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Apple Quietly Ends Free iTunes 'Single of the Week' Promotion After 11 Years

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Apple has seemingly ended its weekly iTunes "Single of the Week" promotion that gave out a free music single download each week on the iTunes storefront. As noted by Business Insider, a member of the Apple discussion forums claims an Apple support employee informed him the company decided to drop the weekly promotion.

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I contacted iTunes Support and they told me the decision was made to drop the free Single of the Week. Seems they don't want people browsing the Store anymore. I told them that the free single each week got me to the Store and I usually bought a few songs. Now, there's less reason to go. They've stopped the free single in other countries too.

The "Single of the Week" promotion began in 2004, and in a similar vein to Apple's "App of the Week" promotion on the App Store, it gave out free singles every week from artists and bands of varying genres and popularity. Though forum user Bob Foss' confirmation of the promotion's end remains unverified, Apple also recently decided to end its annual "12 Days of Christmas" iTunes Store giveaway.

Volunteers in our forums have tracked the free iTunes Store content in several countries for a number of years, but the 2015 music thread remains empty as evidence of Apple's apparent decision to cancel the promotions.

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Top Rated Comments

ELMI0001 Avatar
ELMI0001
150 months ago
Apple is so damn greedy. It would be nice if they appreciated their customers.

Non-hardware examples;

No 12 days of Christmas. Not a huge deal but no real explanation behind it.

iTunes prices are ridiculous. Yes, they do sales occasionally. But I don't need all the Harry Potter movies for $55. I would like to see some older movies for less than $14.99 occasionally. Perhaps a price more competitive with Blu-Rays or Amazon.

$3.99 and $4.99 to rent a movie? For 24 hours? C'mon. That's ridiculous when there is a Redbox in every McDonalds in the US.

I really wanted to own a copy of The Prestige. I figured iTunes was an easy choice. Until the movie was $17.99. It's $9.99 on Blu-Ray.

I understand there is no need to push product since these files are not taking up any real estate but a sale or competitive prices would be nice.

We're all in the ecosystem, just throw us a bone with some incentives and real sales.

This is coming on the heals of an unfortunate incident last night in which I was unable to stream Capt America on my Apple TV (a movie I purchased on iTunes), but the Netflix app on my Apple TV worked fine. I just remember when it felt like Apple cared about their few customers instead of ripping off all of their customers.

/end rant
Score: 50 Votes (Like | Disagree)
L
lars666
150 months ago
They are probably sick of having to be insulted for giving out some little things for free.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MartinAppleGuy Avatar
MartinAppleGuy
150 months ago
With no "12 days of Christmas" and now this, they must be saving up to be making the 12" Macbook Air real affordable ;)
Score: 23 Votes (Like | Disagree)
al256 Avatar
al256
150 months ago
Tim must still be upset about the whole U2 Songs of Innocence pushback...
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Crosscreek Avatar
Crosscreek
150 months ago
Well hey.....times are tough.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
2
2457282
150 months ago
I used to download the free songs, but after a while realized that I almost never liked the songs, rated them as 1 star and lost them in my library. It's been a year or so since I even thought of the free song. I wonder if this is also true for many other users rendering the freebie no longer essential. I also wonder how Apple was compensating the artist and if there is some issue in the contracts. My final wonder of this morning is how the streaming has affected the need for a free song as a way to discover new music/artists.

I wonder a lot.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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