iTunes Plus price drop, 'Today or tomorrow'
Ars Technica first reported yesterday that Apple was ready to lower the price of iTunes Plus tracks from $1.29 for the DRM free music to $.99 which puts it in line with the pricing on the DRM laden tracks in the rest of the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs, and you can't get a better source than that, has confirmed with the Wall Street Journal that this will be happening either today or tomorrow.Most people credit the strong showing that Amazon MP3 has made to this move. Whatever the cause I'm just happy to be able to purchase DRM free music at a lower price.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
ipodrulz said 6:28PM on 10-16-2007
I think the Canadian Apple Store already has the drop... cause its 1.39 now... though it should be 99¢ ... our dollars stronger now.. right?
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Jordan said 6:43PM on 10-16-2007
Not... stronger per-say. Our bill is just weak...
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Frank said 6:47PM on 10-16-2007
i bought the new iron & wine album this morning, "the shepherd's dog", and the itunes plus price was 9.99 for the album.
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bobics said 6:50PM on 10-16-2007
If it's still cheaper through Amazon, I'll be using Amazon.
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James said 7:15PM on 10-16-2007
I buy albums, not songs, so the single song price drop means nothing to me.
The bigger news is that they've expanded iTunes+ to some indie labels: Sub Pop, for example. Stuff like that aims square at eMusic (who doesn't even offer music from many "major" indie labels like Sub Pop).
And if you want to get nitpicky, the sound quality from iTunes+ (256 AAC) is superior to that of Amazon (256 MP3). I dare anybody to tell the difference, but some people go nuts for little technicalities like this.
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James said 7:16PM on 10-16-2007
I buy albums, not songs, so the single song price drop means nothing to me.
The bigger news is that they've expanded iTunes+ to some indie labels: Sub Pop, for example. Stuff like that aims square at eMusic (who doesn't even offer music from many "major" indie labels like Sub Pop).
And if you want to get nitpicky, the sound quality from iTunes+ (256 AAC) is superior to that of Amazon (256 MP3). I dare anybody to tell the difference, but some people go nuts for little technicalities like this.
(Unrelated: the weblogs inc commenting system is ass.)
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KaiserKarl said 7:20PM on 10-16-2007
Viva competition!
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Quix said 7:40PM on 10-16-2007
Now we just need to get labels like Universal and Sony to stop their repulsive (if not illegal) collusion and get their stuff DRM-free in iTunes as well. Everyone should be able to legally buy DRM-free music *anywhere*, not just from sources the music cartel deems strategically advantageous (i.e. the Amazon Experiment, otherwise known as The Great Apple Smackdown).
iTunes Plus just doesn't have a great selection right now, so the price drop isn't news worth jumping about to me.
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(01) said 8:45PM on 10-16-2007
And it's happened....
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/10/16/jobs-confirms-itunes-plus-price-drop-across-the-board
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Greg G said 9:45PM on 10-16-2007
I'd like to see other songs drop in price as wel, or all of them go drm free.
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kevanhloy said 10:38PM on 10-16-2007
i'm not a bit music store user but i figure since i've hacked my way to 1.1.1, i figured i'd give the mobile music store a shot. worked great while buying the +version of iron and wines new album. i wish it worked over edge though, even if it would be slow....
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Bill in NZ said 11:18PM on 10-16-2007
Amazon may be a force in the US market, but Amazon downloads are NOT sold to anyone in the world unless you have a USA address and a USA credit card. Amazon is quite happy to sell me DVDs, CDs, books, etc, but won't sell an mp3. (likewise SnoCap, etc etc) So one slight nice thing to say about iTunes is that they do cater for some of the rest of the world with their various country stores....
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Simon Arch said 1:41AM on 10-17-2007
"And if you want to get nitpicky, the sound quality from iTunes+ (256 AAC) is superior to that of Amazon (256 MP3). I dare anybody to tell the difference"
Well you just contradicted yourself there, so which is it?
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Ian Murray said 7:46AM on 10-17-2007
BNL FTW!
(Sorry, it had to be done.)
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Richard said 11:31AM on 10-17-2007
Thank you Amazon! :)
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