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Perhaps it's a bit of a case of "iTunes 10 Envy"?  Hot off the release of the new version of iTunes, a new rumor out today is that Google is working on negotiating with music labels to try and secure licensing for a music download store as well as a "digital song locker."

Google Vice President of Engineering Andy Rubin, the guy behind Android mobile OS, has been holding meetings with label honchos to try and sell an in-development online music store, according to Reuters.  The hope is that Google can launch the service by Christmas say sources.

Execs are said to be pretty keen on Google trying to compete with iTunes.  The report says that while the labels are "grateful" about what Apple has done for digital music sales,  the labels are also worried about Apple's increased share.  Currently, the iTunes Music Store makes up 70 percent of all digital music sales here in the U.S.

"Finally here's an entity with the reach, resources and wherewithal to take on iTunes as a formidable competitor by tying it into search and Android mobile platform," according to one label exec.  "What you'll have is a very powerful player in the market that's good for the music business."

According to another exec, "we're cautiously optimistic because Google has great scale and reach but doesn't have a track record in selling stuff."

What do you think readers?  Would a little competition between Google and Apple be good for the music industry?  Or not so much?  Feel free to leave comments below!

via AppleInsider

Follow this article's author, Matthew Tilmann on Twitter

(Image courtesy of slashfilm.com)

You knew it was only a matter of time.  It was three years ago that the first test footage of Tron: Legacy premiered at Comic-Con.  Wouldn't it be something to be able to experience something of that caliber first hand?  If all goes well for the merry band of Disney Imagineers, the Tron: Legacy experience could soon be coming to Disneyland, according to Slash Film.

Disney has already changed up the monorails in Orlando to become light bikes, to help promote the upcoming release.  Other rumors on the docket are that Flynn's Arcade will become a part of Tomorrowland, there'll be a refresh of the People Movers and perhaps even a new Tron: Legacy ride.

Below are some images courtesy of Slash Film that give a glimpse into some of the concept art for ElecTRONica:

ElecTRONica is going to be a nighttime dance party/experience that'll happen every Friday, Saturday and Sunday coming this fall at Hollywood Pictures Backlot in Disney California Adventure park starting October 8th, 2010.  Here's a further breakdown on the experience according to the DisneyParks Blog:

It’s an “electrifying” experience for the entire family, filled with music, lights and some of your favorite food and beverage, all set amidst the captivating world of “TRON: Legacy!”  From a dazzling dance club under the stars to an authentic recreation of Flynn’s Arcade to some radical gaming, it’s like nowhere else on the grid!  Each night, we’ll feature live entertainers, complete with lasers, glow accessories and the hottest music ever to rock the grid.  ElecTRONica is “the” place to dance the night away in a fantastic world that only Disney can create. Highlights for the entire family will definitely be Flynn’s Video Arcade, face painting and the TRON: Evolution video game area.  TRON fans and families can also enjoy the party seven days a week during Thanksgiving week and Christmas week.

As far as an actual ride, Disney's President of Production/Tron Legacy producer Sean Bailey had this to say at Comic-Con:

“We don’t know yet. Look, as a kid, I went to the park like you. Certainly, the idea that something you worked on is ultimately one day at the park, what a thrilling possibility. These rides take a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of thinking to do them at the level our Imagineers so brilliantly do. So I think it’s kind of in the thinking about stage, but man, I would love it if it became a reality one day.”

As would we Sean, as would we!

Follow this article's author, Matthew Tilmann on Twitter

Steve may want us to stop thinking about CDs when we think about music, and while that makes sense, the new iTunes icon isn't to everyone's liking.

Swapping out icons is nothing new. Mac users have been doing it for years. This will be a quick refresher for some of you. For the new Mac users out there, this is a fun way to customize your Mac.

First you find an icon you like. Iconfactory has a great selection of icons. For us we're going to replace the iTunes 10 icon with the icon from iTunes 9. Some of us like the old icon. Call us sentimental.

If you updated to iTunes 10 before saving the iTunes 9 icon, you're in luck. We have a zip file with the icon attached to a folder. Go ahead and download it.

First, we're going to backup our iTunes 10 icon. Just in case we change our minds later.

1. Select the iTunes 10 application in the Applications folder.

2. You'll want to Get Info. You can do that by selecting Command-I or navigating to the Menu Bar File>Get Info.

3. The Info window will pop up. Select the icon at the top on the window and copy it. You can copy with Command-C or Edit>Copy.

