Apple’s Changing Things…

Posted by Jeff Dlouhy on 05/23 at 06:12 PM

Apple is doing something with the way it handles artwork on the iTunes Music Store. Because albums that use to work and ones that I would test Corripio on suddenly stopped working. Lets just hope they are working on things and that our free ride is not over. I will look into what is up. So if you are experiencing difficulties with getting artwork, it probably has to do with this sudden change.

Update #1:
After some testing I have found that some artwork will be downloaded with my application and when I try to put the image link that worked for the app in Safari I get the Error message.
Some people on Digg have posted the new scheme in which Apple does this. Each artwork has a unique key for it. For example Old Link is now New Link.  So we’ll all see what we can do.

Update #2:
I am working on implementing a backup artwork DB to Corripio (i.e Walmart (500x500)). I am planing on releasing the next version early next week. Furthermore the new version will have some tag fixing/fetching features in the release. We are also readying an alpha release for Windows. To stay up-to-date check the site regularly.

Dan says:

May 23rd, 2006 at 9:24 pm

Crap I wish I read this before I submitted a bug ticket. Sorry about that. Glad you’re aware.

Philip says:

May 24th, 2006 at 4:38 am

So maybe they changed that just because your programme made it to easy to download!

Kamil says:

May 25th, 2006 at 9:35 am

Please please please, continue to try and make your wonderful program work with the iTMS.  I have been grabbing art work from Walmart, Amazon, ect.. and there is nothing bigger than 500x500 until you really start searching on google.  The nice thing with your program is that you have such a wider selection with the itunes music store since they have almost anything.  If people are demanding one to work with walmart, thats fine but please don’t forget about trying to unlock or whatever apple is doing to prevent albums from working anymore.  I’m sure I am not alone here.

Jeff Dlouhy says:

May 25th, 2006 at 12:37 pm

Don’t worry, I am still trying to hold on to getting iTMS artwork. However I am no dvd Jon. I am just using the Walmart as a backup solution, otherwise Corripio does nothing. I know that the iTMS artwork is its killer feature and am going to try my hardest to keep it working with it. However for the time being it needs to do something rather than nothing.

Dan says:

May 25th, 2006 at 2:26 pm

If you must use an alternate, please use Amazon. Walmart’s art might be large, but it is not high quality and there is also not much of it.

Charly says:

May 27th, 2006 at 3:31 am

I also would like to ask you try to getting artwork from iTMS. But after all what I was reading about the new download link I’m not shure this is really possible. Since twenty years I was only buying Mac Computers, also supported them also in bad times. And now this ... What they think, I will download anymore songs from Apple iTunes? No support, no orders! In this case amazon makes fair trading. Corripio is a beautiful program for downloading iTMS Artwork, but for amazon and the rest I bought alredy MP3freaker. So you should realy find a deal with apple (it looks they want money!) I feel realy sorry about your big work and hope you get a way to complete your work.

Cassiel says:

May 27th, 2006 at 4:32 am

Hello guys,

so the first parameter of the new URL seems to be a UNIX timestamp which contains the date when the song was bought. The second parameter (after that underscore char) seems to be an MD5 sum, maybe the MD5 sum of the Low-res cover, or maybe the DRM song itselfs or maybe of the high-res cover itself.

Maybe I’m going to play a bit with that parameters.

Andrew says:

May 27th, 2006 at 7:46 pm

Cassiel-

Actually it is not a timestamp of the date the song was bought, it is a timestamp of when the download key expires.
http://marv.kordix.com/archives/000849.html#3