iTunes

After much confusion surrounding the final season of Breaking Bad, Apple began sending out emails offering Season Pass buyers a refund. Here's the email:

Dear Customer

We apologize for any confusion the naming of “Season 5″ and “The Final Season” of Breaking Bad might have caused you. While the names of the seasons and episodes associated with them were not chosen by iTunes, we’d like to offer you “The Final Season” on us by providing you with the iTunes code below in the amount of $22.99. This credit can also be used for any other content on the iTunes Store. Thank you for your purchase.

The confusion began when AMC split the final season into two parts, and Apple titled the first 8 episodes as "Season 5″. This led iTunes users to believe they were buying a Season Pass to all 16 episodes for $21.99, when it reality it only included the first half of the final season. Apple's second mistake was not removing their boilerplate text that promised: “This Season Pass includes all current and future episodes of Breaking Bad, Season 5.”

After revamping its App Store Review guidelines with new rules on children’s applications, Apple emailed developers with additional details on its new iTunes "Kids" category. Apple originally previewed the new category for children at WWDC in June. The new section "provides parents with a place on the App Store to find age-appropriate apps for children," according to the email sent out by Apple. The letter also breaks down the age subcategories as 5 & under, 6-to-8, and 9-to-11.

Apple has revamped the App Store a few times this year to make it more parent and school friendly. In April, the company made app age ratings more visible, and added a pop-up warning to all 17+ rated content. Apple also created a new system for "educational institutions" to add individual accounts for children under the age of 13.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is planning to push the Apple Store application in an effort to sell more hardware through direct Apple sales channels. Cook is disappointed that 80% of all iPhones are sold outside of Apple retails stores, and that only 20% of iOS customers are even aware there is an Apple retail app available. 9to5Mac has learned that Apple plans to redesign the application so it fits "more in line with the user-interface of the App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore in iOS 6."

Apple employees are being instructed to install the Apple Store app to any new devices that are sold at any retail location. Apple will also offer free content as part of the push to make people more aware of the app. Cook hopes this new strategy will get more iOS users accustomed to using the largely ignored Apple service.

There's nothing more frustrating than typing in those long iTunes gift card codes, especially when you make a mistake and have to start all over again. Thankfully Apple has decided to make the process easier by adding the ability to redeem a gift card by using your device's camera. Twitter user Beau Giles discovered the new feature and tweeted the screenshot below. iTunes 11 gave the same feature to Mac users who can now use their FaceTime cameras to redeem gift cards also.

To use the new iOS 7 camera gift card feature, go to the App Store app, and tap the Redeem button at the bottom of the Featured page. You can then choose to enter the code the old way, or use your iPhone's rear iSight camera to snap a picture. The gift card needs to have a "gift card with a box around the code” for it to work.

iTunes 11 just got a minor update, but the new software is worth installing thanks to a key feature that's now back. Apple has restored the missing Show Duplicate Items option under the View menu. The feature was previously labeled Display Duplicates and was located under the File menu in iTunes 10.

As you can imagine, the option shows all of the songs that are duplicated by artist and song name in your Music library. Besides just the duplicate search, Apple has also improved iTunes with AirPlay, iTunes Match and other stability improvements and bug fixes. Those who need to search a large library should also see faster response times.