Apple still wants to charge for iTunes Plus upgrades


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I clicked on the iTunes Plus box this morning to check out some of the new music that’s available from those Indy labels Apple reported they were adding. I didn’t get that far though, because I was immediately met with a large ad to “Upgrade My Library”. It turns out I have 8 tracks that are worth upgrading and they want to charge me $2.40 for it.

Now, as most of you may remember, Apple recently lowered the price of iTune Plus to $.99 cents – so exactly what the heck am I supposed to be paying for here? The privilege of having the DRM removed from the tracks? Or the slight audio upgrade? Neither should cost me .30 cents when the track is now the same price that I originally paid for it.

When iTunes Plus first started I was all for it, because it seemed like the only way the music studios were going to even try DRM-free sales was with a price increase, and I was willing to do that – but now that iTunes Plus is down to .99 cents and the Amazon MP3 store is even cheaper than that (sometimes), I’m kinda hacked off by this.

Frankly, I think Apple should either upgrade the tracks for free, or stop offering to upgrade them at all.


Kossi Adzo

Kossi Adzo is a technology enthusiast and digital strategist with a fervent passion for Apple products and the innovative technologies that orbit them. With a background in computer science and a decade of experience in app development and digital marketing, Kossi brings a wealth of knowledge and a unique perspective to the Apple Gazette team.

6 Comments

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  1. maybe they just haven’t updated the “Upgrade” feature yet…
    but like you said… “”everyone” is never happy”.

  2. I don’t get it. If it isn’t worth $2.40 to you to upgrade your library, don’t do it. Not upgrading will cost you $0.00. If Apple figures that they will make more money on upgrades if they lower the cost of upgrades, then they will lower the cost of upgrading.

    What is the point of this article?

    Starbuck’s whole business model is based on charging $2.40 for things that other’s charge $0.49 for, and nobody bitches about them, because hey you can afford $2.40.

  3. @Drew

    The whole point of this article is to point out that even though the price of DRM-free tracks has been reduced to .99 cents – it’ll still cost you the old price to have DRM-free versions of your currently DRMed purchases.

    and I bitch about Starbucks all the time. I hate that place.

    So there.

    😛

  4. It would be nice to have the ability to convert for free, but either way they should reduce the cost so its a bit more reasonable.