Check your Software Update

A few DRM free (iTunes+) albums are now available from the iTunes Store. Not much, I guess the EMI stuff will be trickling out (not to mention the indies, which probably will take a while...)

Anyone have any idea how to upgrade your existing music? I didn't see anything obvious in the iTunes Plus area. I had been hoping Apple would provide a one click way to show me what I have previously purchased that is eligible for upgrade.

Yup, just checked it out -- in fact I guess there is a lot more non-DRM music on iTunes from what I suspected -- it found an album in my library that it offered to upgrade -- and here is the bad news:

Album upgrades are not free, as has been speculated, but 30% of the album price -- in my case $3.00 So future album purchases will be rewarded. Past ones -- no.

Just saw that. I was using iTunes but not logged into the store. Once I did that I was good to go. I only have one album and one song eligible for the upgrade. Under $3 to get DRM free music seems like a good deal to me.

My software update bar get 20% and just sits there. Not sure if I need to restart or if everyone is updating?

I found that song credits don't purchase the non-DRM music.

I suppose you could buy the DRM'd song, then upgrade it to the non-DRM, if you want to use your credits as much as possible.

On the non-DRM album, it also has the "Complete your album" option. I'm not sure what would happen with that, if it would replace the existing songs with non-DRM versions, or just complete the missing songs.

Read the FAQ for iTunes Plus. Song credits will purchase iTunes Plus songs, you just need to turn on the preference first.

Of course only 1 of my songs is available.

It may say that in the FAQ, but that's not how it's working.

I do have my preferences set to "iTunes Plus", and when I try to buy a song I get the message saying "Your remaining song credits are insufficient to complete this purchase. Note that songs cannot be applied towards the purchase of albums, videos, or audiobooks. Your credit card will be charged for some or all of this purchase."

I tried again to use credits to get iTunes Plus songs, and it is working now.

I had tried several times before, and it gave me the error in the previous message. Today, I entered a free song code for two songs (one from a cereal box that I've had laying around for months.. My previous credits were from AmEx credit card points). After entering that code, it updated my credits and I was able to purchase songs.

I thought maybe only the two new credits would be valid for Plus songs, but I bought five songs total, and they all worked.

So, either Apple fixed something in iTMS, or adding credits triggered an update that fixed it.

Either way, I can confirm that song credits do work with Plus songs.. Which makes them even more valuable.

bought a couple of replacement songs from scratched CDs that wouldn't rip today that were missing a couple of tunes here and there.

uncompressed them to wavs, trashed the mpeg4 downloaded versions, no noticable difference from the originals on my headphones but haven't checked on my main system.

for people looking to make it their default, when you first click to itunes plus anywhere on the page it should give you a prompt to make itunes plus your default store, that's what it did for me.

you trashed the mpeg4 downloaded versions? Are you saying you convert the MPEG4/AAC to wavs and delete the AAC? Isn't that just adding size to the file? You're not going to gain quality converting to WAV.. you can't exceed the source.


There have been several articles recently comparing the old & new formats. As expected, most people say they can't tell much difference in audio quality. The bigger factor seems to be the non-DRM format. That's true for me.. I'll convert my whole collection of purchased songs, if possible.

unfortunately my xbox crapped out, which i've been using for an audio player for years, so i had to convert my whole libary to wavs temporarily until i can get another player set up that supports ape or flac, since i'm using my DVD player to play stuff back til then