Guillotine

Well… Soon there won’t be much (if anything) left for people to complain about iTunes anymore (except for the folks who simply can’t stand Apple and will surely find something to whine about). With the release of iTunes 8 Apple has announced that they will be offering a new service called iTunes Plus in which music from all 4 major labels will be available as DRM free 256 kbp/s AAC tracks. So it seems that amongst all the rumors of iTunes possibly closing down or never being able to offer DRM free music Steve Jobs managed to pull yet another rabbit out of his hat to give folks what they want.

The catch??? Of course there is one. The iTunes Plus tracks will cost $1.29 each, but that’s not too bad for the people who really want the higher quality and DRM free tracks. The regular 128 kbp/s AAC DRM tracks are still going to be available at 99 cents each, so we get the best of both worlds… We can choose freedom of where and how we store our music or cheaper tracks for those of us who don’t have the need for music portability outside the iPod. There will also be a selection of bargain tracks which will cost 69 cents each giving iTunes customers 3 price points for music now. According to Apple most albums will still be priced at $9.99.

Another nice touch since I can hear people screaming already… For those of us who have been long time iTunes customers they thought about us too. Simply by paying the 30 cents extra per track you can upgrade your existing library to iTunes Plus. So there is no need to repurchase your entire library just to get DRM free and the higher quality.

In other iTunes news… Geneon will begin releasing anime songs onto iTunes in 22 countries for purchase this week. Just a small selection to start, but they intend to have complete soundtracks, character songs, and other related materials to be added later.