Apple poised to expand, drop price of iTunes Plus service

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 36
    this is unrelated but i would really like some real hd content, even if it is only in america.
  • Reply 22 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by aplnub View Post


    Just turned 31 and I recognize that well. I loved that show!!



    if you love that show and are familier with Gary Coleman (whatcha talkin about willis?) theres this hilarious musical called avenue q and hes one of the main characters (not actually gary coleman, but the character is gary coleman)



    I saw it a few weeks ago and its abesolutely hilarious! It won the tony for best musical



    its called avenue Q, go check it out!
  • Reply 23 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by omahajim View Post


    Normal existing DRM'd tracks are currently at 128k AAC. And I would agree with others, I don't see Apple raising the bit rate of the DRM'd tracks at the same time they're dropping the per-track price of the non-DRM versions.



    I see Apple simply finally convincing the labels to allow 256k AAC non-DRM across the entire store, and just drop the old DRM tracks entirely.



    Not sure about the issue of people wanting re-downloads at the higher quality, at least when it comes to Apple network capacity. When iTunes Plus first came out, they had the offer to upgrade any purchased 128k AAC tracks in your library to the new 256k non-DRM'd versions, so they were already handling a likely substantial number of re-downloads (albeit at US$0.30 per track upgrade fee). Don't know if they could sustain essentially free re-downloads at the new higher bit rate across the board, but I'm constantly surprised at what Apple is able to pull off. They certainly have the ability to do so if they wanted to (and the labels allowed).



    I think that everyone is forgetting here that not all labels allow non-DRM content, even on Amazon. Apple can't get rid of DRM altogether just yet. What they can do is remove the price distinction, which they have, in order to inspire more labels to follow EMI's lead. They probably could up the bitrate on all tracks to 256k, but I'm not sure they'll do that just yet.



    My question is what will happen to the "upgrade my library" option, now that iTunes plus tracks are the same price as previous DRM tracks? Should Apple still charge a premium to remove DRM from those tracks (and give higher-quality sound, albeit higher quality that almost no one will be able to notice?) Or will they continue to charge to remove that DRM?
  • Reply 24 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by heyjp View Post


    What do you guys think? I feel like I've been burned by Apple's sudden drop in price of songs affecting the resale value of the 6 songs I bought at $1.29. I should sue them for $1.74 of lost value and, what, $1Billion in punitive?





    Jim



    That's a great idea Jim!



    How original of you!



  • Reply 25 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mazzy View Post


    Hey a class action lawsuit for dropping the price so soon?



    That's a great idea!



    No one's made that joke before.



  • Reply 26 of 36
    eduardoeduardo Posts: 181member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mrjoec123 View Post


    ....

    My question is what will happen to the "upgrade my library" option, now that iTunes plus tracks are the same price as previous DRM tracks? Should Apple still charge a premium to remove DRM from those tracks (and give higher-quality sound, albeit higher quality that almost no one will be able to notice?) Or will they continue to charge to remove that DRM?



    I was wondering the same thing; I have several songs that I looked into yesterday that were available as a "Plus" track-I didn't purchase them on account of this (now confirmed) rumour. I wonder if I will be re-charged .99 cents to bump up the sound bit rate?
  • Reply 27 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by iPhone ergo sum View Post


    might we expect the non-DRM iTunes library to be upgraded to 256kbps?



    Exactly what I was wondering.



    There is now no excuse not to.
  • Reply 28 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by omahajim View Post


    Normal existing DRM'd tracks are currently at 128k AAC. And I would agree with others, I don't see Apple raising the bit rate of the DRM'd tracks at the same time they're dropping the per-track price of the non-DRM versions.



    I see Apple simply finally convincing the labels to allow 256k AAC non-DRM across the entire store, and just drop the old DRM tracks entirely.



    Not sure about the issue of people wanting re-downloads at the higher quality, at least when it comes to Apple network capacity. When iTunes Plus first came out, they had the offer to upgrade any purchased 128k AAC tracks in your library to the new 256k non-DRM'd versions, so they were already handling a likely substantial number of re-downloads (albeit at US$0.30 per track upgrade fee). Don't know if they could sustain essentially free re-downloads at the new higher bit rate across the board, but I'm constantly surprised at what Apple is able to pull off. They certainly have the ability to do so if they wanted to (and the labels allowed).



    I can't agree with that. There is now no excuse to not raise the quality.



    Before, it could be said that higher transmission costs for Apple at the higher 256 rate were one of the reasons for charging more, as well as the fact that the songs had no DRM.



    But, now that neither of those are a reason, DRM'd tracks should also get the treatment. If they did, I might actually start to buy songs there. 128 is worthless to me.
  • Reply 29 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mrjoec123 View Post


    My question is what will happen to the "upgrade my library" option, now that iTunes plus tracks are the same price as previous DRM tracks? Should Apple still charge a premium to remove DRM from those tracks (and give higher-quality sound, albeit higher quality that almost no one will be able to notice?) Or will they continue to charge to remove that DRM?



    The quality difference is very noticable, if you have some decent equipment to listen with.
  • Reply 30 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    What's interesting here, and I hope it's a GOOD sign, is that this is the first time that Apple has felt compelled by competitors to lower their pricing as a direct response.



    Until now, at least with iTunes, Apple has pulled the rest of the industry to lower prices.



    Competition is grand.
  • Reply 31 of 36
    Does this apply to other countries besides the U.S. ? So far, all tracks I searched for show up as $1.39 on the Canadian iTunes store.
  • Reply 32 of 36
    So is this going to start applying to all songs? I see a few that are 99¢ but hardly any. For a buck a pop, it's going to be pretty hard to pull me over to amazon's clunky interface and slightly lower quality songs (have heard of ones as low as 160kbs average).



    And am I pissed about me buying 50 iTunes plus tracks, a little but this was what I wanted the end result to be so I sort of took the bullet for myself and others by encouraging higher quality DRM free music.
  • Reply 33 of 36
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Eduardo View Post


    I was wondering the same thing; I have several songs that I looked into yesterday that were available as a "Plus" track-I didn't purchase them on account of this (now confirmed) rumour. I wonder if I will be re-charged .99 cents to bump up the sound bit rate?



    I am very curious to see what they do. I've got 232 songs that can be upgraded, and currently it would cost me $53.89



    I would think that they would still charge *something* because you've got to download everything all over again from apple, at a *higher* bitrate.



    Maybe they could offer to simply remove the DRM for free, or pay something like 10 cents a song to also download the higher quality version. I just don't want to pay 30 cents a song to upgrade my library. And if more songs go DRM free, I'm going to have even more songs to upgrade.
  • Reply 34 of 36
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by tonton View Post


    $1.25 to $0.99 is approximately 20%. Not 25%. Brush up on your math, Kasper.



    Shame, shame. The price was $1.29. Not $1.25.
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