Marianne Schultz

the musings of a geeky girl

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How the iTunes DRM-free upgrade jacked up my music listening experience

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As you may already know, Phil Schiller announced at Macworld Expo last month that the iTunes music store was going to start offering DRM-free music and that people would be able to “upgrade” their previously-purchased DRM-protected music to DRM-free files. I was thrilled to hear that and haven’t begrudged paying for the upgrades that have become available since the announcement. Unfortunately, these upgrades have wrought havoc with my primary method of enjoying my music: smart playlists.
I have multiple smart playlists that automatically sort out music added within a certain time period and consider their rating as well. What I quickly found out with the DRM-free upgrades is that replaced music is considered as added to your library on the day you do the upgrade. Yes, this makes sense when I think about it, though it irks me that the upgrade process can still manage to keep my assigned ratings intact when replacing the DRM-protected files – so why can’t it keep the date marker the same? Grrrrr.
So, I now have a bunch of playlists that are completely useless to me since they’re pulling my upgraded music in addition to my latest downloads of new music. If I really want to focus on the real new music I’ve gotten recently, I’ll need to do it manually. I frankly didn’t realize how much I rely on these smart playlists in listening to my music until this happened. When trying to listen to music on my iPhone these days, I literally stare at the screen for a few moments to get my bearings and think about what I want to listen to rather than automatically going to my new music playlist or the playlist that pulls my 4 and 5-star rated music added in the last 6 months. I don’t buy that much music, but it’s still very easy for me to lose track of new music if I don’t hear it soon after I buy it.
There you have it – my music listening experience all jacked up thanks to an arguably fabulous move made by Apple. Damn, damn, and damn!

Post-CES recovery and Palm Pre thoughts

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I wouldn’t say I’m fully recovered from the sleep deprivation and jet lag from CES last week, but I’m better. I still can’t manage to get out of bed early enough to work out before work, but I hope to get back into my normal schedule next week. I’m the type of girl who needs her sleep, and not being able to sleep in periodically adds up even over short periods of time. We’ve got one of those Tempurpedic beds, so sleeping = snuggly heaven.

CES was crazy – going there as press meant I spent 99% of my time looking at my assigned products (for a sister site covering products I’m less familiar with) on the show floor, taking pictures of them, and then writing about them. I had absolutely no time to wander the show floor for myself, and even if I had, I was too tired to really get excited about anything. The one thing that I did cover for work was the Palm announcement, and that actually was a bit exciting.
At the event, I sat in the second row to see John Rubinstein, Ed Colligan, and the new Pre smartphone in all their glory. There were a few big-time bloggers I recognized in the line beforehand – one who was really loud and quite annoying, and another who felt his fame allowed him to get in and out of the line wherever he pleased at will. Should I ever become web-famous (insert incredulous chortle here), I promise I won’t turn into a jackass. Anyway, the event was not nearly as thrilling as the Macworld keynotes I’ve attended, unsurprisingly. It felt like the audience only warmed up toward the end of the event after most of the details of the Pre had been covered and the webOS demo had concluded, an understandable hesitation given Palm’s lack of innovation in recent years.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed my Tweet last week describing how the Pre may tempt me away from my iPhone. I know other iPhone fans out there may feel I’m crazy, easily swayed by new shiny objects, or both, but I urge you to watch the event video that’s now up on Palm’s site to see the full demo for yourself. I was telling a co-worker that it feels like the Palm software engineers started with an iPhone and said, “What functionality can we add to this to create a device that’s even better?” It’s got all the iPhone hardware basics – a decently-large touchscreen (capacitive as well, I think), WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth, though the Pre has an edge with the A2DP stereo Bluetooth profile. Software-wise, the webOS seems to offer as slick of an interface as on the iPhone, with the added bonus of multi-tasking and built-in syncing with Google apps and Facebook.
Now, I have to qualify my potential switch to the Pre. A.) I need an unlocked GSM version compatible with AT&T’s 3G network that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. B.) It MUST easily sync with my Mac – iCal, Address Book, my DRM-free iTunes music, the whole kit and kaboodle. C.) The 3rd-party apps must match or exceed what I’ve got on my iPhone already (entertaining games, Twitter client, eBook reader, SplashID or equivalent, MobileMe iDisk access, etc.). To get all of that in the Pre, I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to wait a while. Of course, it won’t play the videos I buy or rent from iTunes no matter what, so I’m a little screwed regardless, and I really don’t want to carry another device since I’ve gotten very used to my iPhone as my portable media player as well.
I’ll give a shameless plug here – for a fabulous first impression review of the Pre, check out this one. To see Palm’s press event video, now up on their site, go here. As a co-worker pointed out, do you see the structural similarities of Palm’s site to Apple’s now? Mr. Rubinstein is indeed exerting a lot of influence at Palm from his last job, methinks.
Regarding the Epic Failage I mentioned in my last post about my USB Modem, I tried in vain to use it at the Palm press event (why they didn’t have a WiFi network for the press, I do not know). Frankly, I don’t think it was the modem’s fault at all – I chalk it up to the overload on AT&T’s network (I saw a ton of iPhones to begin with, and I’m guessing the majority of them were locked and on AT&T’s network). I even tried tethering to my iPhone with NetShare – no dice with that either. I do feel bad that the modem I recommended didn’t work out for Chris over at EverythingiCafe.com – sorry, Chris! 🙁

New review: Incase Neoprene Sleeve for MacBook Air

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As I mentioned in my Blog, I picked up a sleeve to use with my new MacBook Air in a bit of panic once I realized I had absolutely nothing suitable to protect it during my commute to and from work and around town. It’s been working out well for me but it does have its weaknesses and I don’t recommend it for every situation. Read my full review here to get all the details.

Safari is the bane of my existence

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Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn. Safari is still crashy after the latest iPhone firmware update, despite the “Improved stability and performance of Safari” line in the release notes. I should know better than to expect that this major problem that has plagued my iPhones through every firmware version would be magically fixed in a single update. But I thought that maybe, just maybe, the iPhone software engineers at Apple had figured this one out. Cue wrong answer buzzer sound now.

I think there’s some other sensor in the iPhone that Apple has never disclosed. It senses when you’re looking something up on the internet with desperate urgency and then causes Safari to crash at the penultimate moment before you get to what you need. I should know, because that’s how it always works for me. Bastards.

iPhone + NetShare + MacBook Air = Perfection

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You know, I just can’t praise NetShare enough. I’m really not trying to rub in the fact that I have it with the folks who missed the opportunity to buy it from the App Store – I swear. I am just regularly stunned by how useful it is. Yes, I know I could accomplish the same thing with a jailbroken app (I think it’s PDANet?), but I didn’t have a good experience jailbreaking one of my first-generation iPhones to make me hesitant enough to do it to my 3G. Regardless, I’m on the train heading home from work, no WiFi network in sight, and I’m able to browse the internet, check email, and blog on my MacBook Air through my iPhone’s data connection. Freaking brilliant.

There are rumors out there about AT&T officially announcing tethering for the iPhone, with the monthly rate for this feature at $30 at a minimum. And, this won’t be an unlimited plan with a cap of 5GB per month. I’m not the type of girl to steal cable (well, not anymore) and am not opposed to paying for a service I use. But I already get unlimited data with my iPhone’s data plan and pay $30 a month for that. I’ll just keep using NetShare (carefully enough to not set off any alerts at AT&T), thank you very much.

(To be clear, this isn’t my first experiencing with tethering. My first foray was with a Sony Clie NX70V PDA, a Bluetooth Memory Stick Adapter, and a Sony Ericsson T68i. God, that was ages ago!)

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