Apple released a surprise update to iTunes today. The update pushes iTunes to version 11.0.3 and it adds a few little extra features and improvements like, new MiniPlayer, album artwork in song view, and multi-disc album support.  Here are the full details of the release.

This version of iTunes comes with several new features and improvements, including:

• New MiniPlayer. MiniPlayer now includes a beautiful new view that showcases your album artwork. In addition, a progress bar is now built right into MiniPlayer.
• Improved Songs View. You can now enjoy your album artwork while in Songs view.
• Multi-Disc Albums. Albums with multiple discs now appear as  a single album.

This update also provides performance improvements when searching and sorting large iTunes libraries.

The new version of iTunes can be downloaded here.

Whether if you love them or hate them, there’s no denying that Daft Punk has a huge following, so it was no surprise when their new album: Random Access Memories was made available to stream for free in iTunes. If you have been anticipating this album, you better act fast. These streams don’t last forever. You can stream the album on your computer through iTunes.

Apple has been known for doing this from time to time with popular artists such as; Jane’s Addiction, RHCP, Justin Timberlake, Phoenix, and more. It’s always nice to get a chance to preview an entire album before buying it.

You also have the choice to pre-order Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories on the same page.

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The 50-billionth iOS app has been downloaded! Just shy of two weeks ago, Apple posted a countdown ticker on their website and also in the iTunes store. The counter was continuously tracking app installs until they reached 50-billion downloads.  Apple happily announced the 50-billionth app was downloaded earlier today. I am quite surprised, it seemed to happen pretty quickly.  Some are speculating Apple announced the achievement due to Google’s I/O conference that took place earlier today. Google announced the Play Store had achieved 48-billion downloads since launch.

Either way, Apple still has a slight edge over Google. For how long? Who knows. Does it matter? Not really. I don’t believe there’s really any reason to worry, if Google surpasses 50 billion downloads three weeks from now, no big deal. It’s bound to happen eventually, there are more Android devices coming out than there are iPhone models, it’s inevitable that there’s going to be more devices floating around. I’m not worried though, neither should you. Don’t listen to the idiots that are trying so hard to brainwash you into believing Apple is doomed.  Half of those devices are junk anyways.

Apple will be announcing the winners of the 50 billion download contest soon.  The first place winner will receive $10,000 of iTunes credit. 50 additional runner-ups will each receive, $500 of iTunes credit. Not too shabby!
There’s rumor going on about the possibility that the grand prize winner will also receive a new MacBook Pro or iMac in addition to the $10,000 iTunes credit like previous iTunes contests.

We’ll keep you posted.

(contest rules)

*edited to fix error

Apple on Thursday pushed out an update for Thunderbolt capable Macs. The update is supposed to improve stability for Thunderbolt and Target Disk Mode.  As with all firmware updates, it will require a restart.

After dealing with a few stressful weeks of analysts predicting the absolute demise of Apple as we know it, and websites such as, BGR, who post asinine articles about how Apple is cursed and destined to fail on a daily basis, there’s finally some light at the end of the imaginary tunnel of doom. These jokers have set an astronomical bar for Apple and they expect them to make leaps and bounds over predicted sales figures each quarter. Apple usually meets or even exceeds their own expectations, but it’s just never good enough for these analysts. Hopefully today will shut a few of them up, at least for a couple of hours.

The tickets for the annual WWDC conference that is held San Francisco, sold out in under two minutes after Apple posted the tickets for sale this morning at 10AM Pacific time (1PM Eastern) on the developer website.

This was very impressive considering the fact that the tickets are $1,600 per-person and they were limited to just one per person, and five per organization. During a previous keynote, Steve Jobs said that there were over 5,000 attendees at the show, which means that Apple potentially just made as much as $8 million in roughly 90 seconds!

Yeah, they’re doomed alright.

Apple pushed out an update for Java earlier today. This update is supposed to improve security, reliability, and compatibility with the Java plugin.  Java version 1.6.0_45 will replace the existing plugin, but will be disabled by default. The update will also remove the Apple-provided applet from the web browsers that are installed on the system, users will need to click on the “missing applet” button within their web browser to authorize applications to use Java. From here on, users will be required to update Java through Oracle. Apple will no longer be updating the applet themselves.

This is a good option for users because that means we will be able to get updates quicker by downloading them from Oracle. We won’t have to wait on Apple to get the source from Oracle, then package it up and distribute the final product. For critical updates, it just takes too long for them to get an update out by doing it that way.  Since the updates will be available from Oracle, we’ll be able to get them a lot sooner than before.

You can download the update through the Software Update link in the Apple menu.

(source)

Apple just pushed out an update for iTunes 11 today. There’s not really much that has been tweaked since the big 11.0.1 release, this just tackles a couple performance issues, adds a composer view, and fixes playlist issues. Here’s the full summary of the update:

This update adds a new Composers view for music, improves responsiveness when syncing playlists with a large number of songs, and fixes an issue where purchases may not show up in your iTunes library. This update also includes other stability and performance improvements.

The update is about 54.2MB in size. You can grab it from Apple.com or through the Software Update utility.

Apple pushed out an update early this morning to combat an issue in iOS 6.1.1 that was causing massive battery drainage when using Exchange calenders due to increased network activity.  iOS 6.1.2 is available for iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad 2, iPad Mini, and iPod touch 4th and 5th generations.

You can download the update for your iOS device either OTA (over the air) by going to Settings >> General >> Software Update or plug it into iTunes like usual.

Earlier today Apple released a critical SMC firmware update for MacBook Pro users. The update is supposed to patch a couple issues where certain batteries may accumulate up to 1000 charge cycles and then unexpectedly shut down, in some cases they might even stop working completely after hitting the 1000th charge cycle.

The update affects the following models:

• MacBook Pro (15 and 17-inch, Early 2011)
• MacBook Pro (15 and 17-inch, Mid 2010)

The update is available through the Software update utility like usual, or you can download it directly from the link below. http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1633

Apple just pushed out an “urgent” update for iOS 6.1 that was released two weeks ago. Apparently 6.1 introduced an issue with the iPhone 4s. Certain users have noticed reliability issues with cellular performance. Today’s update (6.1.1) is supposed  to fix these issues.

The update weighs in at 23MB and is currently only for the iPhone 4s.