iTunes Music store in UK

Someone from Apple is going to be on Simon Mayo's show this afternoon on BBC Radio Five Live to talk about the Music Store.

I have emailed Simon to ask him to ask the Apple guy about possible dates and costs for the UK service.

I will post back with a report of what he says, but I think this is already a good sign that the Music Store will be coming to the UK.

Cheers,
Dobbin

Its just been on, a brief interview. Mark Rogers, UK General Manager of Apple Computer Speaking to Simon Mayo on BBC Radio Five Live (2.10pm).

Mark briefly described the Music Store, including US pricing. He emphasised the ease of use, legality, Apples joint working with the music industry, etc. He said exciting several times and was very upbeat.

Simon told him it was pretty useless if it was only available in the US (thanks Simon!!).

Mark replied that if the music industry resolves some of the issues regarding legality and contracts, then we will look to expand it outside of the US.

Mark said that no pricing available outside the US as the service is not yet available. He said hopefully they can work something out though. With a prompt from Simon, he agreed it shouldn't be more expensive than in the US. He said they would have to work on pricing for UK as Simon said he had had a lot of emails about this - i.e. we will pay 60p (~$1) but not 99p which would be more than the US price.

He was very positive about it all but said it was out of their hands as to when it could be released outside of US. Simon asked if it could be out this year, and Mark said he really didn't know but it would be as soon as possible.

All in all a very good interview, and excellent questions from Simon who had done some research, or at least read my email and asked the right questions. Apologies for my disjointed report, but I had no means to record the interview here and I can't type fast enough to transcribe the whole thing. I've written this from memory.

One funny moment was when Simon asked Mark when he had last downloaded music legally. Mark replied he had never downloaded music legally, and then quickly added that he had never downloaded music at all (liar!!). He added that to use the service in the UK at the moment we would need a US credit card and US billing address (as has been previously suggested).

In summary, the general feel I got was that the service will come to the UK, although not straight away. And if this wasn't the case, why would marK even bother doing the interview.


Cheers,

Dobbin

Originally posted by James.Paul
There probably waiting for us to join the euro, makes the currency situation easier.

Click to expand...

LOL! I hope not, we'll be waiting a long time if thats the case.

Back on topic though, the news that they sold 275,000 songs in 18 hours will hopefully speed up negotiations elsewhere in the world. They have shown the record companies that there *is* money to made from this!