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Heh, doesn't even mention the Zune on his long list of compatible players.

He left out the part where Apple sold out to the record labels and jacked up the prices in order to get this, sure to cause a ripple effect among the other digital music stores. Soon we'll be paying $1.99 for a new single.

Guess things change when you become the #1 music outlet and build an industry of devices around your hegemony. Things change when you climb the ladder, become one of the big boys and don't want to risk losing your power and profits. The labels have Apple by the balls now, just like everybody else. All of those bullshit stories about David Jobs standing up to the Goliaths at Warner and Sony and Universal are out the window.

Jan 13, 09 - 01:10 pm Comment from: mike k.

Soon we'll be paying $1.99 for a new single

no we won't.

like it or not, piracy has driven prices down. a new CD can now be had for btwn 10 and 13 bucks on release week. It took forever, but they finally realized that in order to compete with 'free' you have to offer a reasonable price.

1.29 is not great, but it is also not the end of the world. Amazon is still rocking away at .89 for most songs. If the iTMS doesn't generate as much revenue for the labels at the 1.29 price point then it will come back down to .99

Any pricing advantage Amazon had will disappear now that Middlebronfman finally broke Steve Jobs.

Jan 13, 09 - 01:35 pm Comment from: KingMel

@R2

Success is often a matter of compromise. One could argue that
Steve's hard-line stand on 99 cent flat rate pricing was a good starting point to kick off the on-line music business, but was not sustainable for the long term. Demand should play a larger role in pricing. For instance, DVD's of older movies are often available at cut-rate prices, a fraction of the price that they sold for when originally released.

There are many types of pricing models. I recall quite a bit of resistance over the 99 cent price point when Apple started selling music through (then) iTMS. I doubt if you are the embodiment of all wisdom regarding pricing strategies.

Middlebronfman finally broke Steve Jobs.???????????

I have no problem with Children's Music at 1.29. These things last for a couple of days in peoples minds and then are forgotten. When it comes to real music, prices are even better. I think Steve won!!!

I'm putting on my asbestos suit now.

Jan 13, 09 - 01:37 pm Comment from: KingMel

@R2

Clearly the music labels have already lost quite a bit of control over artists and pricing. Big names are striking out on their own and the ranks of smaller independents are growing. I don't believe that your gonad assertion is accurate.

Did Apple jack up prices?

Phil said prices will be $1.29, $0.99, and $0.69. He also said more tracks will be available at $0.69 than at $1.29.

Ignore $0.99.
Assume equal numbers of tracks at $1.29 and $0.69.
($1.29 + $0.69) / 2 = $0.99.

It looks like the average price of tracks remains the same.

Now, does that also hold for average sale? Probably not. The higher prices are almost certainly going to be attached to songs people absolutely have to have right now or they'll just die.

Jan 13, 09 - 01:43 pm Comment from: wannabe

R2, really, I think your assessment is off the mark. Mere inflation would have demanded price increases at some point. I'm sure we will pay 1.99 eventually, just like we pay $1 for a Coke that used to be 50 cents.

Apple's price control was nothing more than a temporary market anomaly that Steve pushed for so that his store would have a reasonable shot of success against illegal downloading. Now that the store has succeeded this is a power that Apple does not have any more use for. If the data shows that customers buy more music at $0.99 than they do at $1.29 the labels will use the $0.99 price tier; they are concerned only with profits.

Now that Apple has no need to be in the price control business, it's pretty hilarious that Steve managed to pull a charade where it looks like he gave something up.

If you rip an iTunes plus to a CD, then re-import it as an MP3, does it strip your account information from the file?

Amazon.com MP3 downloads are still a better deal, and I can share them with everyone.

at least someone got AAC right for a change

@wannabe

"... just like we pay $1 for a Coke that used to be 50 cents."

Are you kidding me? A bottle of Coke used to be a nickel!

(Oops, showing my age...)

Seconding the compliment to the article for intelligently and correctly describing the AAC vs MP3 side of the equation, even coming up with a nice analogy. Kudos to Mr. Lanxon!

(Of course, it's a bit sad that we're *surprised* when tech reporters get simple things like this right, but that's a whole 'nother issue.)

Jan 13, 09 - 02:25 pm Comment from: deepdish

Amazon mp3s are a good deal for 99 cents.

What are they, 256 mp3?

And apple charges what for 256 aac?

aac is much better than mp3 at the same bitrate

I wish the world would wake up and real that acc is not an apple format, but the next generation from the mp3 organization.

