News
Apple promotes iTunes with Internet ads
Apple, in its continuing campaign to promote iTunes for Mac and PC has released several Internet ads on CNET’s Downloads.com. Featuring the same dancing silhouettes as the television commericials, the Internet ads have been placed on several download pages for Kazaa Media Desktop, Morpheus, Emusic Download Manager and other peer-to-peer/music download applications to lure readers to download iTunes.
Steve Jobs: “We’d love to have a $100 iPod!”
Still, $300 to $500 is an obstacle to a lot of people.
No, of course I don’t think it’s too costly. Fifty million homes have DVD players that cost that kind of money. For music lovers, I don’t think it’s a hurdle at all. There are sneakers that cost more than an iPod.
Some think you wouldn’t want to sell a $100 iPod because the profit margin would be so low.
What are you talking about? We’d love to have a $100 iPod! We just don’t know how to do it right now. We’re constantly trying to make cheaper iPods. We’re working on the next step.”
QuickTime Video of Apple Music Event Now Available
Fow your viewing pleasure, Apple has now released the QuickTime video of yesterday’s Introduction of iTunes for Windows, as presented by Steve Jobs.
LATimes: Apple Is Expected to Unveil Pact With Pepsi
Sources said the unveiling of the pact with PepsiCo Inc. was timed to coincide with today’s release of a Windows-compatible version of Apple’s iTunes Music Store, which has been available only to Macintosh users.”
Updated: Apple ships 336,000 iPods, still no. 1 MP3 player
MacMinute has posted highlights from today’s Apple Q4 financial conference call with industry analysts and the press. iPod highlights included: Apple made $121 million in profit from the 336,000 shipped iPods. The iPod is still the no. 1 MP3 player on the market. Apple is expanding its worldwide iPod sales with 8,000 resellers before Christmas.
Today Apple posted its 4th quarter results and it’s noted that 336 thousand iPod units were shipped, up 140 percent from the year-ago quarter. Apple posted a net profit of $44 million and revenues for the quarter were $1.715 billion, up 19 percent from the year-ago quarter.
Apple: Paying attention to the details
Times Online UK: Apple’s man in black takes on the music pirates
One record industry executive says: ‘Everyone wants to see what success they will have on Windows. If they can sell ten million songs on Macs, which have only 5 per cent of the PC market, how much could they sell to 100 per cent of the market?’”
Embedded apps for iPod and future devices
MacRumors has posted information regarding two job offerings for engineers at Apple’s Job site. The first is a position for Jr. Software Engineer - Embedded Apps. “Join the iPod and Special Projects Group to create and enhance the embedded applications you find on the world famous iPod and the upcoming devices from Apple. You will join a small successful team; work in a fast paced environment to write the embedded applications software that allows the user the rich experience they have when using the iPod and future devices.”
The second position is for a “Senior Embedded Software Engineer” with duties to include “the design and implementation of consumer multimedia applications with skills required on the ARM platform.” The iPods use the ARM7TDMI 32-bit RISC core processor.
Jobs hopes iTMS for Europe early 2004
In a MacNN reader report, Steve Jobs was interviewed on the French TV show during the Apple Expo in Paris.
CNET: More Beatles vs. Apple
‘Specifically, (the) complaint is made over the use by Apple Computer of the word ‘Apple’ and apple logos in conjunction with its new application for downloading pre-recorded music from the Internet,’ said the statement, apparently referring to Apple’s successful iTunes Music Store service for downloading digital songs”
FOXNews: The Beatles Sue Apple Computers Over IPod, ITunes
When Apple Computers first came into existence, the Beatles’ lawyers sued—and won—over the use of the corporate name. The Fab Four, it was widely known, already had their own company called Apple Corps. (Ironically, Jobs admitted to naming his company as a tribute to the Beatles.) The result of the suit was a huge cash settlement and a promise that the Apple logo and name would only be used for computers—and never for a music company.”
Apple launches ‘iPod-a-Day Giveaway’
Source: MacMinute
BusinessWeek: Steve Jobs: “I’m an Optimist”
BusinessWeek online has posted an interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “Apple’s visionary-in-chief looks at tech’s condition today and says: “I see a recovery in innovation coming out of this downturn”
A: The iPod is not a new category. Music is not new. It’s not a speculative market. It’s a very, very large market. It’s been around for thousands of years and will be around as long as humans exist. So it’s not like saying we’re going to go build an information appliance or some technical curio and hope the market exists. We’re taking a giant market and bringing it into the Digital Age. That requires hardware, software, and the ease-of-use talent that Apple has.
BusinessWeek: Where “Think Different” Is Taking Apple
Windows iTunes “on track to launch by the end of this year”
At the 2003 Jupiter Plug.IN Conference & Expo, Peter Lowe, Apple’s Director of Marketing for Applications and Services addressed attendees at the keynote address, and mentioned several items in regards to iTunes.
If digital distribution is about one thing, it is about being simple...as simple as a CD player...and it needs to be consistent....take the “but” out of it.
We believe Web is not the best interface to enjoy music…
Apple for Windows is on track to launch by the end of this year...Usage rules for Windows version of iTunes: certainly it is our intention to have the broad music rights…
Out of all our iTunes sales, 46 percent has been sold as albums..the disintegration of the album has not happened, contrary to what people are saying...”
Apple: Profits rise from sales of music and 3G iPods
Apple today posted a net profit of $19 million and revenues for the third quarter were $1.545 billion in its financial results for fiscal 2003.
“What’s Missing From the iPod?”
Wireless Supersite Editor Ross Rubin writes about “the glory as well as some gotchas in Apple’s iPod and music strategy.”
Plug an iSight into iPod and record video?
Jon Fortt writes about Apple’s recently announced Power Mac G5, iSight and upcoming Panther OS X. In the article, Fortt speculates using iSight with iPod for recording video.
Jobs didn’t have Apple build the iSight just to make a Web cam that mounts to the top of a monitor. If monitor mounting were his big stroke of creative genius, he could have simply asked a third-party developer to make monitor mounts. Jobs is thinking bigger than that, and Apple is staking out strategic territory. It’s focusing on audio, video and voice communication, which translates into MP3 players, camcorders and phones. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that an Apple-branded camcorder and an Apple-branded phone aren’t too far off.”
One million iPods, iTunes sells five million songs
Today at the WWDC (World Wide Developers Conference) in San Francisco, Steve Jobs took the stage to address the attendees and mentioned that the one millionth iPod would be shipped later today. Also noted, iTunes has sold over five million songs since its debut. Jobs is expected to announce the new Apple G5 Macintosh and show a preview of OS X 10.3 Panther. You can check for live coverage from the WWDC conference at Macminute.com or MacCentral.com.
Update: Apple has posted a press release declaring the iTunes Music Store has sold over five million songs.
iPod radio ads posted on Apple UK website
Apple UK has posted two iPod radio ads on its website. “The ads, ‘7500 songs… is that a typo?!’ and ‘Jazz, Classical, Opera, Funk, Soul...’, feature the voice of Hollywood actor Jeff Goldblum, star of ‘Jurassic Park’ and Apple’s own television ads. The radio campaign will run until mid-July.”
Source: MacMinute