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Warner Music, Sony BMG and Universal going iTunes Plus very soon
- Thread starter Doodledoo
- Start date
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Monday night - it looks like Universal is coming, too. From people witnessing music from all labels appearing in their upgrade page, it is easy to extrapolate that tomorrow's iTunes update will introduce iTunes Plus throughout all catalogs - it appears that all music will not be immediately available as DRM-free and 256 kbps, judging by the amount of music that has appeared in people's upgrade pages and/or Genius Sidebars, but it is extremely likely that it will all become available in a reasonable period of time. This is a great victory for opponents of DRM. While it is currently unclear exactly what is going on, specifically whether variable pricing will be introduced alongside the new choices (one of the labels' sticking points was a demand for variable pricing; higher prices on new, hot songs but cheaper prices on older, less popular ones) - this may be the case for Universal, at least; while people have been able to upgrade songs from Warner and Sony, people trying to upgrade Universal's music have been stuck with "this item is no longer available" errors; it is possible that they will not be available to upgrade because of a price difference - or whether iTunes will introduce any other differentiating factors (i.e. lossless music, greater selection...) in the future.
I'd just like to say that although all of these "sightings" certainly bode well, there is no reason to believe there's going to be an announcement of any sort tomorrow. Neither Apple nor any of the labels have confirmed anything... And there's no reason in particular to believe that a boost to iTunes Plus would be tied to a Tuesday. It seems to me that a gradual rollout would absolutely have to be put in place for something of this magnitude. Believe me, since I no longer buy CDs I want this as much as the next person but I'd think if Apple were to have this large of an announcement prepared there would already be quite a bit more buzz about it. I guess we'll see...
Tuesday is traditionally the day that new music is released and the iTunes Store is updated. It is very rare that any changes to the store happens on a different day (although to be fair, iTunes Plus was originally announced on May 30th, 2007...a Wednesday at a hastily arranged press conference with EMI).
With this being a holiday week, Wednesday is not a good day to announce a new product or upgrade since everyone is traveling. Thursday is obviously a bad day as everyone will be stuffing themselves. Friday everyone is shopping, which makes it a good day for a sale but not a good day to announce product updates. That leaves tomorrow (Tuesday) to announce it.
I bet it is announced Tuesday but officially rolled out on Friday. It is the perfect opportunity to promote iTunes sales by saying it is all DRM-free and high quality files now, just in time for the Christmas buying season. Throw in perhaps some variable pricing and they can even claim that some tracks are on sale, a nice thing to say on Black Friday.
I'm generally in the same boat unless the album is very hard to find or $15.99. Generally, if I can't get it on sale the week it comes out then I usually just buy it online, iTunes or the labels page (indie). I would LOVE to see all of iTunes go 256 AAC. You'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between that and a CD in usual listening situations.
I don't remember when I last bought a CD in a store. I buy all of my music on iTunes Plus or Amazon MP3.
I remember thinking like this. However, I think the fact that so many people started downloading via iTunes (and therefore getting no actual CD or booklet) made me feel a lot less weird. Now, I'm glad I do it that way because I don't know where most of my actual CDs are anyway. They're also an extra $2 at the least for most new stuff. I get wanting the lossless format, but I can't tell the difference.
I'm still hoping for some sort of "iTunes HD music" or just an HD music type of thing where stuff is the quality of 5.1 Dolby Digital. I bought a couple of DTS Audio discs and call easily tell the difference in those.
Same. My situation is I bought into iTunes way before Plus was an option, so I have a ton of DRM stuff anyway. At this point, I'm over the DRM thing - I've pretty much converted all of my listening options to iPod, Airtunes, etc.
The problem I have now is I can't use streaming to my iPhone with Simplify because it can't see the DRM stuff. As Plus becomes a more widespread option, I go that way. Hopefully, Apple will eventually convert completely to Plus - I think they might find consumers to be even more willing to spend money on iTunes.