Jan 13, 09 - 02:54 pm Comment from: Zune Tang®

@ Jeremy

Heh, doesn't even mention the Zune on his long list of compatible players.

Meh, us Zune enthusiasts don't want to soil our Zunes with your smug, pretentious and proprietary (like everything else MAC makes) I-Tunes files anyway.

Your potential. Our passion.™

Jan 13, 09 - 03:07 pm Comment from: Brau

YAY! The shackles of DRM are DEAD!! How nice of Apple to take the DRM shackles off their store and release the customer into a POH (prisoner of hardware) camp. Still can't load even a single jpeg from any other PC without iTunes threatening to erase all your media .... can't wirelessly share any media either ... but DRM is dead, YAY!.

Jan 13, 09 - 03:45 pm Comment from: deepdish

poster at gizmodo are saying the amazons mp3 quality is higher than apples acc quality?

I though both the amazon mp3 and the itunes acc were both 256?

Jan 13, 09 - 03:51 pm Comment from: jocknerd

I am glad iTunes is going DRM free. My only complaint is Apple wants me to pay $90 to upgrade. First, I think a 30 cent upgrade is a little higher than it should be. But I can live with it. Second, there are a lot of songs, including some that were free downloads, that I have no interest in upgrading at this time. I would love to upgrade maybe 30 songs at a time, but I've got better things to spend my $90 this month. Drop the all or nothing decision Apple.

Jan 13, 09 - 03:59 pm Comment from: LordRobin

Those who whine about the increase in the price of a song from 99c to $1.29 are forgetting about inflation. According to the Consumer Price Index, the $0.99 that bought a track when the iTunes store opened would be worth $1.17 in today's money. So this price increase really amounts to a whopping 12c when you take that into account.

------RM

@ jocknerd

Agreed. At first I didn't believe it when I read that you had to upgrade ALL of your tracks or none of your tracks. Some tracks were bought for very specific, one time usage. No way am I gonna pay to upgrade them.

Just seems dumb not to have the option to upgrade only some of my trax. Especially for people with large libraries. That will just encourage people to find "other options" for replacing their DRM'ed trax.

Um, you're attempt at math is wrong. The record labels are really good at noticing when songs are popular (ie, sales volume of the song/album are higher than average). Once these prices go into effect, you will find that the music you want to buy is $1.29, the music you are kinda agnostic about is $0.99, and old, eclectic songs that you have never ever heard are $0.69.

And for those of you saying "Well, if they are going to jack up the price, then I'll just switch to Amazon": Who do you think sets the retail price of songs for Amazon. Hint: It's not Amazon. I think you'll find that pricing between the two stores will have a remarkable similarity soon after April Fools Day...

Jan 13, 09 - 05:09 pm Comment from: Road Warrior

Way to tell Jeremy off Zune Thang but be fair, most people don't know (and don't care to know) what Zune enthusiasts use to soil their Zunes.

That reminds me, you should return Balmer underwear now, he wants to increase his famous skid mark collection.

Who cares about DRM free music. Why is this so important? I just don't get it. I dont think that jacking the price up is going to make me buy more music. DRM is not that big of a draw for me.

Jan 13, 09 - 05:23 pm Comment from: ken1w

> iTunes uses a format called AAC, which is a more modern alternative to MP3

Finally, a tech journalist who is not clueless.

But he forgot to mention #2 digital music player maker SanDisk as supporting AAC format. Even Zunes can play AAC.

Apple needs to allow song/album level upgrading so I don't have to spend over $100 all at once to upgrade my library.

No, the music I want to by is not going to be priced at $1.29. For the past year at least, not a single iTunes Top 10 has been in my library. I suspect my tastes will be well served at 99¢ or even 69¢.

I find myself unable to get upset that the latest anointed 'hits' will cost more.

It will be interesting to see what independents charge for songs and albums they release on iTunes.

Deckert: Amazon.com MP3 downloads are still a better deal, and I can share them with everyone.

They are cheaper for lower quality. Not a good deal at least for me.

And as far as "fair use" goes, you can share them as much or as little with your friends as unprotected AAC from the iTunes Store.

Here's an idea.

If you don't want some of the music, like the freebies or the crap, upgraded, just burn them to a CD and delete them completely from your iTunes library. Then you can upgrade the rest.

Or is that too complicated a work around.

"If you don't want some of the music, like the freebies or the crap, upgraded, just burn them to a CD and delete them completely from your iTunes library."

Won't work because Apple's offer to upgrade is based on their records of your purchases not what's in your iTunes library.