everything else across all of my devices but now Safari will have this functionality as well. Though Google Chrome is pretty robust and works well, I may switch back to Safari for a while to see how it performs. As I write this, I am using Google Chrome but I will be giving Safari a try once OSX Mavericks is released.

iCloud Keychain is going to be a game changer. Password management in Google Chrome and most other browsers has been hit and miss. I have tried managing passwords using Chrome and the passwords are often not found when I try to access the same site on other devices. The only thing that is going to be a downfall of iCloud Keychain over Google Chrome Sync is the fact that iCloud Keychain will only be for iOS and Mac devices where as Google Chrome Sync works across all devices with Chrome installed which includes Android.

I have often avoided Calendar in OSX because it is a pain to use. I use Fantastical because it is much easier to use and manage calendar events. With the added features and Maps integration into Calendar, I think it will be much easier to manage events and tasks in Calendar than it was before.

iBooks coming to the Mac will actually make it useful to me. I purchase most of my books through Kindle because it works on all devices. iBooks is adding some really nice note taking features which will make it easy to read and take notes. For the classroom, this will be epic. I am pretty excited to see where this goes and how my kids will use it to learn in the coming years.

Mac Pro

I could not be more excited about the announcement of the soon to come Mac Pro. Most of the time I do not need that kind of power but when it comes to doing video, I need it. Allowing my iMac to render video during the day brings it to a crawl and I can’t accomplish much else while it is doing it. The Mac Pro usually can handle those tasks quickly and still have extra power to work on extra tasks. I am sure the price points will be similar but I am eagerly awaiting more info on this product.

iOS 7 and the No New iPhone

I installed the new iOS 7 yesterday and I have a love/hate relationship with it so far. I like many of the new features added, which I will explain below, but the design is going to take a lot of time to get used to.

The new flat design is not appealing to me. The shapes and designs look more like a mock up than they do actual user interface elements. This is not the first time I have disagreed with Apple’s design of things but I am pretty sure they know what they are doing. Being that about 2 months ago I switched to Android as my primary phone, I will have to spend more time with iOS 7 to see if it will make me want to switch back to iPhone as my primary device.

Apple did not announce a new iPhone, and I think that is smart. There is a small amount of people out there that would switch phones for slightly better performance in low light. This was the main reason I switched to the HTC One as my primary phone. I usually have my iPhone on me as well or with in reach, but the HTC One has been my phone since it came out a little over a month ago.

There are many new features in iOS 7 that will make it easier to use and more efficient. Many of the new bells and whistles in iOS 7 are just upgrades to already existing features. Here are a couple of my favorites.

  • Control Center – Now we have an easy way to do things like switch off Wifi, turn on the flashlight and adjust screen brightness.
  • Multitasking – More apps will have access to multitasking and apps will be updated with the new content when you launch them instead of launching them and then waiting for new content.
  • Notification Center – Now you can view notifications in the lock screen. The new notification center is much more robust and easy to manage.
  • AirDrop – Now you can share files with other people from iOS device to iOS device using AirDrop. Much easier to get photos and other stuff to your friends.
  • Photo App – Photos are managed much better. Instead of a huge list of images, everything is categorized and grouped, sometimes automatically for you.
  • Siri Updates – Siri is much more useful and smarter now. For me, I will use Siri to see tweets, read iMessages and turn on/off features of the phone.
  • Near Me Apps – You can see apps that are popular near you which is cool because you can see which games or social apps are popular in your area which makes using them more fun.

ios7photos ios7photos2

What is iOS 7 Missing?

In my opinion, Sharing is still broken in iOS. By broken, I mean that it never existed. In Android, I can take a photo in Snapseed, edit it and share it right to Instagram with in seconds. It is a nice workflow for making sure my images look good on their way to Instagram. When I come across an article that I want to share, I can share it to any of my social apps easily with a few taps. You can accomplish these things in iOS but you have to save your images then open them with the other app or copy an article link and paste it into the app you want to share with. It’s a process I try to avoid. I do not understand why iOS does not want to make it easy to share content to any app. I understand that they have Twitter and Facebook integrated into iOS but that is not good enough in a world where we are posting to multiple social networks and profiles. I don’t understand why any community manager or online social person would want to use anything else other than Android right now.

Typing should be on it’s way out. It is so much more efficient to Swype your words. Google has integrated this type of data entry into it’s core keyboard and many other keyboard apps on Android support different variations of Swype. Swype allows you to create words by dragging your finder over the letters as you spell out the word. To spell the word “phone” you would tap down on the letter p and drag your finger across the keyboard as you made your way over h, o, n and e. Once you get the hang of it you can knock out entire sentences very fast. I am so used to it that when I have to type normally on a smart phone it’s annoying. Apple should allow developers to create keyboard replacement apps like Android has allowed.

