This article totally gave me an excuse to write that headline… been saving it for years. Reuters is reporting that 77-year old Yoko Ono was quoted as saying, “don’t hold your breath,” when asked about the possibility of the Beatles catalog coming to the iTunes digital music store. Ono went on to say: “Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy, there’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people. We are holding out.” Ono is the widow of deceased Beatles front man John Lenon and owns twenty-five percent of the bands music library rights. Former Beatles members Paul McCartney and Ringo Star, as well as George Harrison’s widow Olivia, comprise the other three-quarters of Apple Corps, the bands holding company. Looks like, for the time being, you’ll have to get your Beatles fix the old fashioned way. Any Fab Four fans out there, any favorite songs?

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We're not sure how we missed this one, but it's better late than never -- turns out some lucky jerks in China were given a Lenovo LePhone to play with back in mid-April, and the guys at Sooyuu have just finished the fifth and final part of their lengthy review, just in time for the May launch. We weren't expecting any changes since our last encounter at CES, but apparently the 3.7-inch screen's now been upgraded from LCD to AMOLED, and like the Palm Pre, the LePhone also sports a gesture area below the screen. Of course, there's also the never-before-seen packaging that we totally dig, not to mention the bundled goodies such as a leather case, a noise-isolation handsfree kit (but sans music and volume control), plus a magnetic dock adapter. As for software, the reviewer praises Lenovo's snappy, heavily customized Android with its vast Chinese social networking service integration, music store, video apps, and an impressive Chinese turn-by-turn navigation suite. We almost want to adopt this baby, only to be let down by its 3.2-megapixel camera's mediocre quality, lack of flash, and inability to autofocus. Anyhow, you can be the final judge -- head over to Sooyuu for plenty more pictures.

Lenovo LePhone unboxed, exhaustively reviewed ahead of launch in China originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 May 2010 17:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ubuntu 10.04 ' Lucid Lynx' arrives on the scene originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you live in India, our story was correct -- your mobile subscription music service will be called "Ovi," and no longer carry the weight of the cumbersome Comes with Music branding -- but we're hearing that in other Nokia territories, including the UK, that's not quite the case. Nokia UK told Pocket-lint that while the company's online music store will indeed be renamed "Ovi Music" across all 22 territories this year, the Comes with Music service is here (and there) to stay. To tell you the truth, though, we're not that interested in the fate of a brand name. We'd prefer if Nokia made a more ballsy move -- like discontinuing their service's most controversial feature, Comes with DRM.

Nokia phones will still Come with Music, only stores see rebranding originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Mar 2010 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can't say that we'll miss the awkwardly named Comes with Music service branding from Nokia. Of course, we're making the assumption that India's recently christened Ovi Music Unlimited store will be making its way global as Nokia continues to tighten up its service offerings in the race to compete in the era of modern smartphones. It's certainly consistent with the new Ovi Music naming convention so why not. Otherwise, it looks like nothing else about the all you can eat (for a year) music offering has changed -- particularly the DRM that locks "your" music to your PC or CWM OMU handsets for life-ish.

Ovi Music Unlimited replacing Nokia Comes with Music branding originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With a higher price than regular albums, no lossless audio and virtually no device support, iTunes LP seems like a hard sell. Turns out, it might be lame for musicians too—at least, the ones without platinum records.

I spoke with Brian McKinney, who runs Chocolate Lab Records, a smallish label out of Chicago. As someone who actually makes records, he saw potential in iTunes LP, and after seeing how incredibly simple the actual LP files are, started looking into making some himself. It didn't go so well:

I contacted the digital distribution manager at my label's distributor. He had a conference call with their iTunes rep at IODA and asked how we go about putting an LP together. He was told that LPs aren't being offered to indies and that there are only about 12 LPs being offered right now. They also said that iTunes charges a $10,000 production fee for them as well. So that pretty much edges out the indie market completely.

Deflecting criticism that it's just another way to squeeze a few extra dollars out of customers, Apple pitches iTunes LP as a way to bring back "the visual experience of the record album" (Which they helped kill in the first place. Penance, or something!)

But if they're charging ridiculous, prohibitive fees and only letting a few major labels take advantage of this—you know, the ones that iTunes needs to keep happy to be a viable music store, not the ones that might actually make something artistically interesting with LP—that romantic cry for the return of the album (it's more like the return of the Digipak, anyway) sounds a cynical and disingenuous. More to the point, it'll forever doom LP to gimmickry, because, well, the Dave Matthews Band can only carry you so far. —Thanks, Brian!

It's impossible not to love the concept of doubleTwist, the all-devices-welcome quasi-iTunes music manager, but up to this point the software has been pretty barebones. Now, things are gettin' ser-i-ous: doubleTwist has a built-in music store, courtesy of Amazon.

To put this into context, doubleTwist debuted not just as an alternative music manager for people with or without Apple players, but as a giant, coded jab at iTunes, Apple, and the way they do business. After launch, DVD Jon, who created doubleTwist, spent a few months waging a small-scale PR war, hanging Apple-baiting banners in San Francisco and parodying their famous "1984" ad. With Amazon MP3 store integration, that ad's promise—to "bring you choice"—has come true, and it's worth a thousand PR stunts

As has been the case with every other aspect of doubleTwist, the music storefront looks like a simpler version of the one in iTunes. Navigation and searching are about as simple as they could be, as are downloads, which only take a few clicks. The whole experience will be familiar to anyone weened on Apple's bloated beast, apart from a few things: Amazon's album prices are often lower than iTunes', and of course, you can immediately sync any music you download—there's only music, by the way—to practically any device you own, be it a Pre, a BlackBerry, a Sandisk, an iPod, or whatever.

The first version is Mac-only and tied to Amazon's US store, but Windows (and international) versions are on their way. [doubleTwist via Techcrunch]