After previously only having an option to rent HD movies, back in March, Apple added the option to be able to buy HD as well. The problem? A complete and utter lack of options. Even now, some 8 months later, there were only a few dozen HD movies you could buy, and the majority were movies like The Midnight Meat Train — movies you probably had no desire to buy, let alone for the amped-up $19.99 HD price. Today, that changed.

Apple has just added a range of HD movies available for purchase on iTunes. Here’s the kicker: There are actually some good movies, finally. Sure, previously you could grab a few gems like Casino Royale. But now, for example, a total of 9 James Bond films are in HD (though sadly, only two of the Connery ones are, and Goldfinger is not one of them).

Back in August, we wrote about the Hollywood movie studios conspiring to keep new release DVDs away from services like Netflix and Redbox for as many as 30 days after their release. The idea behind this from Hollywood’s perspective is simple: If people can’t rent movies right away, they’ll buy more. Sorry, did I say the idea was “simple”? I meant, “idiotic”.

At the time, it was reported that Blockbuster, the former video giant that is aging anything but gracefully, was also backing this 30-day window idea (where it might see a 30-day rental exclusive on some titles). With the company bleeding money, it shouldn’t be surprising that they’re aligning themselves with the studios. But more recently, there has been some very disheartening news: Netflix seems to be willing to back this idea too. Yes, the poster child for much of what is right about the consumer movie business these days may be on the verge of making a deal with the devil.

I hold in my hand the new Apple Remote. In case you missed it, Apple quietly launched it alongside the new iMacs, Mac minis, Magic Mice, and MacBooks a couple weeks ago. Simply put: I don’t get it.

That’s not to say it’s not a nice looking product — it is, but there have been some changes that make me confused as to what Apple exactly is trying to do with this thing. From a design perspective, it makes sense. The new remote now has the brushed aluminum and black button exterior that graces both Apple’s MacBook Pro line and the iMac line these days. The original Apple Remote was all white plastic (aside from the top sensor), that matched the older iMacs that it originally launched with.

While the various forms of social media are becoming increasingly important to brands, Apple is one company that hasn’t exactly rushed to get involved. Sure, they have a few accounts here and there, but they’re not exactly Google, with their 500 Twitter accounts (okay, it’s really more like 50). But they could be slowly warming up to the idea.

Back in March, the company started tweeting from its first official Twitter account, iTunesTrailers. They even went so far as to highlight the account on their Apple.com Trailers page. Thanks to the suggested users list, that account now has well over 1 million followers and they’re probably seeing a not entirely insignificant amount of traffic coming from there. And now they’ve added a few more accounts:

The whole world was bullish on iTunes LPs when they were announced; I called it a black eye for the majors, whose CMX format has yet to be popularized. But the hype was curbed when it was discovered that there was a $10,000 fee associated with the service, putting it completely out of reach for less affluent artists and small labels who can’t afford that price for promotion.

Luckily for them, Apple was nice enough to make the format rather basic. It turns out anyone versed in a little HTML and Javascript can put together an LP that’s just as good as a “real” one. It’s not as simple as drag-and-drop, and without Apple’s proprietary TuneKit library, some functionality is difficult or impossible to replicate at this point. But iTunesLP.net is trying to collect all the information you need into a few tutorials and demo files.

I was reading over a pitch tonight for a new streaming movie service called Epix HD, when I looked up from my computer to my TV stand. On it, I saw an Apple TV, an Xbox 360, and a cable box. Right there, that is 3 different ways to get streaming movies to my television. And that’s not even mentioning the Netflix service over Xbox Live, and the streaming service that can come right to my TV. That’s 5 ways to get movies within a foot of my TV. It’s madness.

Now, choice is of course a good thing, but the problem is that each of these services don’t really offer much choice. If you want a complete way to get movies over the web, you almost have to have all of these boxes. That’s because the movie studios form partnerships and alliances with various services and not with others. And they have silly rules about who can stream/download what, when, and how. It’s a mess. And Hollywood really needs to sort it out soon, or they are just asking for trouble as broadband continues to improve.

People who bought the original iPhone will remember perhaps the most annoying original feature: The long sync. That is, when you plugged the iPhone into iTunes it took forever for it to complete its syncing process. The main holdup was the backup process, that would take a ridiculous amount of time to complete, each time. Luckily, Apple fixed the issue with subsequent updates to the iPhone, and sped up the backing up process to mere seconds. But with iTunes 9, things are starting to look grim again.

