Apple Dropping iTunes Plus (DRM Free) Song Prices to $.99?
In May, Apple launched the Digital Rights Management (DRM) free portion of their Music Store called iTunes Plus. The copy-protection free songs sold for $1.29 and were encoded at a higher 256kbps quality AAC.
Earlier today, some users had noticed that certain iTunes Plus songs were now selling for $.99 instead of $1.29. At first it wasn't clear if the pricing discrepancy was simply a mistake.
Ars Technica is now reporting that Apple is in the midst of expanding iTunes Plus to include indie music labels and also dropping the price of all iTunes Plus songs to $.99. Apple will reportedly keep the old DRMed songs at $.99.
The article speculates that the price drop is a reaction to Amazon's DRM MP3 Store which has been very well received. Amazon's MP3 DRM-free store launched 3 weeks ago and provides 256kbps MP3s that can be seamlessly loaded into your existing iTunes library.
Popular Stories
Apple has added a new "iPhone Handoff" feature to iOS 27 that will allow you to switch between two iPhones while using the same phone number on each device.
This functionality was briefly mentioned during the WWDC 2026 keynote in June, on a slide that listed hundreds of new features coming in iOS 27 and corresponding software updates, but Apple never shared any further details at the time.
...
Less than a week before Apple debuts new iPhone 18 Pro models, research firm TrendForce has estimated the prices of the devices based on the latest hardware cost environment.
TrendForce's price estimates compared to last year's models look like this:
Model
Starting Price
Model
Starting Price
Change
iPhone 17 Pro
$1,099
iPhone 18 Pro
$...
Ahead of Apple's event on Wednesday, September 9, where it is expected to unveil its first-ever foldable iPhone, Taiwanese research firm TrendForce today outlined the device's estimated price range, features, and some other key details.
In the U.S., TrendForce estimated that the foldable iPhone will have a starting price of $2,099 to $2,299 and said the highest-end configurations could...