The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

Falling pound brings iTunes UK into line with Europe

  • alert
  • print

Apple UK escapes price cuts

Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V

Apple no longer needs to lower the price of songs on iTunes UK in order to achieve pricing parity with the rest of Europe - fluctuating exchange rates have done the job for it.

Back in January, Apple pledged to unify the cost of dowloads across Europe in order to head of the possibility that it might be forced to do so by European Commission single-market regulators.

At the time, the Mac maker said it would put such a scheme in place within six months.

Half a year on, and Apple admitted today the change has already been made - but by the currency markets, not by Apple.

"The announcement was that we would match the UK price to that of other lower priced European countries," an Apple spokesman told the Beeb.

"This is no longer necessary as exchange rates have effectively done it for us."

In January, 1€ was equivalent to £0.75, though Apple was charging Brits 79p to download a song that would cost other Europeans €0.99.

Now, 1€ equals £0.798, so there's effective price parity.

Shazam.

Well, until the exchange rates shift again... and Brits - or continental Europeans - get the bum deal.

Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V

Hands on with Hyper-V 3.0 and virtual machine movement

Our award-winning Regcasts have teamed up with training provider QA for the deepest of deep dives into Hyper-V, including a live demo.

Understand VM movement - just click to play, or go here for a bigger version.