Edible Apple

CNET is reporting that the song samples on iTunes may double in length, from 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Currently, iTunes offers 30-second snippets of songs, a feature designed to give users a taste of the music to help them decide whether they like it enough to buy. Some users have long complained that half a minute isn’t enough time to really hear a song.

Numerous other digital-music services offer much more time, including Pandora and Google’s YouTube. Pandora has become a leader in digital radio, and while a user can’t pick and choose which songs they want to listen to, they do get to hear full-length songs free of charge. By contrast, YouTube users do choose which full-length songs they want to hear by picking whatever music video they want, but these songs can’t be legally captured or transferred to digital-music players.

I’d have to agree. 30-seconds is not always enough time to get a gauge on if a song is worth downloading or not. Sometimes I’ll happen upon a 30 second preview of a song that I know is great, only to find that the 30-second sample does it little justice.

Interestingly, Jobs will reportedly spend a good deal of time at Apple’s upcoming media event discussing the ways in which Apple is improving music discovery on iTunes.