TDL Live: This week's Apple news and rumors

If you missed, below is this week's TDL Live, bringing you the roundup this week's Apple news and rumors, in handy video form. We're talking about the death of GoLive, the iTunes Music Store birthday, new iMacs and more, Enjoy!

Whatever happened to iMix?

When Apple introduces a new feature, it's usually done quite carefully, and you can count on it being a hit. But what happens when a new feature is added, hundreds of thousands of people use it, then the Apple community seems to collectively forget about it? I'm talking about iMix.

A few iterations of iTunes ago, iMix was added as a way for people to create and share their own personal playlists with the masses. Hey, with all the social networking hullabaloo, it looked like a sure-fire hit. And indeed, there are over 1.3 million playlists uploaded according to Apple. If you're new to iTunes though, you may not have even known the feature exists. iMix is still part of iTunes, but the prominent link on the main page is gone. To get to it, search for "iMix" in the search field, then look in the "related" field in the results.

Why has iMix fallen off the map? Has the community aspect of iTunes been pushed aside to make room for higher profit sections like movie rentals? Are people still using iMix? Does anyone care? Well, a lot of music marketers and advertisers should care. Imagine the information that can be gained about the popularity of particular songs/artists from the iMix lists. And iMix could be a great resource. Let's say you're planning a wedding, and looking for just the right playlist. what better way to start than to see the playlists of other like-minded iTunes users. If you do an iTunes search of "wedding songs" there are no iMix results, and there's not even a way to search iMix. However, if you navigate to the iMix page, by first following the directions above to find it, there are over 100 wedding song playlists, rated by users like you.

iMix can and should be the cornerstone of a new social networking/community component of iTunes, instead of being a wallflower at the largest online (and beyond?) music retailer.

iPod Game Review: Zuma

We sure have seen some hit or miss games for the iPod, but this might be the first undisputed hit...

iTunes Comic Book Store?

Next weekend I'll be taking a trip to NYC to check out the New York Comic Con. Long before I had computers and the internet and video games to take up my spare time, I had comic books. Back then I spent countless hours and dollars on comic books, but now I only occasionally pick up a random issue or graphic novel. Why is that? Is it because there are too many other choices of entertainment? Have I simply out grown them? Or perhaps it's the way I acquire my entertainment that's changed.

This got me thinking. Is there an untapped market for digital comics on a device like the iPhone? Imagine if your favorite comic book series was available via the iTunes Music Store. Apple could ofter a digital comic subscription similar to the season pass that they currently offer for television shows. Issues downloaded to your iMac before they even hit your local comic shop.

Others has discussed the possibility of Apple one day offering e-books through the music store. While the current screen size of the iPhone / Touch would probably hinder using it as an e-reader, I believe it is workable for the comic book medium. To prevent the user from constantly pinching and zooming to readjust the comic book panels, issues would need to be "remixed" into lesser panels per page to allow for a simple and elegant interface. While this remixing wouldn't work for all back issues, it would work for enough to sustain the service, and also open the door for companies to create works designed specifically for the touch screen.

I certainly don't see a service like this ever eliminating traditional comic books, but like downloadable music and films, it's just another way for people to discover and consumer entertainment.

iTunes Movie Store: I am McLovin' BUT I'm not for keeps

When Steve Jobs announced on January 15th the addition of movie rentals to the iTunes Movie Store AND that all major labels were onboard I was extremely excited.  I saw this as the rebirth of iTunes and it's companion product, AppleTV.

I anticipated being able to rent any movie I wanted and if I really liked it I could simply purchase it.  I even went so far to think that I would be able to purchase the movie within 48hrs of watching it.

As it turns out my vision for the rebirth of the iTunes Movie Store has been far from reality.  There seems to be no method to the madness anymore.  Three different scenarios appear on the movie store: some titles you can only purchase, others you can only rent, and if you're one of the lucky ones out there, you'll have the option to do both.

I can understand that a new release may be available to rent before it's available to purchase.  I cannot understand why a new release may never be available to purchase and why there isn't some indication of this.  There is no way of telling if a title will eventually be available to purchase.  Would it be so difficult to add a line of test saying "available to purchase on . . .".  For now it seems that we'll have to guess and keep our fingers crossed.

But what about older movies or movies that were available before the rental feature went live?  For example, I can rent OR buy Kickboxer 4 (and who wouldn't want both options).  I know that I have both of these options because it's listed as "View Movie" on the Action / Adventure genre page.  The original Die Hard . . . only available to rent.  I'd like to have been at the meeting where the decision was made that View Movie would make sense and consumers would equate that to Rent or Buy.  This is just plain bad.  For a uncomplicated store, it's becoming more and more difficult to navigate, but what about the product pages?

One of the great features on the Music Store is the ability to see what other people purchased who also purchased the album you're looking at.  This feature has carried over, but now it's just inaccurate.  Some may say it's semantics, but I don't care.  If you're looking at the movie Independence Day (only available to rent FYI) you can see that "viewers also bought": The Fifth Element (a favorite of mine), The Matrix, Batman Begins, X-Files, and Aliens.  The punch line is that all of those titles are only available to RENT.  Apple seems to think that rent is synonymous with buy or the past tense, bought.

If you've been watching tDL Live, on Monday night at 9pm eastern, over the past few months I've been ranting about Superbad only being available to rent.  As it turns out I'm not the only one who is confused and unhappy about the state of the store.  Little_Man says, "...I highly reccomend u to buy this".  Sorry Apple, Little_Man is sending business elsewhere.  Joe Awesome says, "This movie, was the best comedy I've ever seen.  But the downside is that I want to buy this movie."  I agree Joe Awesome.  Unfortunately you can't, and Apple won't tell you if you'll ever be able to.  From comments on the first page of reviews alone, Joe Awesome and Little_Man are in good company . . . why can't we buy it?  More importantly why can't we tell when / if we'll ever be able to.

I'll save you some time . . . Don't visit the support page on Apple.com, it won't help.  Until further notice . . . Keep those fingers crossed.