iTunes LP and iTunes Extras for Developers

Here’s everything you need to know to create a rich, interactive experience around your music and movies. All right in iTunes.

Submitting Your iTunes LP or iTunes Extras

Automatic, electronic submission of your iTunes LP or Extras is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010. Until then, the submission process is manual and limited. Please contact your label or studio rep for details and consideration. An existing iTunes contract is required. Your iTunes LP or iTunes Extras will be reviewed by the iTunes team for appropriateness of content and for technical quality.

Templates

iTunes LP and iTunes Extras are interactive experiences created to accompany music and movies. iTunes LP lets listeners hear an album and view lyrics, liner notes, band photos, performance videos, and more. With iTunes Extras, viewers can see cast interviews, exclusive clips, behind-the-scenes footage, and photo galleries along with a movie. To create your iTunes LP and iTunes Extras, download these templates — they make it easy to get started. Just drop in your own metadata, artwork, audio files, and video files. A detailed how to-guide gives you step-by-step instructions and support along the way.

Best Practices

Before you create your iTunes LP or iTunes Extras, download these documents and learn the best practices for design and navigation on the Mac, PC, and Apple TV.

Development Guide

Our Development Guide tells you everything you need to know about the anatomy of iTunes LP and iTunes Extras and the best practices for coding using TuneKit. TuneKit provides developers with a library of resources to use in creating iTunes LP and iTunes Extras as a framework that abstracts the WebKit Rich Media technology leveraged by iTunes.

Development Guide

Asset Delivery

Download and review the iTunes audio and video delivery specifications for use in encoding and preparing your core assets and bonus content for iTunes LP and iTunes Extras. The Best Practices document will help you differentiate between core assets that live in the iTunes Store and bonus content that is only accessible through iTunes LP or iTunes Extras.

Testing

WIth these testing resources, you can simulate your iTunes LP or iTunes Extras on Apple TV, and a Mac, or a PC. You can use the testing checklist to ensure that your packages work flawlessly on these platforms.