Innovation also seems to be missing from iOS 7. Though Apple has innovated some neat new products this year they failed to do much other than add some new flavor on top of features already had in previous versions of iOS. Being that they completely redesigned the look and feel of the iPhone operating system, I feel that was a cloak that covered up the fact that they should have developed some truly new features we didn’t know existed.

Apple Knows Best

I know that Apple has not just been sitting on their hands over the last couple of years. They have tons of amazing talent that I am sure is developing amazing technology that they are not ready to put out yet. I know that a huge part of it comes down to how much life they have left in other products. They didn’t release a new iPhone yet because they don’t have to. People are still buying the iPhone 5 and I bet sales will jump now that people know there is no iPhone 6 coming in the near future. Besides a better camera, I don’t need anything else out of my iPhone 5 as far as the device itself goes. Time will tell whether or not iOS 7 will be enough to keep my interest. Google didn’t announce a new version of Android at Google I/O this year so you can bet Android is just going to get better this year. I sure hope that Apple has a few bells and whistles left to add to iOS 7 before it’s final release.

It is evident in their new Mac Pro that Apple can innovate. That device is beautiful and will be a powerful trophy that will live on the desktop because it’s so nice to look at. The desktop computer no longer lives on the floor, I think that is what Apple aimed to do with the new Mac Pro.

The Macbook Air is also a revolutionary product. You can see that every pc manufacture has been trying to copy it as more and more laptops start to look like Macbook Airs and Macbook Pros. The fact that your laptop can last all day on a single charge is amazing. At these conferences that I attend we are all often sharing wall outlets to keep our laptops charged. Apple has definitely built technology that you can not afford to live with out.

What do you think?

How did you feel about the keynote? Do you think that Apple innovated this year?

I Don’t Buy Music, I Stream It

Posted on by Jerad Hill

Over the past few years I have moved away from the industry standard of “owning” a copy of music produced by the artists I enjoy. It started with Apple’s iTunes. I started purchasing digital copies of music instead of CDs because it was cheaper. I didn’t necessarily want the whole artists album. I just wanted access to the songs I enjoyed most. To be honest, I can not remember the last time I purchased an actual CD album. I know that I have purchased CDs of music from friends of mine who are in bands to support them, but I haven’t walked into a music store to purchase a CD from a mainstream band in over 6 years at least.

Over the last few years, digital streaming services have become more popular. Rhapsody tried to do it but never really took off like the streaming services of today, Spotify and Rdio. When Rdio started a few years ago, I jumped on board. I loved the fact that I could have access to listen to music when I wanted. I had been using Pandora since it first launched back in 2000 but always disliked the fact that I didn’t have control to listen to exactly what I wanted to listen to. Rdio gave me more flexibility but they did not have a large library at the time. When Spotify came to the US, I was all over that. I joined immediately. I also joined Rdio again with the goal of figuring out which platform is best for me.

It has now been just over a year since Spotify opened up in the US. I have been a premium subscriber since launch and also a subscriber to Rdio. I use Rdio much more often than I do Spotify. I will outline the reasons below. Before I get into that I want to mention that I actually do still buy songs from time to time. As a Wedding Photographer and Wedding Videographer, I use music in my work. None of my finished client work is commercially resold, it is just for their private use. The Copyright Act of 1976 outlines use of authored material allowed for personal use so long as that does not become commercial or publicly shared on the open market. From time to time, if I can not find a royalty free alternative, I will purchase a few mp3s from Amazon to use in a project.

Ok, so Spotify and Rdio are the biggest players in Music Streaming right now. They both offer a large library of music on demand. You can create your own playlists, add music to your library for playback later and save the music for offline playing. You can not actually use the music outside of Spotify, Rdio or something that integrates with one of the two. Over the last year, both services have launched mobile apps, apps for newer TVs and DVD Players. You can easily get access to the music on these services anywhere. If you use a smartphone app, you can save your music in the app for offline use so you do not have to use your data plan to stream music when you are away from a Wifi connection.

Now I love music. I love finding new artists and enjoying their work. In the past this meant having to purchase all of these songs or albums which was expensive. On average, I find at least a new album every couple of days that I want access to and at least 5-10 songs per week. Think about how much that would cost me in CDs or even mp3s on iTunes? I used to spend over $150 every month on iTunes. I have the receipts to prove it. Now I spend $17.99 on Rdio for complete access for my wife and I. We each have our own accounts. My wife didn’t buy music often but only because she didn’t want to have a $150 per month habit like I did. Now she has access to tons of music for her own listening pleasure and to have fun stuff for my boys to listen to.