One main culprit is what should be a nice, new feature in iTunes 9 called “Automatically fill free space with songs.” It does exactly what it says, finds songs to put on your iPhone to fill it up. This is great for people like me with too large of a music library to sync it all with the iPhone, and who don’t really use playlists (the main way to sync music to the iPhone). Unfortunately, if you click this “Automatically fill free space” option, it seems that sometimes it wants to remove and replace much of the random music. If you have a 32 GB iPhone, that is going to take a while.

Facebook integration. Tweeting my music interests. AppleTV. Full-screen album extras. App management. An entire online store. Smart playlists. CD burning. Ringtone creation. Tips the scales at 88MB. All this in what is essentially the only music player on OS X. At some point enough is enough, and for me it was enough years ago. For god’s sake, Apple, all I want to do is play my music.

For years Apple has been adding to iTunes, and while some improvements have been welcome, many have simply added to the bloat. It’s time — way past time, really — for Apple to put out something lightweight and basic. I understand that iTunes is a wedge (and weapon) for Apple, and I don’t propose gutting it, but considering there are no credible alternatives to the program, it’s at the point where I feel Apple has stopped simply adding to the feature buffet, and has started force-feeding users.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine, went out to the record store, and bought your albums. Those days are no more, although iTunes wants you to think otherwise. That’s why they added a few new features to add a little bit of that old record store attitude to the boring process of downloading tunes. Introducing iTunes 9.0 – it’s bright, it’s shiny, and it’s kind-of-sort-of new.

The first thing you’ll notice about the new iTunes is the clarity of the new user interface. First, everything is white. The backgrounds are bright and clear and the new iTunes Store carries this UI aesthetic into the shopping experience. The icons are cheery and a little more “open” and friendly.

Not long ago, it was revealed that the major players in the music market were working on a single-file album format, by which they could sell you albums at an inflated price but with value added: cover art, videos, interviews, and so on. Of course, Apple was already on that, and now, with the major labels’ “CMX” format still off in the future, Apple has given them a black eye by introducing iTunes LPs.

Yes, he’s back.

When the Apple event started today, CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to a very long standing ovation. He used his opening remarks to talk about the importance of organ donation. Jobs noted that he now had the liver of a person in their mid-20s who died in a car crash. Jobs urged everyone to think about organ donation, as it saved his life.

After that, Jobs thanked Apple’s executive team, and especially Tim Cook, who steered Apple’s ship in his absence.

But then it was time for Jobs to quickly move into some impressive statistics. Here are a handful of them:

It’s the night before an Apple event. You know, the time just before the Apple Store being down sends ripples of excitement through the blogosphere. Now’s a time for one last reflection on the finalized rumors laid out in the past several hours. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to talk about expectations.

I’ve been to all but one of the past two years worth of Apple events. And for the several years prior to that, I followed along online on sites like this one, with the rest of you. These past two years there has been a noticeable trend immediately following these events: Disappointment.

Here we are on the eve of another Apple event. There is never a shortage of hype surrounding these, but this one may have a bit more than normal because of the possibility that it could be Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ first public gig since returning to the company following a lengthy and very serious medical leave of absence.

But it’s entirely possible that Jobs won’t be leading this event. And it’s starting to look more possible that what’s thought to be the key product, iPods with cameras, may have to be delayed. And that tablet computer seems pretty unlikely. And The Beatles on iTunes is far from a lock. In other words, there are a lot of possible ways that Apple could disappoint with this event.

But Apple doesn’t like to disappoint, it likes to surprise. And that’s why I’m holding out hope for a big one: iTunes in the cloud.

This happens every year. Rumors begin to swirl that Apple is holding a music-related event, and after the talk dies down of what new iPods are in store, the focus shifts to iTunes. And from there, it shifts to The Beatles. You know, the most popular band of all time that happens to have no songs from its catalog available for legal purchase anywhere online. Yeah, those Beatles.

So anyway, every year there are rumors of The Beatles coming to iTunes. The rumors seem to start from just about everywhere: From Steve Jobs’ love of The Beatles, to EMI removing DRM on music, to the settlement of lawsuits with Apple Corp, to the appearance of Beatles’ album covers on Apple event promotions. There have even been quotes from Paul McCartney saying he thought such a deal would happen soon. The only problem is that it never ends up happening. But this year could actually be different.

