[Strongblade]

@Phelps

I see that now. I have deleted my comment. I attributed my inability to process it due to my iTunes account lacking the .40 I needed to upgrade even a single track. (I really need to get another iTunes card). I then only spotted the info after I had tried it.

I apologise for the incorrect info. Carry on. I shall join you in the rant :)

[aceshelman]

[quote name='jdb8167']
>

maddoguk said:

> I'll stick with AmazonWhy? With iTunes you get higher quality audio for approximately the same price? 256 kbps AAC is superior to 256 kbps mp3.

Because my youngsters have little mp3 players and we'd all like to share music. Buying mp3s from amazon is much easier than buying aac stuff from apple then converting it to mp3.

[digidan]

Well, this is welcome news! Except that I got (and used) $30 of iTunes gift cards over the Holidays... in other words, I ended up with about 20 DRM'd songs that are now DRM free, only 3 days later. Sheesh.

As for the "upgrade my library" feature, it does just that - allows you to upgrade the entire library. I can confirm, however, that removing certain protected files from the library does not remove them from the upgrade list. I may only be required to spend $15 now, but there are only a handful of those songs that I would really like upgraded - and many of which I've converted to MP3 with the CD-burn-and-rip trick in the past. Of course, it'll be more like $300 by the end of April, it seems...

[Jon Seff]

jclphoto said:

Does this mean iPods will perform a true sync with my Mac? And by this I mean sync goes in both directions (currently iPods only download songs).

Since iPhones can now purchase songs, I would sure hope so.

You've been able to purchase music on an iPhone for a while now, but you were confined to Wi-Fi. I don't think this will change how Apple deals with music syncing on all iPods.

[Jon Seff]

jrstirling8 said:

what can we do with drm free music?

Play songs on as many Macs or PCs as you want, and play them on or transfer them to any devices that support AAC files.

[paralax]

So let me see if I have this straight...
Over the past few years, I bought about 300 songs on iTunes at $0.99 each. To remove the DRM on the songs that I ALREADY purchased will cost an ADDITIONAL $0.30??
So Apple is just assuming that all the songs I bought were under their new "full" price? Even though I already bought them at the regular price?
Let me think here
0.30 * 300 songs = $90 to "upgrade" my music (WTF?)
vs
20 songs fit on a CD-R, which is about 0.46... 300/20 = 15 CDs * 0.46 = $6.90 to do it myself.
I think the labor of burning and ripping back to my hard drive is worth the $83.10 saved.

[DocNo]

NaOH said:

It keeps the record labels happy, and gives customers something.
What I'm curious about is why it took so long to come to an agreement.

I think the record companies were hoping that Amazon and other DRM free stores could pick up the slack and be a bigger competitor to iTunes. That didn't happen. I see this as much more of a victory for Apple (and us) then the record companies. Phil indicated more songs would be at $.69 vs. $1.29.

[DocNo]

jrstirling8 said:

what can we do with drm free music?

Feel morally superior?

Seriously, other then being DRM free iTunes plus music is also higher quality. Dunno if I'm gonna upgrade my existing tracks or not, though. Not sure how important it is for $28 (my upgrade costs, so far).

[DocNo]

mdixon said:

Well, unless Apple is willing to cut me a break, it's going to cost me some big bucks to upgrade all of these DRM iTunes tracks to iTunes Plus. Let's see...850 songs at 30 cents each...$255.

Is this your estimating or did you actually click on the iTunes plus button in iTunes? You get steep discounts if you have albums of songs...

>Why do I have to do all or nothing?

Quote

It would be nice if iTunes were updated to show in my Library which songs are eligible to be updated, and allow me to pick and choose to update certain songs...not my entire library (as the iTunes Store limits me to).

On this I firmly agree. I don't want plus versions of everything :(

[jschaffe]

I don't know what the problem is, but I have no "Upgrade my library" link on the iTunes store home page!

[whitedog]

GregoriusM said:

Ummmmmmmmm....... ALL of my music is gone!

I do not have ANY listings in iTunes for music.

I have my podcasts.

I had 1300 songs ripped from CDs and a couple dozen purchased tunes.

Any ideas where they all went all of a sudden?

Both iTunes and iPhoto are prone to this sort of thing. The best answer is Time Machine. I was recently able to restore my iTunes library this way. If you haven't been backing up your system one way or another, you now know why it's important.

That said, your iTunes music is probably still there on your hard drive, in the ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music folder. If you hold down the Option key when you launch iTunes you will be offered the choice to select an iTunes library. Just point it to the iTunes folder, which should contain your "iTunes Music Library.xml" file. This is the file that sometimes gets corrupted, resulting in the apparent loss of all your music. If selecting your iTunes folder in this way doesn't restore your songs and playlists, then you will have to drag and drop them manually into iTunes from the iTunes Music folder to rebuild your library file. This can be tedious if you have a lot of music, but, absent a recent backup, it's the method of last resort to restore your music to iTunes.

[whitedog]

paralax said:

Quote

Let me think here
0.30 * 300 songs = $90 to "upgrade" my music (WTF?)

vs

20 songs fit on a CD-R, which is about 0.46... 300/20 = 15 CDs * 0.46 = $6.90 to do it myself.

I think the labor of burning and ripping back to my hard drive is worth the $83.10 saved.

This assumes that 128 kbps music is comparable in quality to 256 kbps music. While there are a number of variables - like the kind of music involved - generally the higher bitrate music has more depth and distinction than the lower. Ripping your tracks to CD may strip the DRM but it does nothing to improve the quality. The upgrade price gets you both higher quality and DRM free music. Unfortunately, the story didn't even mention the quality issue, let alone what the criteria are for the different price points.

That said, I don't look forward to spending over $100 to upgrade 344 previously purchased tracks. Interestingly, the iTunes store doesn't see any of my purchased music as eligible. This is hard to believe if, in fact, eight million tracks have already been made available in iTunes Plus format. Maybe the store's servers are just over stressed at the moment. In any case, this means my upgrade decision can wait awhile.

I have been shopping at Amazon ever since they started offering DRM free music downloads. I guess I can come back to the iTunes Store now. Maybe. It will depend on what music ends up in the highest price category - and what in the lowest. Frankly, Amazon proves Steve Jobs' point about the advantages of a one tier price structure.

[McBeth]

Answer: Yes

Where: Mentioned in article

[whitedog]

jschaffe said:

I don't know what the problem is, but I have no "Upgrade my library" link on the iTunes store home page!

Neither do I. I got to the page from an iTunes troubleshooting page, but it showed none of my 344 tracks were eligible. Apparently the iTunes Plus rollout is on a par with the MobileMe mess. So much for trade show deadlines!