You know, in all my life, I've never owned an Apple product. I've never had an iPod, I've never had an Apple computer, etc.

My mom once had an Apple computer a long time ago from her office, and my sister owns a first generation iPod Nano.

And I still don't own any Apple goods. But for the first time ever, I've contributed to their revenue.

In looking for new music, I had started looking at what types of online music stores exist, and of course, Apple probably owns the largest market share of online music sales.

A lot of other online stores either provide less variety, lower bitrates, or still use DRM. At first I was under the impression that Apple still DRM'd the tracks you purchased from them, but as I found out, their AAC files are now completely DRM free in North America. Plus at 256 kbps, their AAC files are at higher bitrates than I would normally rip Audio CDs I've purchased physically.

Ideally, I would have liked it if Apple offered some kind of lossless format such as FLAC, as paying for something that's less than half the quality you'd get on CD seems a bit tough to do in some ways.

But humanly speaking, I suppose that AAC files at 256 kbps are "good enough" for listening too with my non-audiophile hardware (on-board sound chips in both my laptop and desktop, 2.0 speakers or Bluetooth A2DP headphones).

So over the weekend I loaded up iTunes on my computer to see exactly what all the fuss was about.

And low and behold a small portion of my hard-earned cash left my pocket and deposited itself into the ever growing fruit that is Apple.

As of today, I've spent a total of $4.56 CAD on a total of four songs: Evacuate the Dance Floor by Cascada, G-Get Up and Dance by Faber Drive, Down by Jay Sean and Live Your Life by T.I.

And I'm the verge of dropping another $9.99 on a Jason Mraz album...

It's just too easy. I load up iTunes, search for a song and click buy. And before you can say Microsoft Zune, my credit card has been hit and the song has been downloaded onto my hard disk. It's so easy that you almost don't think as much about buying the media as you maybe would when buying a CD. I don't have to walk to HMV and search through racks of CDs.

Oh no Apple, why are you starting to take all my money? And I've never even thought of buying an iPod. Yet somehow with your now DRM-free AACs that play without conversion on my mobile phone, you've suckered me in.