Apple’s much-awaited iTunes store has launched in Europe, and is setting a new price for music.
Offering 700,000 songs for UK79p and €0.99, the price point is considerably less than Napster UK, who last month claimed to us that wholesale prices where the cause behind their UK£1.09 (€1.62) basic price. Most iTunes albums will cost UK£7.99 (€12). However, iTunes UK is rather more than its US equivalent, famous for its US99c price for single tracks.
Also, note that UK79p is actually €1.19 by today’s exchange rate, so UK music buyers are getting fleeced yet again.
iTunes has one of the best set of consumer rights behind any music site, allowing users to play a track on up to five different devices along with unlimited CD burning.
Due to massive interest, the iTunes store is being a little unresponsive at the moment – we’ll be logging in later and taking it for a proper test spin.
AOL chose today to announce that they have formed a partnership with Apple to integrate iTunes into their product. The main advantage for AOL will be single-click registration, with free downloads promotions and iPod competitions.
Apple Launches iTunes
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Fraser Lovatt
Fraser Lovatt has spent the last fifteen years working in publishing, TV and the Internet in various capacities, and believes that they will be seperate platforms for at least a while yet. His main interests at the moment are exploring where Linux is taking home entertainment and how technology is conferring technical skills on more and more people.
Fraser Lovatt was born in the same year that 2001: A Space Odyssey was delighting and confusing people in the cinemas, and developed a lifelong love of technology as soon as he realised that things could be taken apart, sometimes put back together again, but mostly left in bits or made into something the original designer hadn't quite planned upon.
At school he was definitely in the ZX Spectrum/Magpie/BMX camp, rather than the BBC Micro/Blue Peter/well-behaved group. This is all deeply ironic as he later went on to spend nine years working at the BBC.
After a few years of working as a bookseller in Scotland, ("Back when it was actually a skilled profession" he'll tell anyone still listening), he moved to England for reasons he can't quite explain adequately to himself. After a couple of publishing jobs punctuated by sporadic bursts of travelling and photography came the aforementioned nine years at the BBC where he specialised in internet technologies and video.
These days his primary interests are Java, Linux, videogames and pies - and if they're not candidates for convergence, then what is?
View all posts by Fraser Lovatt