iLounge

By Jesse Hollington

Applications Editor, iLounge
Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009
News Category: Mix

Google plans to launch a new music service that will offer song previews, artist information, graphics and music video clips. Contrary to a recent report, the One Box service will apparently not sell downloads or offer subscriptions, but rather will provide a means to search for, preview, and buy music from other online music services. All four of the top record companies are reported to be on board. [via CNet]

The European Union has announced a breakthrough deal between iTunes, music companies, distributors and online licensing groups that will allow for increased Internet music sales throughout Europe. Apple, the companies and rights-holders agreed to work on EU-wide licenses that would allow music content to be sold more widely across the region. Presently, music rights are handled separately in each country. An EU-wide arrangement would pave the way for Apple to set up a single iTunes Store across all European countries, rather than the current per-country iTunes Stores that are presently in place. [via Yahoo Finance]

Adobe reports that its Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone application has seen over one million downloads in its first week of availability. Photoshop.com Mobile provides the ability to perform basic editing and filtering operations for photos on your iPhone, and is available for free from the iTunes App Store. [via MacRumours]

In commentary on Jamie Zawinsky leaving the Palm Pre for the iPhone, John Gruber says that Apple had originally considered a Dashboard-style widget design for smaller utility apps like weather and stocks, similar to that found in Palm’s WebOS. During the six months between the iPhone’s original announcement at Macworld 2007 and its eventual release in June, Apple reportedly decided that the feature’s performance was unacceptable and abandoned it.