Apple iTunes launched in Europe

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Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, has just announced the launch of iTunes for Europeans (UK, France, Germany). iTunes is a online music store, allowing PC and Mac users to download their songs legally. The service had previously launched in the US with a $0.99 price tag; since it's launch Apple claim to have sold ~ 70 million songs.

The UK launch, today, sees songs available at £.79, and albums at $7.99 (.99 Euros in France and Germany, 9.99 for an album). Although a reasonable price (much cheaper than high street retailers like HMV), cynics might notice that the exchange rate being what is, the price should really be closer to £.55. The EU store will (like the US) also offer gift certificates ranging from £5 - £100.

At the launch, Jobs extolled the virtues of the new release, highlighting localised version for France and Germany, exclusive music, artist's playlists, and the ability to burn tracks to CD. Also on offer are audio books. He also took the time to show off Apple's recently launched Airport Express, and it's tight integration with iTunes. The store now claims to have 700,000 from both main stream and indepedent artists. To finish the launch, Jobs welcomed Alicia Keys onto the stage; Keys played 'Night and Day', and commented on how much she loved iTunes. The store is now open to English, French, and Germany customers.

iTunes faces competition from Napster in the UK, who have recently announced a partnership with NTL. Apple, however, view their main competition as music piracy, and Jobs highlighted this in the launch.

View: iTunes 4.6 release

View: Info @ mac world

View: iTunes Homepage

Screenshot: >> Click here <<

Additional note; the store only accepts Mastercard, Visa, Solo and Switch. A strange move to ignore the ever popular electron card, a card mainly used by the music listening youth that Apple would be more than wise to tap into. The store also requires a credit card (or one of the above) to register an account for the service.

(2 replies) #1 kwyjibo on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:22

Where the frig is CANADA?! WE'RE RIGHT NEXT FRIGGING DOOR.

#1.1 aristotle-dude on 15 Jun 2004 - 15:00

Blame the friggen CRIA and the governments heritage ministry requiring a certain percentage of "Canadian" content.

#1.2 Astral on 16 Jun 2004 - 04:59

QUOTE (#1.0)

Diddo. Been waiting so long for this lovely little service. Good timing for me though, little funds to be played with as of late...

#2 Jedimark on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:22

woo

(5 replies) #3 nerdfiles on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:25

just made my first purchases via itunes and the downloads a very fast, and the price is a lot cheaper than napster!

#3.1 mark03 on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:27

Can anyone tell me whether they accept Visa Electron, before I try it?

#3.2 mark03 on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:31

Ah well, guess i'll stick to Piolet then.

#3.3 Kracal on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:31

Damn, can't use it then

#3.4 unkn0wnvariable on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:37

Just try feeding your Visa number in and see if it works. I was under the impression that Visa is Visa regardless of any other words after it.

#3.5 theyarecomingforyou on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:00

QUOTE

I was under the impression that Visa is Visa regardless of any other words after it.

No... unfortunately it is completely different. Not many online stores accept it - Amazon is one of the few.

(1 reply) #4 Mr magoo on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:27

No, mastercard, visa, solo and switch.

#4.1 .KICK on 15 Jun 2004 - 14:46

woo they take solo

(6 replies) #5 philbarnes on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:43

wow! i thought they were going to blatently rip us off at 99p a track.

how much is napster?

#5.1 duckboy on 15 Jun 2004 - 12:55

as low as 88p a track for subscribers

http://napster.co.uk/what_is_napster.html

#5.2 hobsgrg on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:19

£1.09 per track for non subscribers, which is insane. I'm glad UK price is below 99p which is what i was expecting, hopefully others will reduce their prices now.

#5.3 sard on 15 Jun 2004 - 15:22

It’s still more expensive than the 55p ($.99) it is in the US, for no good reason

#5.4 dp123 on 15 Jun 2004 - 16:49

Don't claim there is no reason, please. Yes, it sucks you pay more, but don't act as if the VAT doesn't exist.

#5.5 sard on 15 Jun 2004 - 18:39

With VAT at 17.5% that would make it 65p so what explains the other 14p? they're just charging as much as they can get away. I'm sure the arsehole music industry is pressuring them too. Like when they prosecuted websites for importing cheap CDs ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/3416437.stm ) even though they were paying all the correct taxes. Free trade doesn't apply to the music industry, for some reason they can dictate price as they see fit in each country.

#5.6 dp123 on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:15

Right, well... it's been a while since I've been to the Uk, so I didn't initially surmise the other factors: licensing/importing music. It seems to me that based on the link you provided and amazon.co.uk that an album usually costs from 8.49 to 11.99 (Pounds). So why do you accept the higher cost on conventional CDs, but then think there aren't additional costs for online licensing. Of course there is. I think between the VAT, and import licensing, the fees are quite reasonable.