Again, this is nothing but a very vague rumor for the time being, but it’s also very interesting. Following up on its iTunes 9 rumors, Boy Genius Report claims to have new details from the same trusted source about what iTunes 9, and specifically the social aspects of it, will entail.

As expected, the tipster says you’ll be able to broadcast songs you’re listening to out to various social networks. But the really interesting thing is the reference to some new social application that Apple is supposedly getting ready to launch. It’s not clear at all if this would be a desktop app or an iPhone app, but it is said to be something that consolidates your various social networking activity from around the web into one place.

This is completely a rumor, but an awesome one. Citing a “pretty reliable” source, Boy Genius Report is saying that the next version of iTunes will add a bunch of new, highly requested features. Specificially, BGR’s source says iTunes 9 features Blu-ray support, a new way to organize iPhone apps within iTunes, as well some kind of integration with Twitter, Facebook and possibly Last.fm.

Each of those features have been talked about for some time now on the web. But as BGR notes, the talk of Blu-ray does line itself up well with an AppleInsider report from yesterday that very vaguely suggested Apple has new iMacs due shortly with features that have long been on the wish-lists of Mac owners. Blu-ray is certainly on that list, and seems like a pretty good candidate, despite Steve Jobs’ calling the format a “bag of hurt” as recently as October of last year.

Not sure which question is more appropriate here: why or why not? We’ve already witnessed the renewed interest in URL shortening services with the rise of communication platforms where brevity appears to be the norm rather than a side effect (Twitter!).

It was little surprising to see a custom one pop up that focuses specifically on iTunes links.

iTunes links are inherently long, non-sexy and practically unsharable web addresses that lead people directly to Apple’s media management software program where they can download applications for their iPhone or iPod Touch in a section called the App Store, à la http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/browserRedirect?url=itms%253A%252F%252Fax.itunes.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewSoftware%253Fid%253D321041850%2526mt%253D8.

Does embattled music streaming site imeem think it can take on iTunes? For the most part, nearly every streaming song on the site has a download button which links to both iTunes and the Amazon MP3 store. But it is quietly testing its own music download store which bypasses iTunes and Amazon and sells MP3s directly. For instance, this is the case with some Sub Pop artists, such as Iron and Wine and The Shins. When you hit the download button on songs for those artists, a window pops up showing the album where that song came from with with the option to download the entire album or any individual song for $0.99. You can then pay imeem directly by credit card or Paypal and download the song to your computer.

(Screenshots after the jump).

We’ve been a bit baffled by the system Apple has in place when it comes to ratings for applications in the App Store. Is it allowing apps with nudity? Not allowing them? Allowing them with a 17+ rating? We’ve talked to some developers willing to break their NDAs because they think the App Store approval process in general is messed up, and would like to see Apple do a better job handling it. So here’s how the ratings system currently works for the App Store.

The Ratings

When you go to submit your app through iTunes Connect, one of the steps takes you to a ratings matrix that you must fill out. This contains 10 questions listed under “Apple Content Descriptions.” For each of the 10 questions you must say “None”, “Infrequent/Mild”, or “Frequent/Intense.” Depending on what answer you give for each of these, the rating of your app in the upper right corner will change. These ratings go from “4+” to “9+” to “12+” to “17+” to “No Rating.”

That last one is key. If your app gets the “No Rating” label, a warning written in red appears underneath it stating that: “This content will not be sold via iTunes.” So what triggers such a rating? Well, not a lot. Basically, it comes down to the final two questions in the 10 question matrix. Let’s run through them in descending order:

If Twitter is good for one thing, it is for promoting whatever it is you have to sell. Some of the best self-promoters out there are rappers, and they’ve taken to Twitter just like every other type of celebrity. Just as Twitter can drive traffic to Websites, it can also drive music sales on iTunes.

On a panel at the 140 Characters Conference yesterday, Xavier Jernigan (@xjernigan, the director of digital marketing at Universal Motown Republic, described how Twitter help put one of his new artists, Asher Roth (@asherroth), on the map. Roth released his first album, Asleep In the Bread Aisle, on iTunes on April 20, a Monday. The night before he Tweeted out to his followers (he currently has 69,566) that the album would be on iTunes. And then he Tweeted out a short link which opened up to the album page in iTunes. With no other marketing, the album rose to become the No. 1 digital album for the week. Since then, it has sold about 100,000 copies. Update: As people point out in comments, Roth’s own team did a lot of groundwork before the album hit. Nevertheless, Twitter did play an important role in turning that early interest into iTunes sales.