iTunes Plus: A work in progress?

Posted by Daniel Stout on Wed 30 May 2007 at 7:56 PM

I downloaded the new Apple iTunes version 7.2 tonight. I wanted to check out iTunes Plus, which is the new area of the iTunes Music Store that has unprotected songs at a higher bitrate available to download. This morning, I had even read something about being able to upgrade the songs in your collection that are available in iTunes Plus. Currently only EMI is offering unprotected downloads.

So I went to the music store, and clicked on the link for iTunes Plus. I came up with a window asking if I’d like to make iTunes Plus my default choice for music when available. I said yes. It then took me to a page where the most popular downloads from iTunes Plus were highlighted. At the top of the screen was a box that said Upgrade Your Collection, and it told me how many songs, albums, and music videos I had available for upgrade. I haven’t downloaded much from iTunes Music Store so it said there were 24 songs, 2 albums, and 1 music video for a total of $5.97. I clicked See Details, and it showed me that Lily Allen’s Alright, Still and Let Love In by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds were available, plus the video for Daft Punk’s Robot Rock.

I clicked Buy. It asked, “Are you sure you want to Upgrade Your Library to iTunes Plus?” I clicked Buy. It then says, “The item you tried to buy is no longer available.” Strange. All of the items listed appear to still be available.

So I set that task aside for a moment and looked at the various Nick Cave albums available on iTunes Plus. I like The Weeping Song a lot so I decided to download The Good Son. It completed the transaction okay, but when it went to download the album it could only get the Weeping Song. The rest of the songs timed out. It got a few spurts from other songs but then stopped.

I’ve restarted iTunes. I’ve rebooted the computer. You know, the usual stuff to clear things up. But neither will it upgrade my collection to iTunes Plus, nor will it let me download from iTunes Plus. I’ve known other people who have had iTunes problems when new versions come out, but I’ve never had a problem. I suppose I can contact Apple support. I’ll let you know what I find out.

Update: Thursday 31 May. Today the Upgrade Your Collection left off the Daft Punk video, and I was able to complete the transaction, well, from a financial perspective. But the downloads are still giving fits. iTunes 7.2 doesn’t like Nick Cave very much. Off the upgraded Let Love In it was only able to download a couple of tracks. So I’ve got a bunch of Nick Cave tracks partially downloaded from The Good Son and only a couple of full tracks from Let Love In. The strange thing is that Alright, Still by Lily Allen downloaded in its entirety completely normally. It downloaded the tracks three at a time without a hiccup at all. That says to me that Nick Cave is on the bastard child server, which isn’t getting a lot of love right now. Lily Allen on the other hand is on the cool kids server, which is working fine. Apple Support is looking into it, but Nick Cave remains elusive.

Update #2: Friday 1 June. Two days have gone by. I got a few more Nick Cave tracks to download tonight, but there are currently seven still stuck in the download queue. I don’t regret contacting Apple Support; they honestly tried to help. But I did get annoyed that they were trying to pin the problems onto my system when it was clear, to me, that the problem lies with theirs. I don’t normally buy music from the iTunes Music Store (I either get it on CD or download it from eMusic.com), and I probably won’t again for a while.

Update #3: Saturday 2 June. Perhaps the work is now done. iTunes downloaded the remaining tracks within seconds, and all seems to be well. So it appears the heavily load on the Akamai servers has abated. I knew Apple would work it out.

Tags: aac · apple · errors · itunes · itunes plus · lily allen · nick cave · stuck

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