Apple has today extended the time of music previews in its iTunes Store to 90 seconds, allowing Australian listeners to hear more of the song than before.
Following the extension of music previews in the United States in November last year, Apple has reportedly begun rolling out extended previews in more countries around the world.
Up until today, music clips in the Australian iTunes Store were just 30 seconds long but for many songs, previews now last up to one minute and 30 seconds.
However the extension of previews doesn’t appear to be unanimous. Out of the top 10 songs in Australia right now, just four songs make use of the longer timeframes — the rest remain at the shorter 30 seconds.
It’s unclear whether this a result of some labels refusing or taking longer to agree to the extended previews, although in the United States by keeping music for sale in the iTunes Store the labels agreed to the longer previews.
It’s also not known if the company has had to re-negotiate Australian licensing deals as a result of the changes.
Australians aren’t the only ones to benefit from the changes; according to Apple fan site Macrumors, Canadian, New Zealand, United Kingdom and some European iTunes Stores have also begun receiving the 90 second previews.
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