Apple Extends iTunes Previews to 90 Seconds Internationally

Saturday July 30, 2011 12:13 am PDT by Arnold Kim

itunespreviews
Apple seems to have extended iTunes song previews to 90 seconds internationally. Apple first rolled out 90 second previews in the U.S. back in December, 2010. International song previews had been stuck at 30 seconds.

According to a number of reports, the new preview lengths are available in at least Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK and parts of Europe. As with the U.S. launch, not all songs will have 90 second previews.

In the U.S., Apple had made the change unilaterally in an email to labels telling them that they would automatically extend previews from 30 seconds to 90 seconds in the iTunes Store in the U.S. It's unclear what was the reason for the delay for international markets.

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Top Rated Comments

jonnyb

199 months ago

90 second previews are very important for the discovery of dance and electronic music, especially, as the tracks tend to be much longer than your average pop song. A 30 second sample often doesn't do a track justice so these new longer previews are especially welcome for me.

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

chrono1081

199 months ago

I've bought more songs because of the longer previews. Sometimes 30 isn't enough.

Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Dr McKay

199 months ago

I wonder if people actually buy songs only after listening to 90 seconds of it.

Well if the song is terrible then no ;)

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

arn

199 months ago

Just what Adele needs, more bloody promotion! :p

I just picked the #1 song off the list. :)

Not really sure how much this will effect sales. Don't most people use the preview to confirm its the song they are looking for?

It's good for music discovery. I was looking at some albums the other day, and trying to find some new music... so the 90 second previews were nice.

arn

Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)

weckart

199 months ago

Sure, why not? You can get a good idea of a song in 30 seconds - I don't think this is going to make a whole lot of difference.

Guess again. It all depends on where the clip is selected. Too many are from extended intros and non-singing portions of songs where you really have no idea what the song really sounds like.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)