Apple has been working with musical artists and their sound engineers to offer up the highest encoding practices possible for submissions to the iTunes Store, and has now begun to showcase some of that work, launching a new "Mastered for iTunes" section on the iTunes Store.

Apple currently makes use of the Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec for music compression and while, to the average listener, these files may sound great, to audiophiles, sound-engineers and the artists who create the music, they're not getting the full array of sound that they intended for you to hear. Most recently, the likes of Neil Young, Dr. Dre and even Jimmy Iovine, head of Interscope-Geffen-A&M have all gone on record as not being in favor of the sound quality listeners are getting when purchasing music. The Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) codec used by Apple and various other digital media service providers, causes quality loss during the conversion from the 24-bit 192kHz original recording. By the time consumers actually get the file, you're only receiving as little as three percent of the original 192kHz quality.

With the launch of the Mastered for iTunes section, Apple is now transitioning from their original methods of taking the CD masters and encoding them to the 256kbps iTunes Plus files, and is instead asking publishers to submit the full high-resolution 24-bit/96kHz files so they may be the base file for encoding. To help with the transition for music publishers, they've also released a white paper documenting the changes and advising how to go about the process of submissions as well as providing new mastering tools to go along with it.

In the end, the ultimate goal here is to have everyone obtain the highest quality audio files possible from the iTunes Store. Neil Young noted previously that he had been working with Apple on this change prior to the death of Steve Jobs and since then, there hasn't been much word from Apple. Now, with the roll out of the new encoding standards and the Mastered for iTunes section, we know why Neil hasn't heard any word from Apple. They were busy making it all happen behind the scenes.

Source: Mastered for iTunes, white paper, via Ars Technica

Apple has announced they're rolling out the iTunes Store to Brazilian and a number of Latin American countries, including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

iTunes in the Cloud is available today for free in Brazil and Latin America and iTunes Match is available today for a $24.99 annual fee in Brazil.

The iTunes Store in Brazil offers over a thousand movies to rent or purchase, with many in stunning HD, from major studios including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures, The Walt Disney Studios and Warner Bros. Pictures. The iTunes Store in Brazil now joins the revolutionary App Store™, which offers more than 500,000 apps to consumers in 123 countries, reaching hundreds of millions of iPad, iPhone and iPod touch® users around the world. Customers have downloaded more than 18 billion apps to date.

Brazil before Canada or the UK? Oh Apple, you tease. Hit the source for the full press release from Apple. Any Brazilian or Latin American readers excited to finally be included in the Apple ecosystem?

Source: Apple

Chris posted Apple's new "if you don't have an iPhone" ads earlier and they didn't really work for me. Apple usually nails their marketing and these were somehow... qualitatively different. Watching them again I think I figured out why. These weren't commercials for apps, music, or books, not entirely at least. These were, in their latter halves, commercials for App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store. This wasn't Apple differentiating solely based on their playing, listening, and reading experiences. This was Apple showing off their massive and still growing content catalogs, and the ease with which that content can be acquired and enjoyed. And that's fine in theory but in practice they just didn't seem to come off as well as past commercials. At least not to me and I'm an admitted enthusiast.

When the original iPhone launched, Apple's commercials focused on internet and activities that could be done on the phone -- the web, email, iPod, maps, etc. They showed you what you could do and most importantly, how easily you could do it. The second part was key. Hardly anything they showed was new to existing smartphone users but in practice, but the UI made it better and more accessible than ever before. And Apple wanted to show that.

Following iPhone 3G and the App Store, Apple began their famous App for That series which continued with iPhone 3GS and App for Everything. Again there was some brief education about how to use the App Store in the commercials, and some crowing about the huge and growing numbers of apps available, but the focus was undeniably on the apps.

By iPhone 4 competing platforms began to get competitive app catalogs and Google's Android Market was gaining momentum, so Apple shifted back to features like FaceTime, Retina Display, battery life, etc.