4. Create a new folder in the Finder. Call it "iTunes 10 icon backup". Get Info on the folder and paste (Command-P or Edit>Paste) the iTunes 10 icon over the default folder icon. Store that folder somewhere.

5. Select the iTunes 10 app Get Info window. You'll need to change the access privileges in order to change the application's icon. Click on the lock in the lower right hand corner. You'll be prompted for your password.

6. Change the Access for everyone to Read & Write. Remember to change this back to Read only when you're done.

7. Now grab the folder you downloaded earlier with the iTunes 9 icon. Now repeat the copy and paste we described in steps 3 and 4 to change the iTune 10 app icon to the iTunes 9 icon.

8. Change the everyone access back to Read Only. Close the all the Get Info windows.

9. iTunes 10 should be sporting the old-school icon now. To change the icon in the Dock. Shut down iTunes. Remove the icon from the Dock. Relaunch iTunes. The icon should now be the old iTunes icon.

10. To keep the icon in the Dock.  Right-click the dock icon, select options, select Keep in Dock.

That's it. Now if only we could figure out a way to bring colors back to the Source bar in iTunes 10.

Follow this article's author, Roberto Baldwin, on Twitter.

The new iTunes is out. While it's, let's just say different looking, we took a good hard look at the latest update to the hardest working app on our Macs and came up with some tips, tricks and features you might find helpful. From Ping to Album Art List View, we check out the good, the bad and the gray.

Ping

Opt In

Ping is opt in, so you have to turn it on in order for it to work. If you're concerned that Apple is going to pull a Facebook on you, put the aluminum foil down--Apple seems to have learned from the bad press surrounding Facebook's tendency to automatically opt-in its users to new features. You have to turn Ping on in order to start judging your friend's musical taste.

Becoming friends with people with restricted accounts

Unless you actually know the person and you're fine giving them the email account you use for iTunes, we suggest you steer clear of adding people with restricted accounts. And really, what are these people hiding? We all know you love Milli Vanilli. Blame it on the rain...

Posts?

Unlike Twitter and Facebook, there is no "post" what you ate for lunch option on Ping. Everything is based around music and friends.

You can post an album to your account via iTunes. After clicking the post button, you can add your musical pearls of wisdom.

You can also "Like" an album then comment on that.

Or you can just buy the album and tell the world why it's important for everyone else to buy the album.

Finally, you can comment and "Like" items in Recent Activity.

Go away Lady Gaga--Fixing recent activity

If it was up to Apple, we'd all be fans of Lady Gaga. The top of Recent Activity defaults to showing you people and artists you should follow. You can get rid of that and make the Recent Activity page actually useful by highlighting, well, recent activity.

To hide people to follow, artists to follow and search from Ping: Just navigate to the top left corner and click on the X. Don't worry, they're in the right-hand column.

A clean Recent Activity

Only featured artists so far

If you're looking for Bad Brains, Morrissey, The Arcade Fire, Britney Spears, or really anyone that doesn't show up in Apple's Featured Artist list, you're going to be disappointed. So far, only a few artists have jumped on the Ping bandwagon. Hopefully more artists will join the party soon.

Ping is available everywhere in iTunes

Seriously, it's in the Source bar on the left, it's in the menu bar of the iTunes store. Everywhere you look, Ping. If you haven't seen it by now, it's probably because of the new bland gray color scheme of iTunes.

No swears

If you have a "colorful" vocabulary, Ping is going to automatically tone it down for the kiddies. We tried some of our favorite PG-13 words and ended up with the * replacement. What the F**k?

Manually change your top 10 songs

No one we've met has agreed with the automatically populated top 10 songs Ping picked for you. The Music I Like option says that they will, "Automatically display all music I like, rate, review, or purchase." We're pretty sure purchase trumps the rest of that list. While we listen to certain albums over and over again, it chose an album we purchased and then never listened to because it sucked.

To fix this, navigate to My Profile > Edit profile, and scroll down to Music I like. Check Manually pick the Music to Display. Use the Search for Music box to search for songs you actually like.

If you think you're going to be able to pick songs not in the iTunes store, you would be mistaken. It's a huge mistake on Apple's part to not allow you to populate your top songs with music not available in iTunes. Oh well, fingers crossed for an update.

Preview what you own?

When you click on your Music I Like, instead of just playing the song. If you like it, you probably own it. It pops up with the preview of the album the song is on.

Preview your friends picks

If someone posts an album that interests you, you can click on Show Songs right below the album art to preview the album.

