At 10 a.m. today, the company made the announcement: after much speculation, Prince William finally proposed to Kate Middleton. Holy Cow! Well, I'll never forg--. Wait, what? The Beatles on iTunes? So easy to confuse Brits making headlines.
Apple today succeeded in convincing the surviving members of the band, the wives of the dead ones, and EMI, the band's record company, to sell their music on iTunes.
The move is a major coup for Apple, which had wooed The Beatles for years only for talks to disintegrate over trademark disputes and pricing.
For the band, which like some of its contemporaries will likely continue to make more money from CD rather than digital sales, it's a recognition of the importance of digital sales going forward.
It's not clear yet how the deal came together, if Steve Jobs had to promise Yoko Ono to cut off his pinkie toe or what. Presumably, it involves a lot of dollars. The New York Times notes one likely sticking point was pricing, with the band members wanting to charge more than the 99 cents Apple usually charges for songs.
Just as they did in its heyday, and later in the 80s when their catalog was reissued on CD - solidifying the emergence of that technology - The Beatles have lately been itching to again play a key role in the evolution of music. Last year, they signed off on the release of The Beatles: Rock Band, the popular video game they sanctioned as an official part of their canon.
All 13 Beatles albums are on iTunes now, with the box set clocking in at $149 and most individual songs sold at $1.29.