On the off-chance I just checked my iTunes Plus upgrade page and I've got a few Universal releases ready to upgrade to! Yay! There are only a select few though, I have bought numerous tracks from Universal and Warner artists but only a few Universal ones are showing. Hopefully iTunes plus will no longer be exclusive to EMI in the next week or so!
This is a step in the right direction, but the amount I'd have to pay, exactly a month before Christmas, and a few days before rent pay is crazy beyond belief! Add to that I'm buying an airport extreme! 
Call me a cheapskate, but I'm only 20 and they say I can pay £38.80something if I wish to upgrade...
Well Apple, I'd love to do so very much, but the fact that I 'foolishly' bought CD's I originally got from iTunes to D-drm them, makes some of the albums a pointless upgrade. I know you can create a CD and re-rip it but the thing is, it doesn't bode well quality wise and I like my music at *least* 256kbps, and stuff I prefer at 320kbps.
Going lossless isn't an option for me since my family sync their iPod nano's (2nd gen) with my music and that'd just take the p***.
Don't know what to do... eeek!
Forgive me for the babble...
Call me a cheapskate, but I'm only 20 and they say I can pay £38.80something if I wish to upgrade...
Well Apple, I'd love to do so very much, but the fact that I 'foolishly' bought CD's I originally got from iTunes to D-drm them, makes some of the albums a pointless upgrade. I know you can create a CD and re-rip it but the thing is, it doesn't bode well quality wise and I like my music at *least* 256kbps, and stuff I prefer at 320kbps.
Going lossless isn't an option for me since my family sync their iPod nano's (2nd gen) with my music and that'd just take the p***.
Don't know what to do... eeek!
Forgive me for the babble...
Well, it is Tuesday and more iTunes Plus songs have not appeared. I'd say record companies will let Amazon build a bigger market share through this holiday season before letting their DRM-free songs get sold on iTunes. I would not be surprised if this does not take place before late January.
I still couldn't upgrade to the iTunes Plus format, even now. I wonder when the process will be near completion... with the majority of the store currently still full of DRM, this should take a good while I'd imagine.
I just noticed that the iTunes Plus link is now gone in the store. It was there all the way through this morning at about 4AM.
Is it possible to upgrade just certain albums or do you have to upgrade EVERYTHING? There's only a handful of albums that I really need to have in DRM-Free format and don't want to spend the 100+ dollars to upgrade everything if I don't have to.
I guess my prediction of Tuesday was wrong. Oh well. The next logical time would be tomorrow, Wednesday, as iTunes Plus was first introduced on one, and iTunes Plus' link is apparently gone from the Store (though it is in one of my posts on Page 1) - the next logical time would be next Tuesday or Wednesday, and if nothing happens then, MacWorld.
To those who fret over the small selection right now, keep in mind that it took more than six months for EMI's catalog to be fully added; it is most likely it will take an equivalent or longer time period for everything to switch over.
Give Apple time - we can be pretty confident that it's coming now!
EDIT: iTunes Plus links are gone from every iTunes Store. You can still reach it using the link on the previous page, though Apple has now brought down the upgrade feature; according to them, nothing is available to upgrade, in spite of our evidence. Announcement tomorrow?
To those who fret over the small selection right now, keep in mind that it took more than six months for EMI's catalog to be fully added; it is most likely it will take an equivalent or longer time period for everything to switch over.
Give Apple time - we can be pretty confident that it's coming now!
EDIT: iTunes Plus links are gone from every iTunes Store. You can still reach it using the link on the previous page, though Apple has now brought down the upgrade feature; according to them, nothing is available to upgrade, in spite of our evidence. Announcement tomorrow?
Well for the past 2 days I've had one then three albums sitting in my iTunes Plus upgrade library, but I can't buy them because I get the message below
Very frustrating considering they only appeared within the last 2 days.
I had the same thing, suddenly there's $78 worth of upgrades and couldn't get them, now the link's gone.
So iTunes Plus has been made live again as of 9pm ET. However all the music I had to upgrade to has now gone... very strange.
Same here in NZ. The one song that was there is no longer listed (I haven't bought much "encumbered" music from iTunes so there's not much for me to upgrade).