Invitations

You can invite friends to Ping via email or with Facebook Connect. As of writing this, Facebook Connect is wonky disabled and invite via email isn't tied to your address book. You have to type in every email address.

Share your profile

Instead of dealing with broken default ways of sharing your Ping profile, just navigate to Your Profile. Right-click on your name and select Copy Link from the contextual menu.

You can paste that into Facebook, Twitter, or any other way you can think of. It's faster and easier.

iPhone Ping Party

Remember when Steve said you could get your Ping on with your iPhone? Well, Plug your iPhone into your Mac after you update to iTunes 10 and it pushes Ping onto your iPhone.

Next Page: iPhone & iTunes >>

iPhone

Step by step

If you're a tad obsessive, iTunes new Showing Steps during sync will appease your, "What the hell is iTunes doing right now?" issues. While syncing, iTunes now shows what step it's currently conducting and how steps you have total.

Additional playlists for your iOS Device

You no longer have to create a smart playlist just so the latest LCD Soundsystem album's tracks will end up on your iPhone. Now in addition to genres, playlists and artists, you can just choose an album to always sync to your iOS device. There are additional options for Podcasts, TV Shows, Movies and audio books.

Sort Apps by Kind

Now you can sort apps in iTunes by Kind. Helpful when you're trying to find a game, but you can't quite remember the name of it.

iTunes

Fix the traffic light buttons

This is the oddest addition to iTunes 10, instead of following years of UI design, Apple decided to set the buttons up like traffic lights.

Odd to say the least.

To get the buttons back where they belong, along the top of the iTunes media window you'll need to open the Terminal. Navigate to Applications > Utilities >Terminal. Copy and paste the following command.

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

Restart iTunes. Tada, it's fixed.

(Tip via the entire Internet)

Photos to share

You may have noticed a new option Advanced menu bar item, Choose photos to share, Advanced > Choose photos to share. It looks promising, but only works with the brand new Apple TV that isn't out yet.

Hide Source items

Instead of arrows to hide Shared, Genius and Playlists, you now use the hidden Hide option. To undercover the Hide option, hover over the the Source item and Hide appears.

Album Art Player

When you enlarge album art, you can now control iTunes from within the art. To do this, click on artwork in the artwork viewer. Once it's all embiggened, hover over it like a QuickTime X player window and you have all your controls there.

Air stream in the lower right hand corner

If you use Air Tunes, you know great it is. Well now it's called AirPlay and the cool new things you can do with it involve the new Apple TV and according to Apple recievers and speakers from third-party vendors like Bowers & Wilkins and Denon. It's still in the lower right hand corner.

Album Artwork List View

Steve showed us the new Album list at the Apple event. the way it works is that when you have five or more songs from the same album, you get that album artwork in your list view.

If you want album artwork for all of your tracks--especially important when you buy singles with more than one track--navigate to the menu bar View > Always Show artwork. Now every track with album art will have that artwork displayed in your iTunes Album Art list view.

Goodbye Checkboxes

If the checkboxes bother you, you can remove them now. This is nice if you haven't unchecked any of the songs in your iTunes library. Why do you need the checkboxes if you're not using them?

To turn off the checkboxes navigate to the menu bar to iTunes > Preferences > General tab. There, you just uncheck the Show list checkboxes, then click OK.

Goodbye Source icons

If the new cool gray color scheme of iTunes is bringing you down, you can remove some of the elements that haven't seen a box of crayons, the Source icons. Instead of icons, you'll just have the names, Library, Store, Shared, etc.

To turn off the Source icons navigate to the Menu Bar to iTunes > Preferences > General tab. Just uncheck the Show source icons checkbox and hit OK.

Got any cool tips we missed? Drop them in the comments and we'll add our favorites to the article.

Follow this article's author, Roberto Baldwin, on Twitter.

September has arrived, and that means iTunes 10 has landed as well, complete with a swanky new icon, a streamlined (and mostly colorless) new look and a new social networking feature called Ping. But what exactly is Ping, and does it live up to all of Apple’s hype?

Before you confuse Ping with the name of a Flash Gordon villain, let us explain: Ping works within iTunes 10 (and also from the iTunes app in iOS 4-equipped iPhones and iPod touches) and allows you to follow your favorite artists and friends to discover the music they’re talking about, listening to and downloading. Think of it as the modern version of hanging out at the record store, chatting up other customers and sharing your likes and dislikes -- but now you can do it all without leaving the house (and even while still in your underwear, and you won’t even get arrested).

