By Chris Scott Barr
Not long ago I warned you that Apple might finally be caving in to the record labels by hiking the prices of some of their new tunes. Unfortunately it appears that I was correct, if you hit up some new tracks in iTunes, you’ll find the new $1.29 price tag staring back at you. But it isn’t actually all bad news.
Before the changes, there were two types of music available. You had your regular stuff, and iTunes Plus. The ‘Plus’ tracks used 256 kbps AAC encoding and were DRM-free. You paid an extra thirty cents for these bonus features, which added up to $1.29. Now all of your music, even the $0.99 stuff, is higher-quality and DRM-free. As for your old tunes that you previously purchased, you can go ahead and convert those to the better versions for free.
As we stated before, the price of your track is determined by how popular it is. There are three tiers; $0.69, $0.99 and $1.29. The more popular the track, the higher price bracket. To be honest, I’m really a lot less upset about this change than I thought I would be. People have been turning to Amazon because they offer 256 kbps DRM-free tracks at $0.99, but now Apple has leveled the playing field. And for those wondering, Apple isn’t the only one raising prices on new tracks. A quick look around the Amazon site showed some new tracks with a $1.29 price as well.
Update: Looks like you’re still going to have to pay that $0.30 charge to upgrade your old music to iTunes Plus.
VIA [ Apple ]
“As for your old tunes that you previously purchased, you can go ahead and convert those to the better versions for free.”
I don't think that's true. On the Apple page you linked to it says:
” It’s also easy to upgrade songs you previously purchased from iTunes to iTunes Plus. You don’t have to buy the song or album again. Just pay the 30¢ per song upgrade price.”
“As for your old tunes that you previously purchased, you can go ahead and convert those to the better versions for free.”
I don't think that's true. On the Apple page you linked to it says:
” It’s also easy to upgrade songs you previously purchased from iTunes to iTunes Plus. You don’t have to buy the song or album again. Just pay the 30¢ per song upgrade price.”