Are streaming services slowly killing the artists? No! Steaming services pay royalties to the artists in a similar way that a production studio would pay for access to include a song in a commercial or a movie. It is still a check in the hands of the record labels, who control the whole game anyway. Before Spotify and Rdio, I consumed a lot less music. This means that I listened to the albums more often that I purchased. My $150 per month only went to a few artists. Now that I stream music, I listen to much wider range of music and artists than I ever did before. Though I am not sure the actually amount these artists are getting paid, and was unable to find that data online, I am not sure now much supporting of each artist I am doing. However, I am continuously suggesting artists to people. I let Spotify and Rdio post to my Facebook and I have public playlists that I share with others also. This leads to artist discovery and more support for artists. Streaming is the way things are moving. I prefer to have access to something rather than to have racks of something stored at my home. I used to have over 500 CDs and over 200 DVDs. I don’t even buy books anymore unless the title is not available in digital format. How cool is it to have access to all of our media whenever we want it? Super cool I say!

The difference between Spotify and Rdio

Spotify and Rdio preform the same basic function. They give you access to new and old music on demand. Both have large libraries and it is not often that I cant find an artist on one service but can find it on the other. Both services allow you to create playlists and share them with your friends. The main differences between the two is that Spotify is more integrated with Facebook, so you can see what your Facebook friends are publicly listening to and have access to their playlists. Rdio has it’s own following system where you can follow people, see their listening activity and have access to their playlists. To me, Rdio is doing this better. I already know what most of my Facebook friends are listening to because they post it on their walls. I want access to people who have similar tastes in music whom I do not already know. It’s a big world out there. Rdio also allows you to add music to your collection, very similar to having music in your library in iTunes. With Spotify, you have to create playlists. When I create playlists I am creating a collection of artists songs that I like listening to together. I am not used to creating a playlist for an artist by name unless I am creating a playlist of my favorite songs by an artist. Most of the time this is not how we organize music. I don’t want 100’s of playlists, I want a dozen good playlists and then if I want to go to my library to listen to complete albums, I can do that. Nothing on Spotify or Rdio is more than a search away, so one can argue that there is no reason to need to have a collection or library anyway, but it is still faster to access artists in your collection than it is to do a search for them by name.

Making the switch:
Spotify and Rdio allow you to sync your iTunes playlist over so you can access the music you already have along with any new music you discover. In Spotify, you are allowed to sync folders of music as well, which is good if you purchased your music from somewhere other than iTunes. Rdio only gives you syncing ability from iTunes. This is not a big deal for me at this point because I rarely listen to music that I have in iTunes. Most of the music I listen to now is newer and something I had not already purchased. I was aware of my listening habits. I find new music all of the time to enjoy and then occasionally go back to artists I previously found. Most of the time, one or two tracks find their way into a playlist I create and rarely do I revisit an artists entire album. Because I consume music this way, it is much cheaper for me to subscribe to a service such as Spotify or Rdio than it is to purchase the music. I spend less than $30 per month on music streaming. If only the movie and tv industries would get on board in a similar fashion. Perhaps I will write about Hulu and Netflix next.

My music addiction:
I love music. It helps me concentrate. Different genres of music keeps me motivated while doing specific tasks. To get a good workout in at the gym, I need something loud and fast. To dance, I need something fast and hard hitting. To relax, I need something chill and melodic. On top of that, I love new music. I often over play a song but it’s at my own doing, not because the radio overplayed it. I am sure that some of you can relate. The amount of music that I consume now has grown so much that my monthly addition would probably cost over $300 now, if not more. If streaming services have done anything, it has allowed me to get passionate about more artists and given me a voice to share these artists with others who have not heard of them before.

One such artist discovery that I made in Spotify was The Wombats. If it was not for finding them in Spotify, I would have never fallen in love with their style and music. I would have never purchased tickets to see them in the Bay Area and drove all of the way up there to see them perform live. This has been the case with many other bands as well.

Spotify Pros and Cons (this is just my pros and cons, which may or may not be a pro or a con to you):

Pros:
Fast streaming, high quality streaming, playlist creation, artist radio (similar to Pandora), view Facebook friends playlists, ability to sync music from any folder, not just iTunes.

Cons: No easy way to discover popular music unless Spotify suggests it or a Facebook friend has it in a playlist. No way to add music to a collection, you have to add it to a playlist or favorite the songs or albums. No easy way to get to artist albums with out searching.

Rdio Pros and Cons:

Pros: Fast streaming, high quality streaming, playlist creation, ability to add artists to a collection or library. You can sync your iTunes playlist

Cons: Currently no way to view new or popular artists by Genre (I did email Rdio about this and it is a feature that is coming soon). You can not sync music from folders, only iTunes (sorry Amazon mp3 customers).

If you like Indie Rock and Alternative, you should checkout my Hill Media Group playlist, which is what we listen to mostly here at the office:
Hill Media Group Playlist on Rdio: Launch
Hill Media Group Playlist on Spotify: Launch

My profile on Spotify: Jerad Hill’s Spotify
My profile on Rdio: Jerad Hill’s Rdio

Here is a screenshot of my Spotify account:

Here is a screenshot of my Rdio account: