Can iTunes stay relevant in the era of Pandora and Spotify? That’s a key question that Apple is trying to answer as it mulls a major overhaul of its iconic digital music store that has seen revenues from music sales drop in recent years while streaming services have grown ever-more popular. MacRumors points us to a recent rumor posted by music blogger Robert Hutton, who says that Apple is planning to introduce 24-bit lossless audio files to the iTunes Store, which would vastly improve the sound quality of any songs you buy through it.
The question, though, is whether this will really be a game-changing event for music sales on iTunes or whether it will mostly appeal to a small cadre of audiophiles who hate the compressed sound that comes from most MP3s. If Apple goes through with this then in all likelihood it will be just one of many changes it makes to iTunes and probably won’t be the centerpiece of the company’s big iTunes overhaul.
