iTunes Plus and iTunes U Launched

Apple has launched iTunes Plus—DRM-free music tracks in high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, so good that Apple says the audio quality is "virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings." The iTunes Plus tracks cost $1.29 per song, and include EMI’s digital catalog of recordings with singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums available on iTunes for the first time. As mentioned here before, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums.  iTunes Plus songs purchased from the iTunes Store will play on all iPods, Mac or Windows computers, widescreen TVs with Apple TV and soon iPhones, as well as many other digital music players.

Apple also announced the launch of iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes Store featuring free content such as course lectures, language lessons, lab demonstrations, sports highlights and campus tours provided by top US colleges and universities including Stanford University, UC Berkeley, Duke University and MIT.