I think a simple option would be, when you go to buy a song or album you have a choice.
Button 1. Quick download.
Button 2. High Quality.
Simple, and would please everyone!!
I personally use the shopping cart option (I hate the idea that a single, unrevokable click makes a purchase happen), but Apple wants to create a very clean, simple interface oriented towards impulse buying. I can't see Apple cluttering up the iTunes store interface by having two different kinds of "Buy" buttons. The extra horizontal width of the interface created by adding more buttons would be clumsy.
If Apple ever does offer higher bit rates, the way I see them doing it is by establishing an over-all quality preference which applies to all purchases until you change that preference. Perhaps if you use the shopping cart as I do, there'd be a way to go back into your cart and optionally raise or lower the requested quality of each item in the cart.
Keep in mind, Apple does not encode the music themselves; the record labels do it. Convincing them all to re-encode every album seems unreasonable and unrealistic. \
It would be nice to see lossless files for sale on the iTMS, as long as iTunes included a convert-on-the-fly feature to downsample songs as they're transferred to your iPod. (They already do this with the iPod shuffle.)
What I'm more concerned about, though, is the video resolution available on the store. H.264 looks good, but with HDTVs now becoming common, we need at least DVD res for movies.
To those talking about HE-AAC, it only delivers improvements below 128 kbps. It wouldn't help.
My take is this:
The standard bit rate should be upped to 160 kbps
256 kbps should be introduced as an option for $1.50
Apple Lossless should be introduced as an option for $2.00 or maybe even $2.50.
That's individual song pricing.
Standard bit-rate albums should be cheaper than they currently are. 256 kbps albums should be just below the price of the album on CD, and the Apple Lossless version should cost the same as a CD.
edit: and Apple should look into p2p technology for iTunes to reduce their bandwidth costs. This would be necessary for them to be able to seel Apple Lossless albums for the same price as a CD.
I wouldn't go for that because it does away with the cost incentive to legally downloading music that $0.99 per song creates, and brings the total cost too close to that of the CD itself.
Another way to look at that pricing scheme is that I end up paying more for the accessores (music) that make my main item (ipod) less usefull.
Pricing models should work like this - as the ability to deliver a higher quality product increases, the price of the lower quality product should decrease.
So, higher quality audio files (i guess we're talking 256) should be downloadable from the ITMS for the same $0.99 price point. That's the price point that has been shown to work and no one can say that apple is overcharging for delivering more than crap. The current bitrate file price should drop accordingly to maybe $0.89 or maybe even $0.75.
Keep in mind, Apple does not encode the music themselves; the record labels do it. Convincing them all to re-encode every album seems unreasonable and unrealistic. \
If Apple is thinking ahead (and I have no idea if they are in this regard), Apple has the record labels provide them with lossless encodings, doing the lossless-to-AAC step themselves. Even if Apple never planned on providing higher bit rates, it would make sense for them to be doing this just to be able to take advantage of future AAC encoder improvements which might provide better sound quality at the same bit rates, or features like gapless playback.
Keep in mind, Apple does not encode the music themselves; the record labels do it. Convincing them all to re-encode every album seems unreasonable and unrealistic. \
Not if there's different pricing involved !
Those greedy bastards ( yes, I know you read these foruns) would have a rare opportunity to make some more BIG BUCKS !
I mean, who wouldn't like to hear "50 cent" in lossless format ?
PS: The last sentence is a ironic joke, just like "50 Cent's music".
Comments
Jimzip
edit: By the way who's J Lo marrying this week?
Button 1. Quick download.
Button 2. High Quality.
Simple, and would please everyone!!
Originally posted by Ireland
I think a simple option would be, when you go to buy a song or album you have a choice.
Button 1. Quick download.
Button 2. High Quality.
Simple, and would please everyone!!
I personally use the shopping cart option (I hate the idea that a single, unrevokable click makes a purchase happen), but Apple wants to create a very clean, simple interface oriented towards impulse buying. I can't see Apple cluttering up the iTunes store interface by having two different kinds of "Buy" buttons. The extra horizontal width of the interface created by adding more buttons would be clumsy.
If Apple ever does offer higher bit rates, the way I see them doing it is by establishing an over-all quality preference which applies to all purchases until you change that preference. Perhaps if you use the shopping cart as I do, there'd be a way to go back into your cart and optionally raise or lower the requested quality of each item in the cart.
It would be nice to see lossless files for sale on the iTMS, as long as iTunes included a convert-on-the-fly feature to downsample songs as they're transferred to your iPod. (They already do this with the iPod shuffle.)
What I'm more concerned about, though, is the video resolution available on the store. H.264 looks good, but with HDTVs now becoming common, we need at least DVD res for movies.
Originally posted by Mr. H
To those talking about HE-AAC, it only delivers improvements below 128 kbps. It wouldn't help.
My take is this:
The standard bit rate should be upped to 160 kbps
256 kbps should be introduced as an option for $1.50
Apple Lossless should be introduced as an option for $2.00 or maybe even $2.50.
That's individual song pricing.
Standard bit-rate albums should be cheaper than they currently are. 256 kbps albums should be just below the price of the album on CD, and the Apple Lossless version should cost the same as a CD.
edit: and Apple should look into p2p technology for iTunes to reduce their bandwidth costs. This would be necessary for them to be able to seel Apple Lossless albums for the same price as a CD.
I wouldn't go for that because it does away with the cost incentive to legally downloading music that $0.99 per song creates, and brings the total cost too close to that of the CD itself.
Another way to look at that pricing scheme is that I end up paying more for the accessores (music) that make my main item (ipod) less usefull.
Pricing models should work like this - as the ability to deliver a higher quality product increases, the price of the lower quality product should decrease.
So, higher quality audio files (i guess we're talking 256) should be downloadable from the ITMS for the same $0.99 price point. That's the price point that has been shown to work and no one can say that apple is overcharging for delivering more than crap. The current bitrate file price should drop accordingly to maybe $0.89 or maybe even $0.75.
Originally posted by geekdreams
Keep in mind, Apple does not encode the music themselves; the record labels do it. Convincing them all to re-encode every album seems unreasonable and unrealistic.
If Apple is thinking ahead (and I have no idea if they are in this regard), Apple has the record labels provide them with lossless encodings, doing the lossless-to-AAC step themselves. Even if Apple never planned on providing higher bit rates, it would make sense for them to be doing this just to be able to take advantage of future AAC encoder improvements which might provide better sound quality at the same bit rates, or features like gapless playback.
Originally posted by geekdreams
Keep in mind, Apple does not encode the music themselves; the record labels do it. Convincing them all to re-encode every album seems unreasonable and unrealistic.
Not if there's different pricing involved !
Those greedy bastards ( yes, I know you read these foruns) would have a rare opportunity to make some more BIG BUCKS !
I mean, who wouldn't like to hear "50 cent" in lossless format ?
PS: The last sentence is a ironic joke, just like "50 Cent's music".