Since competing phones have or will start to match those iPhone 4 features, however, I wondered what Apple would do next. I thought they might go back to apps, specifically games like Infinity Blade that hadn't shown up yet on rival platforms. I think they still might. I wouldn't be surprised to see an Infinity Blade, Real Racing 2 HD, or more likely a GarageBand commercial for iPad 2, and when the Apple A5 chipset presumably hits iPhone 5 this summer, I'd be surprised if we didn't see just that. Apple has made it clear they're "post-PC" and re-framing the debate from specs to experiences. They're also really good at writing really good mobile software, which can't be said about everyone in the market -- yet.

But that's not what Apple did, at least not in these commercials. There was a brief Two is Better than One stint to launch the iPhone on a second US network, fun-house mirrored by Verizon and AT&T spots, then they went right back to features but shifted to ecommerce -- App Store, iTunes Store, and iBooks Store. No one else has that diversity of content in one place, in as many countries, available with one-click ease under a single account login. (Sony should but they're lost in the wilderness at this point, Amazon might when they launch their app store and link it to MP3 and Kindle, and Philp Berne says Samsung does though I'm not sure it's iTunes level yet.)

Like battery life, Apple's online marketplaces aren't obvious choices for a commercial. I'm not sure how many consumers weigh which phone has the best stores before buying. Sure, like great battery life it's what lets you do what you want to do -- play, listen, watch, read, but it comes off as being Apple-centric and not consumer-centric. They're ads for stores and not for stuff, and those never seem to come off as well.

Thinking about creating an iTunes allowance for your kids this holiday season? If they've got an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad you may not want to give them unfettered access to your own iTunes account (Justin who--!?! Smurfberry what--?!?!) but do want to let them learn a little about personal finances and opportunity cost. iTunes allowances can be a great middle ground and we'll show you how to set one up, after the break!

• Launch iTunes on your Windows or Mac computer
• Click on the iTunes Store in the menu on the left
• You will see the Quick Links menu on the right hand side of the iTunes Store
• Click on Buy iTunes Gifts
• Scroll down till you see Allowances and click set up an allowance now
• Fill in the form and voila you have set up an allowance for your kids to use

If they don't already have an Apple ID, you can create one for them.

Allowances can range from $10 to $50 (?!) a month. Also, according to Apple:

You can set the allowance to begin immediately or on the first of the coming month. Amounts not spent in one month roll over into the next, and you can close the account at any time, withdrawing any funds currently in it.

Have you used an iTunes allowance with your kids? If so, how's it working out? Let us know in comments!

[iTunes News]

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you'd like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it's especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we'll even give ya a reward...)

Both iTunes Store music and iOS App Store apps are being downloaded at an increasing rate. Apps are just increasing faster.

As can be seen, the App store has reached the same total downloads in 2.2 years as the iTMS reached after five years. The two curves are likely to be the same height (around 13 billion each) before the year is over.

I'm downloading far more apps than music, what about you?

[Asymco]

If you're a frequent browser of the iTunes movie section, you may have noticed the addition of a Rotten Tomatoes rating section.  If you're not familiar with Rotten Tomatoes, it's basically a site where users and critics can rate movies as fresh or rotten.  To the left you'll see the classic TomatoMeter rating system while to the right you'll see a few of the most recent ratings for that specific movie.

And if you still want to know more about a movie, clicking the find more option will take you to the Rotten Tomatoes site page for that film.  Fancy! What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

[via TUAW]

Apple today announced that they've added Mexico to growing list of international iTunes Stores. And we say... it wasn't there already?

“The iTunes Store in Mexico is off to a great start with music from all of the majors and hundreds of indie labels,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of Internet Services. “And the revolutionary App Store in Mexico gets bigger and better with great new apps using amazing new features, and we can’t wait to see what developers come up with next.”

So, Mexican Readers, if you liked the App Store, tell us how you feel about music coming your way...