Do you think we like having to pay $24.99 to $31.99 (US) for Japanese imports? We don't... but if we want the content, we do.

And, by the way, free trade doesn't apply to anything, unless it is advantagous to the domestic country and market involved... then it's applicable.

#6 Tweedle on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:26

I just used my UK Visa Electron card and it works fine.

#7 kingius on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:27

Excellent, I just had a quick look, between this and allofmp3 Ive got the albums I want all covered

#8 pctuk on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:28

Undercuts od2 (who supply MSN's UK music store, amongst others). Hope this leads to price cuts.

(1 reply) #9 Hafnium on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:40

Why is this available only to UK, Germany and France? I thought that they would include all European countries in this launch... Very dissapointing!

Well, I'm all yours, OD2/Microsoft...

/Hafnium

#9.1 oik on 16 Jun 2004 - 01:30

because you expected RUMORS to turn into REALITY. sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. APPLE, the people who run itms, never said "next week we will open for ALL of europe." someone else did... that's like the rumor going around that so and so has an ingrown toenail, then you talk to that person and they say "no... wtf are you talking about?"

#10 vilent_ape on 15 Jun 2004 - 13:41

im glad that itunes id only chargin 77p a song but a lot of the music rom the american store int on the uk 1

#11 ph_bradley on 15 Jun 2004 - 14:01

i would LOVE a £1000 gift certificate, if anyone's feeling generous...

#12 hobsgrg on 15 Jun 2004 - 14:02

erm gift certificates are available ranging from £5 to £100 NOT £1,000!!!!!!!!!!! Mistake in the news post

#13 sebaz on 15 Jun 2004 - 14:27

hey you can access the the european stores from the US

The german store has Paul van dyk, Cosmic gate not found on the US Store.

This is awesome..

#14 McG on 15 Jun 2004 - 14:32

cool

#15 Seismo on 15 Jun 2004 - 14:48

In the german store are hardly any songs (at least less than in the us store). I hope they will adjust the database soon.

#16 Chicane-UK on 15 Jun 2004 - 16:30

w00t! I can't wait to try this out! Thanks Apple

Been trying for 15 minutes now though.. I guess it was a bit more popular than they were expecting as I just can't get on at all.

#17 Jon on 15 Jun 2004 - 16:34

If I buy something I want a solid product in my hands. All of my fellow music lovers are proud of their CD collections.

This is probably great for people who only want the popular songs tho. (Thats almost intended to be an insult

)

(1 reply) #18 vilent_ape on 15 Jun 2004 - 16:56

That’s why I wont to use the music store you can bye individual songs rather than whole albums that are mostly full of crap most of the time with 1, 2 or maybe 3 good songs.

#18.1 jagedEdge on 16 Jun 2004 - 03:21

That didn't make any sense. You won't use it because you can buy single songs without all the extra crap you don't like?

Edit: Oops, I didn't see the "to". Come on, use a spell checker man.

(2 replies) #19 salo on 15 Jun 2004 - 17:16

I am so dissapointed in them. They say they released i-tunes in Europe, well guess what, there are 25 countries in europe, not three. They should have talked about the three countries from the beginning not hype it up.

#19.1 nspeds on 15 Jun 2004 - 17:25

I'll call Steve Jobs today and tell him that you are capable of negotiating with 25 countries in less than a year to settle a contract with decent pricing.

#19.2 dp123 on 15 Jun 2004 - 17:57

They never said they were going to release it to all of Europe... that was just you and the press getting over-excited.

They did say that they wanted the widest release possible and weren't going to pursue Napster's strategy of one country at a time.

Instead they launched in the 3 largest markets simultaneously and will follow with a Pan-Euro option in 4 months.

Do you think it's Apple that wants to limit their own reach or do you think it might have something to with the studios and licensing groups?

#20 Test Zero on 15 Jun 2004 - 19:05

This is crap, there are hardly any decent songs available.

(1 reply) #21 sebaz on 15 Jun 2004 - 20:34

Jesus ppl u think when the itunes store launched here in the States we had a huge ammount of songs to choose from ? Nope.

Is not like Apple has to flip a switch and then theres itunes everywhere with all the artists know to mankind with a very low price and you can pay them however you want..

Give it some time, ppl are never happy are they...

Last edited by 5466 on 15 Jun 2004 - 20:47

#21.1 Chicane-UK on 15 Jun 2004 - 21:56

I admit there is not a huge choice initially, but it will be added to near enough daily

Already some good solid albums from some popular artists.. enough to kick off a good collection and show a bit of support for this system.

#22 mr_da3m0n on 15 Jun 2004 - 23:23

I just love the screenie. It has a playlist called "****".
Lovely.

#23 McG on 16 Jun 2004 - 17:32

needs to go to canada!

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