Apple eNews: February 9, 2006

“Psychology students and fans of Apple’s popular iPod can now listen and learn at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,” reports the Boston Herald. “Calvin Garbin is one of the first instructors at the university to harness iPod’s versatility and use it as an educational tool. ”‘For 30 years, I’ve said if I could just touch my forehead to theirs and pass on the information ... This technology, to me, is an approximation of that.’”

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We’ve begun the countdown. The countdown to one billion songs, that is. Some day very soon, one lucky individual will download the one-billionth song purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

To commemorate the milestone, we’ll award a 4GB black iPod nano and a $100 iTunes Music Card⁽¹⁾ to the 500 customers who purchase every 100,000th song (starting after 950 million). The person who downloads the one-billionth song will win the Grand Prize: a 20-inch iMac, ten 60GB iPods, and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card.⁽¹⁾ In addition, we’ll create a full music scholarship to a world-renowned music school in their name.

You can get more information and read the complete rules for participating in the Billion Songs Countdown Promotion by visiting our website. And don't forget to visit the iTunes Music Store and buy a song. Who knows: you could be the Grand Prize Winner?

^{(1) Good for any media type. No purchase necessary to participate.}

More shows for children of all ages. “Ferdinand the Bull.” “The Three Little Pigs.” “The Tortoise and the Hare.” You and your children can now watch these and seven other short Disney films. All Academy Award* nominees or winners, they’ve just been added to the iTunes Music Store.

Universal News. We have exciting news for customers regarding a Universal version of Aperture that will run on both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Mac computers. Expected by the end of March, we’ll be delivering that version to you as a free download via Software Update.

If you use Logic Pro 7 or Logic Pro 7.1 (or if you purchase Logic Pro 7.1 today), you can already place your order for Logic Pro 7.2. Available for just $49 from the Apple Store, Logic Pro 7.2 offers a variety of enhancements in addition to providing support for both Intel-based and PowerPC-based Mac systems.

Those attending the NAMM tradeshow learned that a variety of the developers exhibiting at the show—including Steinberg, Native Instruments, and MakeMusic—would be delivering Universal versions of their most popular applications in the months ahead. In fact, Macworld’s Jim Dalrymple quotes Markus Stehlik (Steinberg’s Director of Engineering): “The latest version of our VST plug-in standard released at the NAMM show already supports the Mac/Intel hardware platform, and future Mac versions of our products”—such as Cubase and Nuendo—“will also support the new standard.”

Looking for an edge? Try FirstEdge v2—already available at the Apple Store—the accounting package from MYOB designed to meet the management and accounting needs of your small business. Just like the Mac itself, FirstEdge is a breeze to navigate and a joy to operate. And FirstEdge v2, the latest version of MYOB’s intuitive software package, offers some impressive new features. Take a look.

Admit it, you have at least one catch-all drawer in your domicile where all odds and ends but the kitchen sink wind up. Now you can have one of those drawers for your digital odds and ends, too. Built on an incredibly flexible, free-form database, StickyBrain 4 lets you easily manage all the digital items you’re collecting on an increasingly regular basis. We’re talking PDFs, image files, movies, audio, web archives, bookmarks, and a whole lot more. If you’d like to get organized and bring harmony to your digital life, read all about StickyBrain 4.

Micromat has a new tool available for those of you who see to the care and feeding of multiple Mac systems. Called Techtool Protege, it’s a pocket-sized 1GB FireWire drive that you can plug into a Mac, boot up, and run a full suite of TechTool Pro diagnostic software, including the new DiskStudio utility. Come to think of it, those of us who have just one Mac will find this pint-size product mighty useful, too.

If you’re shopping for a finance manager for your Mac, you may want to consider putting your money into the iBank. That’s the full-featured personal and small-business financial manager from IGG Software that, in iBank 2, has been redesigned to take full advantage of the technologies—like Spotlight, Automator, iCal, and .Mac—built into Mac OS X Tiger. Like to get the combination?

Apple eNews
February 9, 2006
Volume 9, Issue 3

We hope you enjoyed reading today’s issue of Apple eNews. Be sure to check your inbox on Thursday, February 23. That’s when you’ll receive the very next issue of Apple eNews with more exciting news about Apple and its many products.

Apple eNews is a free, bi-weekly email publication.

Event dates and product specifications are subject to change. Some products, programs, or promotions are not available outside the U.S. Visit your local Apple site or call your local authorized Apple reseller for more information. Prices are Apple Store prices as of the date of this publication. They do not include sales tax, are subject to change, and are listed in US dollars. Product specifications are subject to change.

* ACADEMY AWARD is the registered trademark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Meet the newest iPod nano. It’s a 1GB model—already available worldwide—that you can own for just $149.

