A while back Apple went DRM free with iTunes, a move her­alded far and wide by sundry and all. On the plus side, los­ing encryp­tion while improv­ing audio play­back is a clear value-​​added bonus for we long­time users. I can actu­ally put the music I pur­chased onto non-​​iPod devices now, such as my smart­phone. This has empleas­ened me.

On the down­side, though, as I noted before, you could only upgrade your library all at once, in a mas­sive whack — which, in my case, was more than two Franklins.* Even though the per-​​album cost aver­ages (for me) $3.00, I have a hell of a lot of iTunes content.

Sometime in the last cou­ple of weeks they appear to have changed that pol­icy. iTunes users can now upgrade their con­tent on a per-​​album and per-​​song basis, rather than hav­ing to blow a wad on every­thing at once.

This is a much more sen­si­ble and fea­si­ble approach, and has allowed me (for one) to pro­ceed with the upgrade and downloads.

It was a nice move, and hand­ily did away with my one irri­ta­tion with the upgrade policy.

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* Initially the cost was more like $140. As more upgrade­able con­tent has been added, though, the price has gone up.