With the advent of 7Digital now providing DRM free music in 320kbit/sec mp3’s (See this article for full details) from all 4 major labels, I’m confused about the iTunes offering in AAC.

You see, I like iTunes plus music, ie the no-usage limits, no DRM music in iTunes, and prefer this to buying a CD….however its not always available.  In fact only one major label is signed up.

Nowadays, my choices when buying music are… use play.com, amazon.co.uk or similar for physical media.    Use iTunes if I want it now… but have to accept the DRM on the majority of tunes.

Admittedly for me iTunes DRM doesn’t get in the way much, but it does stop me playing music on a non Apple device, so I only spend £10-15 a month there normally, for the few single tracks I can’t get in Album format from the aforementioned retailers.    DRM is important to me as at some point I’ll will be getting a Squeezebox Duet, or Sonos device - so I am becoming all too aware of how my “singles” library is proprietary to Apple only playback.   Currently I resort to waiting a day or two and getting most music albums via the post and CD method, upon which its ripped to 320Kbit mp3 VBR format, and then added to my library.

7Digital changes this completely.     Now I don’t have to wait for albums, I’ve checked their prices and they are very reasonable, in fact cheaper than the shops in many cases.   I can see myself using 7Digital instead of physical media now for almost all purchases so I congratulate them for getting the labels to agree to this change.

Apple, take note - I’m voting with my feet and will move my single purchases to 7Digital also.     I will come back to the iTunes fold, if and when you make all tunes Itunes plus.