Just a couple of items to highlight for you, in my ongoing series of things that don’t warrant a whole post to themselves.
1. As you can’t have failed to notice, Apple have announced today at MacWorld that iTunes is going DRM free. No longer will music purchased through the iTunes store be restricted-use; you’ll be able to do what you like with it – just like you can with downloads from Amazon.
The problem comes in that any music you’ve already purchased (unless it was an iTunes Plus track) will still have DRM attached, and if you want to upgrade it – which you may have to, if the DRM servers get switched off, because it seems that will make your music non-functional – you’ll have to pay some more money for the privilege. Not the full cost, but 20p per music track.
That doesn’t sound like much, but if you’ve bought a lot of tracks it could soon add up. It would have been better if Apple and the record labels could have found it in their hearts to let you upgrade for free. Especially seeing as how by the end of March, all iTunes tracks are planned to be DRM free.
2. Something else you’ve probably seen over the last few days is the announcement of the new Doctor Who, to replace David Tennant from 2010 onwards. Matt Smith has apparently had quite an illustrious theatre career and has been in a few TV things (many of them with Billie Piper) but for me, he’s a complete unknown. Not sure if he’s a good choice or not.
Of course, my preference would have been for the return of Tom Baker.
