iTunes: Time to right the syncing ship | Macworld: The iTunes we’ve all come to know has had a good run, but it’s reached the point where it is a crazy agglomeration of features and functionality. If someone were to design it today, it wouldn’t remotely resemble its current state. And as a portal to iOS devices and the iTunes Store, iTunes is too crucial to Apple’s business to ignore or run on auto-pilot. (Via www.macworld.com) I think just about everyone who uses iTunes, which…

Here are some of the most common queries, concerns, and misconceptions about Apple’s music service, laid out for your reading pleasure. via iTunes Match: What you need to know | Macworld. Macworld wrote a nice article here clearing up a lot of the misconceptions surrounding iTunes Match. I think this is a classic case of people hearing what they wanted to hear back when Apple announced this service. Many had it in their heads that it was some grand Cloud strategy that would allow them to no longer store any…

> ### > > [Amazon & Google play into Apple’s hands with their early, incomplete music stores](http://musically.com/blog/2011/05/11/google-and-amazons-cloud-lockers-may-play-into-apples-hands/) > > Musically: > > > Apple likes to be late, and better. So by racing to market without licences, have Google and Amazon simply set their services up as the Creative Nomad jukeboxes of the cloud music age? Ironically, by launching without deals from labels, both companies may have given Apple the leverage it needs to strike the very licensing deals that will help its cloud service blow them out of the water.…

> My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn’t responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud. via [gigaom.com](http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-may-have-snapped-up-icloud-com/)Two thoughts about this. First, as much as I HOPE Apple doesn’t name its service “i” anything, let alone “iCloud”, this would make perfect sense. The one place where Apple manages to be cheesy and…

> Citing insiders in the music industry, *CNet*[reported Tuesday](http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20057483-261.html) that Apple is expected to charge — if not at first, then eventually — for its music cloud service. via [appleinsider.com](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/04/26/apples_itunes_cloud_could_be_free_at_first_but_will_eventually_require_a_fee.html)Personally, I can’t wait until Apple releases whatever this cloud service is going to be, not because I think I’ll get a whole lot of new functionality that I…