... I've spent plenty of money with the iTunes store since its inception, and I'm tired of getting warnings when I make, for example, multiple copies of a mix CD that happens to include one or more songs I've purchased digitally. Burning and ripping all the songs I've bought is a waste of my time, not to mention of CD-ROMs.

This leaves me with just one remaining question. What's it going to do about the DRM on the songs I've already bought from iTunes?

Unless the onion's avclub has it wrong, you can buy an upgrade to existing purchases for 30 cents a song, and this will remove the DRM.

... should have a little talk with the people on Wall Street. Customers might have money to buy the music industry's products if the Wall Street greedheads weren't sending so many good-paying jobs overseas to increase profits.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatsnew/

Just as has always been the case with iTunes Plus upgrades, it's thirty cents per song. Since you're also getting a higher quality file, you're not only paying to strip the DRM.

I remember reading elsewhere that Apple has to pay the labels per download, which is why these upgrades can't be free, and also why you can't re-download songs if you accidentally delete them (except rarely and at Apple's discretion).

Word is that any music you have bought from the iTunes store will be updated to the new format, if you so wish and if the option is available, automatically.

In addition to removing the DRM, the new format also encodes the music at a higher bitrate - compressing it less. This is a good start, but still leaves me cold. I know most people don't hear the difference between an mp3 (or AAC, which is what iTunes sells) and uncompressed CD quality, but I do, in certain situations, and I simply refuse to pay for music that is of a knowingly inferior quality than I can get at my local CD store, no matter how convenient it is.

I'm a mad technology buff... a Mac person with two computers, two ipods and an iphone, but until the music I purchase from the iTunes store is at least as good as that I get from the local music shop, I'll keep browsing the racks at Waterloo Records, here in Austin, asking the staff to let me listen to the CD, and taking my purchases home to rip them onto my computer (at which point the CD typically goes on the shelf, never to be touched again).

Is this the 2008 equivalent of declaring that the sound of digital is too cold compared to vinyl, and refusing to give up my room full of LPs? Am I old now?

I know most people don't hear the difference between an mp3 (or AAC, which is what iTunes sells) and uncompressed CD quality, but I do, in certain situations, and I simply refuse to pay for music that is of a knowingly inferior quality than I can get at my local CD store, no matter how convenient it is.

And for those of us who have never considered "CD quality" to be anything remarkable, let alone listenable, the thought that anyone would pay anything at all for compressed MP3 files still boggles the mind.

Then again, no one has ever gone broke by underestimating the American public.

because 1/2" tape was a superior format except for those who only wanted 70 mm film stock.

Since Salon.com is lacking a technology blog these days, I'll comment on the other big announcement here as well. Apple's newest 17" MacBook Pro has a non-removeable battery. A really sweet, long lasting non-removeable battery, but one that is sealed into the computer all the same.

This is partially a design move - making the computer as thin as possible, and partially an environmental move, the new battery is even more complex than the latest li-ion batteries out there, and therefore they really want to see them get recycled. They're trading the consumers this inconvenience for what is claimed to be around 50% - 80% more life off each charge, and a battery rated at 1000 charge cycles, as opposed to the 400 or so most current li-on batteries are currently rated.

Which leaves me wondering. Given the move towards environmental protection within the computer industry, and towards more and more complex (and expensive) parts in laptop computers, who will create the first truly leased computer? Will it eventually make sense for companies like Apple to sell their machines with the understanding that it will be traded in after one or two years, or some other interval, at which point the company will take the old machine back to recycle all those parts, and offer a partial refund to the purchaser on a new machine, ala glass bottles?

I'm already sending in my iPhone, my iPod, and my 17" MacBook Pro (arguably the most powerful laptop available today - and not cheap) to Apple to have the battery replaced. If I'm suffering the inconvenience of being without my portable electronics for however long it takes to do that, wouldn't it make sense to upgrade all the other parts at the same time, as well as the battery?

can tell the difference between MP3's and CD?? ummm maybe i just spent too much of my careless youth going to shows and coming home with ringing ears (before i gave up on being cool and started bringing the ear plugs) from actually listening to REAL music, but you people are crazy. that is unless your idea of a fun night as a 17 year old involved listening to unamplified smooth jazz, chamber music or curling up with a mint simon and garfunckle LP. argue the merits of the pop and crackle of a vinyl record, yes. argue that cd's offer a noticeably superior listening experience to modern compressed MP3's, sorry gents- hell no.

Once music companies embraced digital technology it was all over but the fight itself.

I find it more than a little ironic that the very thing that revitalized the recording industry for 20 years (digital recording and CDs), was the seed of its undoing..or, at best, the seed of its utter transformation.

Hard to believe there was no-one in the executive suites of those companies who couldn't see the consequences of digital recording..I know I did, and so did many of my friends, long before the internet showed up. We all knew what was going to happen..if not in detail, in broad outline, and we were just lowly consumers...