I still prefer to buy CDs over purchasing on iTunes. Aside from the whole DRM and encoding issues that I can avoid by owning the CD, I also come from a time when having a physical collection meant something, and part of me refuses to let that go. I still remember nights spend reading through every word, every lyric in a CD booklet – knowing who each member of the band wanted to thank, which musicians guested on which tracks and who produced the album. iTunes just doesn’t give you that level of information.
But all of that may change in the near future, with MusicWeek reporting that Apple is planning on releasing an application in conjunction with Snow Patrol’s upcoming album that lets you interact with a digital booklet for the album on the iPhone or iPod Touch. After the Snow Patrol launch, it will be rolled out over other albums in the iTunes catalogue.
So will this digital booklet tempt me away from the old-fashioned CDs of yore? Not likely. But it will make the process of buying an album online a lot more appealing to a lot more people. I’m just not one of them.
[MusicWeek via TechCrunch]