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We’ve been hearing about “variable pricing” for a while now (since MacWorld in San Francisco,) and Apple has finally gone through with it. As of yesterday, April 7, 2009, the most popular songs on iTunes are now $1.29, as opposed to the $0.99 that we’ve all grown so accustomed to over the past few years. Less popular songs, however, are cheaply priced at $0.69, and everything else is still $0.99. Apple also goes on to state that “most albums are priced at $9.99.”

While I certainly understand Apple’s choice to make these pricing changes (especially in today’s turbulent economic climate,) I must say, I’m not particularly happy with it.

Furthermore, Apple has finalized the shift over from “Protected AAC” music files (DRM protected) to DRM free tracks. Not only are these tracks DRM free, but they are, for the most part, much better quality than their earlier counterparts.

“All music on the iTunes Music Store is now 100% iTunes Plus. That means all songs are available in our highest-quality 256 kbps AAC encoding, making for a stellar sound that’s virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings. And, of course, iTunes plus music is always DRM-free.”

So, I guess in the long run I would rather have slightly more expensive, higher quality music that I am free to do with as I may, instead of the cheaper, DRM encoded audio files Apple was selling before.