Matti Robinson
7 Jan 2009 4:03
With only one new product revelation, a rather unattractive $2,799 MacBook, this year's Macworld keynote was nothing like we have been used to. It could only have been described as a disappointment until Philip Schiller, who replaced Steve Jobs, revealed DRM-free iTunes. According to Schiller iTunes will be entirely DRM-free with over 10 million songs at the end of the first quarter of 2009.
The iTunes Plus section should already feature 8 million songs DRM-free. The pricing of the songs has also gone through some changes. iTunes has now three price points for songs - 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. 69 cents is for older releases and $1.29 for new hit songs.
Most of the albums will still be priced at $9.99.
iTunes Plus allows users to upgrade their songs to new higher quality DRM-free versions for 30 cents per song or 30 percent of the album price for the whole album. iTunes Plus uses 256kbps AAC audio format.