As excellent as Ping might be for avid social network fans, Apple appears to have stopped just short of making it “awesome” -- but that’s where MacLife.com comes in! Here’s a list of the 10 things that we’d like to see added to the Ping service to make it totally rad. (Do the kids still say that these days?)



1. Three Kinds of Genres is Not Nearly Enough

We’re guessing we weren’t alone in setting up our Ping profile for the first time and being greeted with a huge list of music genres from which to select our favorites, only to discover that Apple has decided we should only have three. (Cue the gong!) Say what?

In our particular case, we would have liked to choose a minimum of 10 genres that we like, which would certainly better represent our scattershot taste in music. (Seriously… it’s kind of all over the place like a freight truck dumping its load on the highway. But we digress…) So come on, Apple, let’s put your heads together and get that one fixed, m’kay?

2. Let Us Pick Top 10 Songs That Aren’t on iTunes

Apple has done a great job of bringing a vast array of music to the iTunes Store, but let’s face it: They don’t have everything. We tried to set up our Ping account earlier today and were immediately discouraged by the fact that we couldn’t select from a wider array of tunes, be it from the Gracenote catalog that Apple uses to pull information from when you import a CD, or better yet, straight from our existing library. After all, that data is right there already, so why not make Ping all-powerful and allow us to tap into it?

3. Pick Music We Like More Intelligently

Another head-scratching moment during our Ping setup came when we saw the music that was selected for us in the Music I Like section when we left the default “Automatically display all music I like, rate, review or purchase” setting on. One would think that Apple would choose to use our own smart playlists -- My Top Rated, for example, or even Top 25 Most Played would be a good choice -- but if you said that, you would be wrong.

We have no idea how iTunes 10 decided to choose our particular Music I Like selections, but suffice it to say that we couldn’t choose “Manually pick the music to display” fast enough. ‘Nuff said.

4. Show The Currently Playing Song

This one really seems like a no-brainer, especially since iChat has had this ability for years: We should be able to show our friends what we’re currently listening to, and have it update as we jump from Lady GaGa to disco and on to blues or what have you. It’s all well and good that we can show ten favorites when we set up our profile, but some of us have… how should we put this? Eclectic tastes, to say the least -- so we might be better represented by what we listen to at any given time, rather than the selections we make when we set up our Ping profile.

5. We’re Not Artists, But We’d Like to Share Like We Are

Have you noticed that the musical artists featured on Ping are all allowed to fancy up their profiles with photos, videos and even text updates, while we lowly iTunes users are simply left to comment on or like them? It would be nice if Apple let us share in the fun, too.

Of course, Cupertino may have good reason to run their Ping shop this way -- maybe they know that people will abuse it and start posting stuff that has nothing to do with music sharing, like LOLcats or babies doing funny things. Heck, even the ability for us to link to favorite music videos would be appreciated (either on iTunes or maybe YouTube) and make us feel less like cattle that’s put here just to consume content. (Which we mostly are anyway.)

6. Share Your Ping Profile with Social Networks

Everyone knows that you pretty much don’t exist if you’re not on Twitter or Facebook, and yet as widespread as sharing information is with those social networks, inexplicably, Ping lacks the ability to do even that simple task. Sure, it’s nice to be able to invite more friends via e-mail, but that’s almost as retro as hanging out in the record store and talking music with the shop owner or other customers -- Ping should be making it easier for us to share our secret love of ‘80s one-hit wonders with the world, don’t you think? Speaking of which...

7. Fix Facebook Connect

If you were playing close attention at Wednesday’s media event, you probably saw Facebook Connect present and accounted for during Steve Jobs’ demo of the new Ping feature in iTunes 10. Yet, after a lengthy wait to actually download the new version that night, Facebook Connect didn't show up for everyone. In fact, it's now nowhere to be found. You didn’t imagine it, and it’s even referenced in the welcome e-mail you receive after signing up -- there just seems to be some debate as to exactly where it went.

All Things D’s Kara Swisher has been on the case after reporting that none other than Phil Schiller himself claimed to be “enthusiastic about finding friends via Facebook” yesterday (according to Engadget) -- while CEO Steve Jobs claimed that Facebook was demanding “onerous terms,” although that appears to be in reference to something more substantial than just Facebook Connect, which is widely used by most everyone these days.

The latest revelation claims that Facebook blocked API access to Ping after it launched, so Apple yanked the feature completely. While Facebook Connect has an open API that doesn't generally require permission, larger services such as iTunes would certainly be an exception, given the infrastructure demands for having 160 million rabid iTunes users all trying to connect to Facebook. Apparently Apple and Facebook are still in negotiations and we'd say you'll certainly see this item scratched off our list soon enough.

