When did iTunes prices go up?

[Argo]

Was browsing iTunes store and noticed that most songs are $1.29. Did I miss some major announcement?

 

[mshan]

Isn't that for the Plus tracks?

 

[QueBert]

No, a lot of the tracks are $1.29 now, to combat this they made some, I think either 69 or 79 cents. You don't see many at that price, or at least I haven't any ways. I don't see any for 99 any more. I bought 3 last week and all were $1.29

 

[lxskllr]

What's a Plus track get you? That's $12.90 for a 10 song CD, except you don't get the CD, or the artwork.... :^S

 

[mshan]

IIRC, it's 256 AAC without DRM (?)

Link

 

[xanis]

Ugh, fuck that. I can't wait until I haven enough cash to get a Zune and a Zune Pass.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: mshan
IIRC, it's 256 AAC without DRM (?)

That doesn't sound like much of a plus. 256k is pretty good, but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple? I got some free itunes downloads years ago, then opened a account and bought a few at 99¢. I was sorry I did shortly thereafter, and quit using it. It's just too expensive for what you get.

 

[Aluvus]

April.

 

[mshan]

I think it was an unfortunate concession to the recording industry.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: mshan
IIRC, it's 256 AAC without DRM (?)

That doesn't sound like much of a plus. 256k is pretty good, but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple? I got some free itunes downloads years ago, then opened a account and bought a few at 99¢. I was sorry I did shortly thereafter, and quit using it. It's just too expensive for what you get.

The people who are buying from iTunes store are going to use an Apple product so it won't hurt them.

 

[mugs]

I think it was the same time they got rid of DRM on all of the songs. Apple wanted DRM free, record companies wanted variable prices.

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: mshan
IIRC, it's 256 AAC without DRM (?)

That doesn't sound like much of a plus. 256k is pretty good, but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple? I got some free itunes downloads years ago, then opened a account and bought a few at 99¢. I was sorry I did shortly thereafter, and quit using it. It's just too expensive for what you get.

Well my iPod Touch & iPhone are the only portable players I own, so the files play fine on my PC and my 2 PMPs. I don't care about the format as long as it plays. They sound good though. I don't plan to ever get rid of my Touch (IE: pry it out of my cold dead hands) so I think the format is good for me. Would suck big time for somebody who might jump ship to a lesser player sometime in the future though

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: mshan
IIRC, it's 256 AAC without DRM (?)

That doesn't sound like much of a plus. 256k is pretty good, but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple? I got some free itunes downloads years ago, then opened a account and bought a few at 99¢. I was sorry I did shortly thereafter, and quit using it. It's just too expensive for what you get.

AAC is pretty widely supported (Zune, Creative, Sony, Cowon) so that's not much of an issue.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard.

Other Portable Players

* Creative Zen Portable
* Microsoft Zune
* SanDisk Sansa (some models)
* Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with firmware 2.0 or greater
* Sony Walkman
* Nintendo DSi
* Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
* Cowon

This is why:

Advanced Audio Coding is designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and demonstrates greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 files coded at the same bit rate

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: lxskllr
but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard.

Other Portable Players

* Creative Zen Portable
* Microsoft Zune
* SanDisk Sansa (some models)
* Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with firmware 2.0 or greater
* Sony Walkman
* Nintendo DSi
* Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
* Cowon

This is why:

Advanced Audio Coding is designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and demonstrates greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 files coded at the same bit rate

And the only reason they support them is cus iTunes is the #1 music store and they'd be stupid not to oh and citing sound quality when majority of people listen to them on their horrible iPod makes no sense. If people cared about audio quality they wouldn't even think about AAC.

 

[lxskllr]

I didn't know AAC had been adopted that widely. My daughter has a Zune, and I use Sandisk players. I thought they were MP3, WMA, and WAV only.

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: lxskllr
but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard.

Other Portable Players

* Creative Zen Portable
* Microsoft Zune
* SanDisk Sansa (some models)
* Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with firmware 2.0 or greater
* Sony Walkman
* Nintendo DSi
* Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
* Cowon

This is why:

Advanced Audio Coding is designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and demonstrates greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 files coded at the same bit rate

And the only reason they support them is cus iTunes is the #1 music store and they'd be stupid not to oh and citing sound quality when majority of people listen to them on their horrible iPod makes no sense.

