Amazon keeps ladling on benefits for its Prime subscription, which launched years ago to provide free two-day shipping in the United States for $79 per year and later added video streaming from a subset of Amazon's film and television catalog. The latest update brings free ebook loans from a selection of thousands of titles, allowing up to one loan per month with no due date. The offer is available only to owners of Kindle hardware, not Kindle apps.
Apple’s recently released Apple TV update 4.4.2 fixes issues with versions 4.4.1 and 4.4, but may have early adopters reaching for the antacid along with their Apple Remotes.
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has sent email to all Netflix customers and posted on the company’s blog with a message that, while somewhat conciliatory, doesn’t exactly acknowledge that the decision to split Netflix into separate DVD and streaming companies was ill-considered. But it does admit that dealing two sites would be more difficult for customers, and summarizes with “This means no change: one website, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.” The next question is how badly Netflix’s missteps will have hurt the company, and if any competitor can take advantage of the debacle.
Over 11,000 U.S. libraries that work with OverDrive, a firm that facilitates digital book lending, will be able to add Kindle-format borrowing to titles they already offer. This move neither opens Amazon’s Kindle catalog nor expands current offerings, however.
After a nearly inexplicable 60 percent price increase in July 2011 was followed by a drop in customers, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has written an apology and explanation that was posted on the company’s blog and sent to all customers in email. In it, Hastings reveals that Netflix will be separating the DVD and streaming sides of the business even more, rebranding the DVD-delivery service to “Qwikster.” Responses (over 10,000 so far) on the company’s blog seem to be universally negative, with customers expressing unhappiness (to put it mildly) with the future separation of services and the pricing. Might be time for Netflix to consider an about-face before it’s too late.
See who won copies of SuperSync 4.1 in last week’s DealBITS drawing, and if you’re not among them, read on to save 20 percent on SuperSync’s iTunes library synchronization software.
If you’ve been frustrated by trying to keep iTunes libraries in sync on multiple Macs, check out this week’s DealBITS drawing for a chance to win a copy of SuperSync 4.1.
Software Update 4.3 for Apple TV (second generation) adds TV show purchasing, streaming access to previous purchases, and access to Vimeo.
The popular European music subscription service Spotify is rolling out in the United States now, and it has been a major topic of discussion on Twitter. Although we’ve taken only a cursory glance so far (seems fine for listening to a limited amount of user-selected music each month for free), Macworld’s music geek Chris Breen has looked at Spotify’s application and service in more detail.
Wonder what the real reason was for Netflix’s recent 60-percent price hike? So did David Pogue of the New York Times, and while he didn’t get a good answer, he at least got to talk with a Netflix spokesperson, who confirmed that it had nothing to do with increased fees for streaming but was instead just a matter of needing more revenue for the combined DVD-plus-streaming plan.
Netflix has announced that they are splitting their DVD and streaming subscription plans, so the previous $9.99 per month plan for unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (one out at a time) will now become two separate plans, a $7.99 unlimited streaming plan and a $7.99 DVD-only plan (again, one out at a time). So, to retain the previous service level, the price goes from $9.99 to $15.98. The change will happen for existing members on or after 1 September 2011; it goes into place for new members immediately. It seems likely that the price increase is due to increased licensing costs from the studios, but if so, Netflix is doing a poor job of educating customers as to what the real costs are. Netflix customers are largely irate at the change, especially given the weasel words in the blog post and the erratic choice for streamed movies.
Sixty-one artists are performing at the iTunes Music Festival in London through the rest of July, and Apple is streaming those performances live all month. You can watch the performances either in the iTunes Store via iTunes on your computer, or via the free iTunes Festival London 2011 app, which is designed for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. If you watch it on an iOS device, you can use AirPlay to stream it to an Apple TV 2 to see it on the big screen.
Apple’s June 6th press release states clearly that iTunes Match-synced music will be free of DRM and copied to your devices.
Alexis Madrigal has written a fascinating article for The Atlantic about how the New York Public Library is not only not floundering in this digital age, but is flourishing in ways that the beleaguered newspaper, magazine, and television industries would do well to examine.
Voyager’s Expanded Books project, which created the first popular ebooks (on floppy disk! in HyperCard!), began on Bloomsday, 1990.