I think most of you love DRM-free music, don’t you? Personally, I love DRM-free music. It gives freedom for us to play our music in any players and operating systems.

Recently I posted a comment on Nokia Support Discussion about DRM-free music from iTunes Plus. As you may already know, Apple has started selling DRM-free songs on iTunes Plus Music Store. Unfortunately, Apple has slightly modified the tag of iTunes Plus songs. As a result, they cannot be played on S60 devices by default.

Playing iTunes Plus music on S60 device

Mac users don’t have this problem because Nokia Multimedia Transfer properly modifies the tag. Unfortunately, Windows users, who are using PC Suite, cannot enjoy this feature.

Can we still play music from iTunes Plus then? There are two possible solutions.

Convert to 128 kbps AAC

The first solution, which I recommend, is convert your iTunes Plus music to 128 kbps AAC. You can do it from iTunes by selecting Advanced | Convert Selection to AAC menu.

The original iTunes Plus music is stored as 256 kbps AAC. Somehow, when you convert it to lower bit rate, the tag can be recognized by S60 devices. It is right that you will degrade the quality; but in my opinion, playing 256 kbps and 128 kbps on mobile phone is not that different. :)

Converting iTunes Plus music to AAC

 

Use “Music Fixer” to Fix the Tags

If you want to keep the quality at 256 kbps; the solution is fix the tag. Thanks to Joshua King who has provided a Python script to fix the tag, called Music Fixer. Note that you need Python runtime to run the script.
Note that this script should be run on the device (not on the PC). It should be run after you synchronize your songs from the PC.

Fixing tag on iTunes Plus music

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