One of the nice features in the iTunes Store is Complete My Album. This feature allows you to apply the credit of a previously purchased track to the price of the parent album. This is a uniquely digital feature that physical media can not easily, if at all, replicate. Expanding this program in two ways would be a great way to drive digital sales on the iTunes Store.

First, add the ability to Upgrade My Album. For instance, there are a number of albums that have been rereleased as Remastered for iTunes. It would be great to have the ability to apply the purchase credit from the original version to the remastered version. True, in the greater Mac and iOS App Stores, Apple has never allowed upgrade pricing; however, precedent has already been set with the CMA offer and the ability to upgrade from a regular track to the iTunes Plus version. Ideally, at some point in the future iTunes will also offer upgraded tracks in the form of high bit rates; maybe even lossless.

Second, and more importantly, iTunes should add* expand the ability to Complete My Season (or Series); apply credit towards the purchase of a whole season with the purchase of individual episodes. This way, if you own episodes from an particular season, you could apply that credit towards the purchase of the entire season. More aggressive pricing on prior seasons wouldn’t hurt here either (I am looking at you, studios); perhaps discount prior seasons more or offer steep discounts when upgrading from a complete season to the complete series. For example, Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated series is $210 for seasons 1-5 on iTunes. That same content is $84 for the DVDs. Battlestar Galactica has individual seasons 1-4 available for $155, or the complete series in volumes one and two for $100. A great option, but unhelpful if you wanted to apply the credit for owning season two to the purchase of the series volume one. Another example: Star Trek Into Darkness was just released early on the iTunes Store, which is great … except that there were two versions: the standalone movie and a bundle with the prior Star Trek (2009) at a steep discount. Unfortunately, there is no way to upgrade or complete that bundle aside from repurchasing Into Darkness a second time.

Third, how about adding the ability to Purchase My Rental. For instance, if I rent a movie for $4.99 from iTunes and I like it, what are my buying options? I can pay another $19.99 in the iTunes Store, another digital storefront or, purchase the DVD for most likely less than that. Why not allow the rental price to be deducted from the purchase price of the movie? This ability would provide a much higher incentive to purchase from the iTunes store.

In summary, Complete My Album is a great advantage iTunes has over other forms of media and competitors’ digital storefronts. Apple could expand this advantage — and should do so — by adding the ability to Upgrade My Album, Complete My Season (or Series) and Purchase My Rental. These would be fantastic feature additions to the store and create a better customer experience.

*UPDATE*

As it turns out, iTunes has offered Complete My Season for at least a year. Still, I’d like to see the program expanded to include more, such as SD to HD and the afore mentioned season to series upgrades.