iTunes are having a big announcement

[Square Eyes]

Message here :

Tomorrow is just another day.

That you'll never forget.

Check back tomorrow for an exciting announcement from iTunes.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/


Ooh. 'citing ?

[WillPS]

They're doing a Spotify?

[marksi]

They've started from scratch and entirely rewritten their software so it's not bloated and wants to download 60MB every time it increments it version number by 0.000000001?

[BBC LDN]

They're doing a Spotify?

That would be my guess too.

They bought the Lala streaming music service about eighteen months ago, but so far nothing has been announced that points to the integration of that technology.

In the meantime, Apple has been building one of the world's biggest data centres in North Carolina, at over half a million square feet. Nothing in Apple's current product line-up demands that kind of server volume; the general consensus of speculation is that this is part of a major 'cloud computing' initiative - but the 'cloud' is all encompassing, from online back-ups to webmail and, of course, media streaming.

An iTunes cloud service - whether in the form of a Spotify/Zune-style all-you-can-eat subscription, or simply cloud storage of purchased iTunes content, so that you're effectively paying for access to content, rather than buying and downloading the content to a computer or device - is an inevitability; it's a question of when, rather than if. My tuppence says they'll be announcing something along those lines tomorrow.

A ground-up redesign of the iTunes software would be great though, given that it really is the most terrible piece of shit program I've used since Microsoft Bob.

[Beep]

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/ ... s-deal.ars

Personally, if they've taken the main iTunes site offline it's bigger than Beatles. I hope it is what marksi said, it's such a resource hog using 1.9GB RAM when idle and 98.919919191119999% CPU (like WLM 2011!).

[marksi]

The big news is that they are putting The Beatles tracks on iTunes.

Yawn.

[Sput]

Well if you WILL get excited about a banner rather than a big press event, then you'll probably be disappointed that it's not Magical (tm).

[Gavin Scott]

Yawnorama.

As is the whole idea that iTunes will "do a spotify".

Just get Spotify.

[BBC LDN]

Yawnorama indeed. The whole 'thrill' behind iTunes doing a Spotify is that even if the iTunes version was precisely the same as the Spotify version - matching it exactly, feature for feature - there'd be a vast army of people who would insist that it's BETTER than Spotify for no other reason than it being from Apple... and that of course means that there's big money to be made from it.

Evidently, though, Apple only needs to fart to whip the whole world into a huge frenzy. The idea that this announcement will be some unforgettable, mindblowing moment (a day 'that you'll never forget'? Really?!) is another example of Apple disappearing up its own arse with self-important hyperbole; call me a cynic, but I can't imagine anyone being asked "where were you when iTunes added the Beatles?" in the same way as "where were you on 9/11?" or "where were you when JFK was shot?".

Given Steve Jobs' propensity for the 'one more thing' surprise element of his big announcements, I'd be surprised if the Beatles addition is the only thing being announced today though.

[Nick Harvey]

I have it on good authority that the announcement is that they're going to merge with the Kate Middleton Organisation!

What a way to have your exciting announcement upstaged, eh?

[DVB Cornwall]

Beatles music apparantly according to the News stories sifted by Google News.