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The Week in iPhone Apps: Fresh Fring and Other Diversions
Posted by John Mahoney at 7:10 AM on October 4, 2008
Lots of news to catch up on this week from the App Store. So come have a look, iPhone folks, at what you may have missed on Giz this week, in addition to a few of our picks for new apps of the last seven days as always. We're excited first and foremost that Fring, a great multi-service IM and VoIP app, has just made it into the App Store (not even in the search index yet). Good thing, because the rest of this week's pics skew a bit toward the wacky side. But sometimes your weekend just needs a little wahh wahhhh...crickets...crickets....
The National Music Publishers Board didn't get their request to the Copyright Royalty Board for a larger cut of digital music sales, putting a definitive end to a miniature media crisis over the "possible" shutdown of iTunes. Apple threw a minor shit-fit over the prospective hike last year, insinuating that they might not be able to continue business if they were "no longer able to do so profitably" (what business sense!), after which the British press decided that music was going to go away forever, or something. In any case, iTunes' profitability was never really at stake, Apple 
Looks like its 
In case you haven't opened up your iTunes in the last few hours, Apple's released v.8.0.1 to fix several 8.0.0 issues with HDTV episodes, the Genius auto-playlist feature and software update checks. For instance, iTunes will no longer accidentally overwrite HD versions of your TV episodes with their standard definition copies. Performance and stability have also supposedly been improved. Check it out and tell us what you think. [
Today the US Copyright Royalty Board is going to decide if they agree to increase music royalty payments as requested by the National Music Publishers Association, and for some reason the British are panicking over the idea that the Apple iTunes Music Store will shut down because of this. The reason for their hysteria is a Board at the Library of Congress deposition by iTunes vice president Eddy Cue in 2007:
Boxee has been turning any PC, Mac or Linux box into a capable, social-networking equipped media centre for a while in its extended alpha phase--and now, news is that it will also work on your Apple TV for a free way to go beyond the iTunes lock-in for streaming all DRM-free media. Like 
Podcaster, the app that 
Norway is ostensibly big on neutrality, even when it gets them invaded and pulverised, so not surprisingly it hates Apple's FairPlay DRM, which only lets songs play on iPods. It even has a law requiring that consumers be able to use digital media with whatever device they choose, which FairPlay obviously pees all over. After a lovely chat with Apple in February, not much has changed, so gentle Norway is going to play war against Apple over FairPlay 
Hey social networking fans, 
Unlike their 
