This week a report began spreading like wildfire about 30-second previews on Apple’s web based iTunes. The feature in question allows users who don’t have iTunes installed to explore the iTunes Store in a web browser and listen to 30-second previews, as you would in iTunes itself.

The preview feature is actually not new to the web based iTunes also known as iTunes Preview. iTunes Preview appeared online in November last year, at the time song previews were not available, as noted by Gizmodo and Mac Rumors. But in early December song previews did appear on iTunes Preview, although went unnoticed by most.

In early December Apple also finalised the acquisition of Lala, a service which allows users to listen to music in a web browser.

All this has created far too much excitement for most media outlets; the apparent appearance of song previews in iTunes Preview and the existence of Lala in Apple’s back pocket means that apparently the two are related.

Here’s why that is complete misinformation:

  • Apple has had 30-second previews in the iTunes Store since its inception. As of iTunes 9 the iTunes Store has been built in HTML and rendered using Webkit, the same rendering engine which Safari uses. Surely wouldn’t be difficult to use the same technology for previews on both platforms.
  • Lala’s streaming license has been said in the past to be non-transferrable, not a clear cut reason I’ll admit.
  • Apple has been making song previews available via iTunes Store RSS feeds for years.

The second issue with some of these reports is the reported quality of the previews. GigaOM first incorrectly reported that iTunes Preview 30-second song previews were “44.1 KHz AAC format at 300+ kbps”. But if you were to download this song preview and drop it into Quicktime you’ll quickly see that it’s a regular 256Kbps AAC file.

Here’s the bit where I speculate, potentially to my own downfall. Apple bought Lala for two reasons. Firstly to prevent Google for snapping them up (same for Quattro Wireless) and secondly to add a complete streaming service to iTunes later this year (not too shocking).

Who’s guilty of spreading false information:

Anybody else not doing any of their own research? Let me know in the comments.