Wednesday, September 24, 2008

iTunes staff need iTest and iGive up on them

Since I am in the US at the moment I thought 'oh well, I may as well get up to date on Eureka' - one of my favourite Sci Fi Shows. (For anyone who hasn't seen it, it's good fun)

So, off I went to itunes store, searched for Eureka Season 3, and took a look. Hmm, HD at $2.99 per episode, but AHA, I spotted a link on the right of the page for SD (Given I will be watching these episodes either on my 15.4" laptop, or on my 5th Gen Ipod Video, HD isn't really necessary)

I clicked on the link for the SD version (Standard Definition for those of you who have yet to get there) and voila, the episode price is now $1.99 per episode.

Nice I thought, and clicked on the 'buy' button.
I then went to the checkout and thought WTF?
ALL the episodes had become HD versions at $2.99 each
Why am I quibbling about this? well, apart from the extra $7 it means it will take an extra 6+Gb of storage for me to download them. I don't see why I should pay the extra for a resolution I don't need or want, especially when there is a link available to download the one I DO want. I contacted iTunes support about this and was told 'but when you buy the HD version you also get a copy in SD'

This would equate to you going to KFC, asking for a portion of hot wings, and then finding when you went to pay, that they had put you down for a value bucket meal complete with drinks etc, because 'when you buy the bucket you get a portion of hot wings'

Hello Apple, if I wanted the HD version I would have clicked on it, not that this would have made a difference since the episodes show as 'not available' in the checkout.

5 emails later to Apple and still no resolution, I will keep you posted if they actually manage to sort this out.

I just sometimes wonder if they are modelling themselves on another major software / games console company's strategy....