Holding up to 240 songs or 15,000 photos,⁽¹⁾ it comes in white and black models and works harmoniously with both Macs and PCs. Like its 2GB and 4GB siblings, the new 1GB iPod nano features Apple’s patent pending Click Wheel—which makes it fabulously easy to select songs, albums, artists, playlists, or photos—and the same gorgeous color screen.

Wait. There’s more good news. With new prices set at just $69 and $99, respectively, you’ll find the 512MB and 1GB iPod shuffle more affordable than ever.

^{(1) Music capacity is based on four minutes per song and 128-Kbps AAC encoding; photo capacity is based on iPod-viewable photos transferred from iTunes.}

Earlier this week, we added three great shows from Showtime Networks to the iTunes Music Store. That includes the first full season of “Sleeper Cell,” the critically acclaimed Golden Globe nominee; the first full season of “Weeds,” which stars the Golden-Globe winning actress Mary Louise Parker; and the complete first season of Kirstie Alley’s “Fat Actress.”

Thanks to their appearance on iTunes, fans of the show—and those of us who don’t (yet) subscribe to SHOWTIME—can purchase and download one or more of the episodes for just $1.99 each. Then watch them on our computers or take them with us on our iPods.

Like to watch a preview of one of the new shows right now?

In addition to the three hits from SHOWTIME, thirteen other TV shows—from Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, and MTV—recently joined the iTunes TV show lineup, including some fun children’s programming.

If, for example, your kids love “Dora the Explorer,” now they can watch her whenever (and as often as) they’d like. That’s because we’ve just added the entire first season of “Dora the Explorer” to the iTunes Music Store. That’s 26 shows in all, and you can download a show at a time for $1.99 each or the entire season for just $29.97.

Accompanying Dora from Nickelodeon are “SpongeBob SquarePants” and Zoey Brooks (of “Zoey 101”).

Older kids will enjoy episodes of Comedy Central’s “South Park,” “Drawn Together,” and “Stand-Up.”

Last but not least, you can also now enjoy episodes of “Beavis and Butt-Head,” “Laguna Beach,” “Punk’d,” and four other of your favorite MTV shows.

Don’t have a small army of motion graphic artists at your beck and call? Not to worry. You have iMovie HD 6. And its Apple-designed iMovie themes—complete with coordinated backgrounds, motion graphics, titles, and effects—offer you the ticket for turning your home video into applaud-gathering home cinema.

The themes include templates that make it easy to create opening scenes, animated titles, advanced transitions, lower-thirds, and credits. Just drop your movie clips, music, or photos into the provided drop zones, and iMovie takes care of the rest.

Whether you shoot standard or widescreen video, the themes work equally well. And the results? Simply sensational. What’s more, many of the new iMovie themes coordinate with themes you’ll find in iDVD and iPhoto. You don’t need a million-dollar budget. Not if you’ve got iMovie HD 6.

It was Saturday night at just about midnight when the Texas Longhorns scored a decisive victory against rival Ohio State, and Scott Rehling wanted to deliver the story to rabid fans by Sunday morning. How could he produce an episode of what-amounts-to a weekly television program in just a few hours?

With a Mac and Final Cut Studio, of course.

On the flight back with the celebrating team “I edited the video on my PowerBook loaded with Final Cut, Motion, and Soundtrack Pro,” he explains. “With only a set of headphones and a PowerBook, I put together that week’s entire program. As soon as we landed in Austin, I got an Internet connection and uploaded the show to the server, and it was delivered. Talk about saving the day. There’s literally no other way to do this than with Apple’s production tools.”

Before the end of March, you’ll be able to install Universal versions of all of the software applications that comprise Final Cut Studio. In fact, we’re taking orders now.

The Universal version of Final Cut Studio will allow you to run all of the applications that come with our production studio in a box on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based computers, such as the now-shipping MacBook Pro.

Current owners of Final Cut Studio can “crossgrade” to the Universal version for just $49. If you currently own Final Cut Pro 5, Soundtrack Pro, Motion 2, DVD Studio 4, Final Cut Pro 4.x/HD, Production Suite, or Final Cut Pro 1, 2 or 3, you’ll find complete details about our low-cost upgrade program on our website.

3D modeling takes muscle. Processing muscle, that is. Which explains why Brad Peebler, president and co-founder of Luxology, couldn’t be happier about how the future’s shaping up on the new Intel-based systems recently introduced at Macworld 2006 and scheduled for release throughout the coming year.

“Our Universal application version of Modo,” Luxology’s state-of-the-art modeling environment, “ran up to 3.5 times faster on the new iMac,” Peebler exclaims. “I was astonished. So sleek. So sexy. So fast! The latest iMac really screams.”

And Peebler is only one of many developers thrilled by the promise offered by the newest generation of Macintosh computers and committed to delivering their own Universal applications to eager Mac customers in the days ahead. See what Adobe, Quark, Canon, HP, and others are saying about their Universal plans.