Meanwhile, there's a Facebook App page for iTunes Ping -- at the moment it's only 624 people, so swing by and "Like" the page. Maybe they were the lucky -- or unlucky, depending on your view of Facebook -- few to get Facebook Connect working before the door shut. Whatever the case, Facebook Connect has almost become like a digital identification card for the Internet, and its absence from Ping is a real black eye for the launch of iTunes 10. Here’s hoping that all gets worked out and the connection gets made again soon. (Pun intended…)

8. Easier Navigation

Maybe it’s the slimmed-down header bar on iTunes 10 that’s throwing us, but one of our first moments of confusion with Ping came when we jumped into a profile and then, for a moment, were uncertain how to get back to the main Ping screen. Yes, we know, there’s a tiny navigation arrow in the upper left corner of the Ping screen and the right side has a sidebar for My Profile, Recent Activity, My Reviews, People and Featured -- but it’s still not enough for our aging eyes. (We confuse easily.)

In case you’re similarly confounded, the black strip above the Ping screen has a link to jump back to the main Ping screen (or one of the other key areas), which is what we’ve been rocking with so far.

9. Keep Our Reviews a Bit More Private

We don’t have as much of a problem with sharing our reviews and ratings with the outside world (or at least the people we choose to share with via Ping) as we do with the fact that Ping is sharing all of our reviews with other users -- including those we give to App Store purchases. (It’s sort of strange that Apple didn’t limit My Reviews just to music since that’s clearly the domain of Ping, but whatever.)

Be that as it may, My Reviews might be nicer if we could actually do something with it other than see what we’ve reviewed -- if you want to actually review something new, you’ll still be forced to go elsewhere in the iTunes Store to do so. Bummer.

10. Selective Sharing

Our biggest grievance with Ping is that it’s kind of an all or nothing proposition: You either turn it on and share your music tastes with other Ping users or you don’t sign up for it in the first place. We’ve all got guilty pleasures that we cherish more than life itself, but that doesn’t mean that we want everyone to know about every track that we’re buying on iTunes.

Although it seems harmless enough on the surface, teenagers probably won’t want their parents to follow them on Ping (even though they are already familiar with your lousy taste in music after hearing it blasted through your bedroom walls), employees won’t want their employer peeking at their music tastes (unless you’ve got Michael Scott as your boss, and then you have worse things to worry about) and most definitely, you won’t want to share your deep-seated love of explicit hip-hop music with your stuffy old grandma. Sometimes, you just don't want to share everything, so it would be great if Apple could implement some sort of way for us to filter what our friends see, a la Facebook privacy options (but better).


*****

Ping probably isn’t for everyone -- some people are quite content with their taste in music and rightfully squeamish about sharing it with just anyone, be it over fears they will be judged or maybe they just don’t want to be subjected to the tastes of other people (we can’t blame you there). It doesn’t feel like Apple totally hit it out of the gate with this first incarnation of Ping, but give it time: The company learns from its mistakes quickly and we suspect future iterations of the Ping service will right some of these wrongs.

Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter

Even though the LG Optimus Pad was more or less outed by the company earlier this week, it looks like a more formal and detailed launch may be taking place later in the month. Invites are being sent out for an LG event to take place September 14th with the Optimus tag attached. Also featured is a picture of a device that may or may not be the Optimus Pad (it doesn’t exactly mirror the same picture from the week’s earlier unveiling). The event could also be focused on the launch of LG’s new Android-based phones, or it could be something equally as interesting but ultimately outside the score of Phandroid in a line of Windows 7 devices.

The possibilities are out there, and nothing would surprise me. A recently leaked shot of a new LG Android and other buzz suggests new phones are definitely on the way, but in the face of the Galaxy Tab and Motorola’s expected slab the Optimus Pad might just be what we get. Any guesses?

[via Pocket-Lint]

It looks like Google might be gearing up for a house-keeping update to the Nexus one to further tweak and refine Android 2.2 on the device. A new build of Froyo for the N1 has leaked, this one dubbed FRG33 and bringing along speed enhancements and the new radio found in the Korean release of the Nexus One. Not present are the newer Google experience apps that were found in the recent leak of the T-Mobile Froyo test build.

If you want to have a go at the latest version XDA’s forums would be place to check. Those that have already loaded it up on their handsets say that the build does feel a bit zippier than before. Let us know what you think!

[via IntoMobile]