fetching apple itunes rss feeds as json

if you who have to work with the apple itunes rss feeds generated here
http://ax.itunes.apple.com/rss
and hate xml parsing just as any one:

just replace the “xml” at the end with “json”
http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStoreServices.woa/
ws/RSS/topfreeapplications/sf=143441/limit=10/xml
becomes
http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStoreServices.woa/
ws/RSS/topfreeapplications/sf=143441/limit=10/json

the json files are roughly 1/3 of the size and ridiculously easy to parse.

enjoy.