iTunes Pass Arrives But It Is Not What You Think

When I see the words "iTunes Pass", I think of Zune Pass. Say what you will about the Zune but one of its strengths over the iPod is the subscription service it offers. For a monthly fee, you can download all the music you want. You can listen to it as much as you want until you either stop paying or the songs are no longer available in the store. Not a bad way to experience music if you don't really care about owning the content.

Well, Apple has launched iTunes Pass and you can get it today! Whoa, wait, stop partying in the streets. Stop hugging each other with excessive joy! It's not quite what you think. Read on.

iTunes Pass is a new service that get you new music and special bonus features for a particular band. The launch of this service is for Depeche Mode's new album, "Sounds Of The Universe". $18.99 gets you a pre-order for the album's release, the new single from the album and a remix that you can download today, and from now until June 16th, 2009, you'll get more songs, videos, remixes, and who knows what else.

If you are a fan of Depeche Mode, this might be a good deal. Chances are, come June 16th, you'll end up with more content than $18.99 would get you otherwise. If you are interested in taking advantage of this iTunes Pass, click here (this link opens in iTunes). Also, if you are indeed a fan of Depeche Mode, feel free to continue the party in the streets and all that. It's cool.

Safari 4 Beta Released

Happy Tuesday! Apple has given us a true gift from the heavens. Starting today, you can download Safari 4, the new version of their popular web browser. You can download it here for Mac OS X (Tiger or Leopard) and Windows XP and Vista.

New features include:

• Nitro engine. A fast Javascript engine that renders 4x faster the previous version of Safari, up to 30x faster than IE, and 3x faster than Firefox. Buckle up for safety.
• Top Sites. A new page built into the browser with thumbnails of all your commonly visited sites. It makes for easy access to your favorite online haunts. If you've used Opera of Google Chrome, this feature will be familiar to you.
• Cover Flow. Love it or hate it, Apple has integrated Cover Flow into your bookmarks. Now you can just scroll your bookmarks like album covers in iTunes.
• Nifty search features! Now you can easily search your entire browsing history. The search bar has been tweaked and now offers suggestions and previous searches as you are typing in your criteria.
• A new facelift. There's a lot of little modifications to the look and feel of the browser as well as some big ones. For one, the page tabs are now located at the top of the browser, much like Google Chrome. For Windows users, you'll find the interface to fall more in line with your other native applications versus the previous version of Safari.

For a more complete list of features, check out the Safari homepage.

Even though it's a beta, Safari 4 seems pretty stable and very fast. I've tried it on both Windows and Mac OS X and, so far, am very impressed. Give it a spin and let everyone know what you think of it in the comments.

Upgrade Your iTunes Library At Your Own Pace

Funny, I was just complaining about this yesterday. When Apple announced that iTunes was going DRM free they offered to let customers upgrade their current DRM'd songs for 30 cents a song. Unfortunately, this offer was an all or nothing proposition. You had to upgrade all of your songs at once.

As of today, you can now upgrade the songs you want, when you want. This is great for people who have a large library of iTunes purchased music.  Even if you want to get all of your songs DRM free, spending the upgrade cost all at once could be prohibitive.  Now you can do your upgrade over time. 

Now, which songs do I want to upgrade first?

Happy 25th Birthday To The Mac

It was January 24th, 1984 when Apple introduced the world to the Macintosh. 25 years later, Apple's Mac platform is alive and well with millions of faithful fans. There has been a lot of stories about the Mac in the media over the last week in celebration of this day so I decided to post links to a few of them here.

• Twitter Users Remember Their First Mac
• CNN: Fans Mark 25 Years Of Mac Devotion
• TUAW: 25 Years Of Macintosh In Photos
• CNet: What's Next For Apple's Mac?
• CNet: Recollections Of The Mac's Creators
• CNet: Readers Reminisce

If you have any stories about the Mac that you would like to share, feel free to post them in the comments.

Bought A New Mac? Get iLife '09 At A Discount

I just read on TUAW that Apple has started their "iLife '09 Hardware Up-to-Date" program. If you bought a Mac on or after January 6th, 2009 and it did not come with iLife '09 installed, you are entitled to upgrade for $9.99 (the retail price of this software is $79.99).

To take advantage of this offer, you will need to have a qualifying Mac purchased on or after the January 6th date and fill out the appropriate form. Before you know it, you'll be taking guitar lessons with Sting and sorting your pictures of Sting like never before!

This offer stands until March 28th, 2009 so if you have a qualifying Mac, act quickly.

Steve Jobs Takes Medical Leave From Apple

Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs has announced that he is taking a leave of absence from the company until the end of June due to health problems.  In his absence, COO Tim Cook will be taking care of the day-to-day operations of the company.  Steve released a statement to employees explaining this decision.

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.

In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.

You can read the entire letter here. 

In 2004, Steve Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He conquered the disease but over the course of 2008 his sudden weight loss was heavily discussed in the media. Prior to last week's MacWorld even in San Francisco, Steve attributed this weight loss to a hormone imbalance. Whatever the reason, hopefully he will be back to himself com July. In the meantime, there's no need to panic! Apple will be in very capable hands.