Today Microsoft released their “iPod Killer” known as Zune along with Zune’s own little music store called the Zune Marketplace. The Zune Marketplace allows users to purchase and download music via two methods. The first is the typical cart method of per song/album purchase. The other way to experiance music from the Zune Marketplace is a subscription service that will allow you to download and listen to as many songs or albums as you would like for $14.99 a month.

There are several arguments in favor of one method over the other but really the two methods serve their own set of users. I am really beginning to wonder if iTunes will ever get a subscription service. The market exists for a subscription based service. Napster, Yahoo! Music, and Rapsody have proven this fact. I am the kind of person that would benefit from a service that offers both kinds of download methods. I would love to subscribe to a subscription service that allows me to try new music and then purchase individual tracks or entire albums that I come to like through the subscription service.

Will Apple release an iTunes subscription service now that Microsoft has released a competitive service that offers one? If they do, I would not expect it until January at MacWorld. But I for one would love to see a subscription service in iTunes.

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