Apple on Tuesday followed through on its promise to remove all digital rights management (DRM) from music sold on the iTunes Store. The company also unveiled tiered pricing for individual songs and albums.
All songs on the iTunes Store are now available at 256kbps AAC encoding, which Apple says is virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. Apple began the process of converting its music to remove DRM in January when Phil Schiller announced the move during his keynote address at Macworld Expo.
The other change to the iTunes Store involves pricing. Apple adopted new pricing options that include selling songs for 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29. While there is no clear way to determine what songs will be priced at, Schiller did say that more songs would be priced at 69 cents than $1.29.
Of course, Apple is offering users a way to upgrade all of their existing music to DRM-free songs. You can get to this link on the iTunes Store by clicking on “Upgrade to iTunes Plus.”