Lots of folks have decent PC speakers or headphones they use on the PC so quality counts there too. And of course many folks w/ other mp3 players can use AAC as well... as already mentioned so the quality counts for a lot more than just ipods.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: lxskllr
but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard.

Other Portable Players

* Creative Zen Portable
* Microsoft Zune
* SanDisk Sansa (some models)
* Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with firmware 2.0 or greater
* Sony Walkman
* Nintendo DSi
* Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
* Cowon

This is why:

Advanced Audio Coding is designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and demonstrates greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 files coded at the same bit rate

And the only reason they support them is cus iTunes is the #1 music store and they'd be stupid not to oh and citing sound quality when majority of people listen to them on their horrible iPod makes no sense.

Lots of folks have decent PC speakers or headphones they use on the PC so quality counts there too. And of course many folks w/ other mp3 players can use AAC as well... as already mentioned so the quality counts for a lot more than just ipods.

If people cared about sound quality they wouldn't even think about AAC.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: lxskllr
but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard.

Other Portable Players

* Creative Zen Portable
* Microsoft Zune
* SanDisk Sansa (some models)
* Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with firmware 2.0 or greater
* Sony Walkman
* Nintendo DSi
* Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
* Cowon

This is why:

Advanced Audio Coding is designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and demonstrates greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 files coded at the same bit rate

And the only reason they support them is cus iTunes is the #1 music store and they'd be stupid not to oh and citing sound quality when majority of people listen to them on their horrible iPod makes no sense. If people cared about audio quality they wouldn't even think about AAC.

There's nothing wrong with AAC sound quality, especially if you go high bitrate. Sure it'd be nice if we could get lossless downloads for 99 cents, but it'd be even nicer if we could get recordings that aren't fubared.

 

[mshan]

Can I still upgrade my old 128 DRM-protected AAC to iTunes Plus?

If so, how do I do it within iTunes?

(I have a PS3, so that may motivate me to upgrade now, though I always thought 128 AAC was actually very good sounding, even on a high end 2 channel rig - frequency extremes were slightly attenuated, there was a loss of very fine (spatial detail), but very listenable nonetheless).

edit: found the link; it wasn't in my account, but on iTunes storefront.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: mshan
Can I still upgrade my old 128 DRM-protected AAC to iTunes Plus?

If so, how do I do it within iTunes?

Look for the link above. I think I read it's 30¢ to upgrade existing tracks.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: zerocool84
And the only reason they support them is cus iTunes is the #1 music store and they'd be stupid not to oh and citing sound quality when majority of people listen to them on their horrible iPod makes no sense. If people cared about audio quality they wouldn't even think about AAC.

I'm trying to figure out why you even want to argue about this.

 

[mshan]

Just to confirm, if I upgrade to iTunes Plus, I will be able to play all of my iTunes store purchases on my PS3?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: mshan
Just to confirm, if I upgrade to iTunes Plus, I will be able to play all of my iTunes store purchases on my PS3?

I don't see why you wouldn't. As long as the PS3 plays AAC it'll work fine. AFAIK all tracks aren't available as plus tracks. I got all my knowledge about 15 minutes ago reading the FAQ :^P

 

[gorcorps]

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: gorcorps

Originally posted by: zerocool84

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: lxskllr
but who in the hell uses AAC except for Apple?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony's PlayStation 3 and is supported by Sony's Playstation Portable, latest generation of Sony Walkman, Walkman Phones from Sony Ericsson, Nseries Phones from Nokia, Android based phones, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007), the Nintendo DSi, and the MPEG-4 video standard.

Other Portable Players

* Creative Zen Portable
* Microsoft Zune
* SanDisk Sansa (some models)
* Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) with firmware 2.0 or greater
* Sony Walkman
* Nintendo DSi
* Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player
* Cowon

This is why:

Advanced Audio Coding is designed to be the successor of the MP3 format and demonstrates greater sound quality and transparency than MP3 files coded at the same bit rate

And the only reason they support them is cus iTunes is the #1 music store and they'd be stupid not to oh and citing sound quality when majority of people listen to them on their horrible iPod makes no sense.

Lots of folks have decent PC speakers or headphones they use on the PC so quality counts there too. And of course many folks w/ other mp3 players can use AAC as well... as already mentioned so the quality counts for a lot more than just ipods.

If people cared about sound quality they wouldn't even think about AAC.

Of all the lossy codecs it's probably one of the better ones right now. Not everybody has an mp3 player that supports lossless or even ogg, and mp3 is showing it's age.