Apple Ships Industry’s First SuperDrive

CUPERTINO, California—February 19, 2001—Apple® today announced it has begun shipping its new 733 MHz Power Mac™ G4 with the SuperDrive, a combination CD-RW/DVD-R drive that can read and write CDs as well as DVDs that can be played in consumer DVD players. Apple unveiled the SuperDrive at Macworld Expo in San Francisco last month.

The Power Mac G4 with SuperDrive also includes Apple’s revolutionary new iDVD™ application software that enables users to easily create professional quality DVDs for playback on consumer DVD players.

“The new Power Mac G4 with SuperDrive is the industry’s first complete solution for CD and DVD authoring,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “The combination of Apple’s amazing SuperDrive, super-fast MPEG2 encoding software and easy-to-use iDVD application is a real breakthrough.”

iDVD lets professionals and consumers quickly and easily create professional-looking DVDs for playback on consumer DVD players. iDVD shields users from the complexity of DVD authoring by offering professionally designed themes and drag-and-drop simplicity. With one click, iDVD automatically converts iMovie™, Final Cut Pro® or any QuickTime™ video file into the required format, compresses them into the MPEG-2 compression standard required to make DVDs, and burns the DVD-R disc with Apple’s new SuperDrive.

Apple’s new optional DVD Studio Pro™ application is the perfect complement to Apple’s award-winning Final Cut Pro video editing, effects and compositing software. DVD Studio Pro, the first full-featured DVD authoring tool available for less than $1,000, offers professional-quality DVD encoding, authoring and writing. With DVD Studio Pro, G4 users can encode their Final Cut Pro projects in the DVD format; author DVDs; preview finished projects in real-time; and burn DVD video discs with the G4’s new SuperDrive.

With Apple’s new iTunes, the world’s best and easiest to use jukebox software, users can import songs from their favorite CDs into their Power Mac G4; compress the files into the popular MP3 format; organize their music using powerful yet easy to use searching, browsing, and play list features; watch stunning visualizations on their computer screen; and create custom music CDs with the Power Mac G4’s new CD-RW or combination CD-RW/DVD-R SuperDrive.

Pricing & Availability
The 733 MHz Power Mac G4 is available immediately through The Apple Store™ (www.apple.com) and Apple Authorized Resellers in the following standard configuration: 733 MHz processor with 256K level 2 on-chip cache and 1MB level 3 backside cache; 256MB of PC133 SDRAM memory; 60GB Ultra ATA/60 hard disk drive; NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB video SDRAM; CD-RW/DVD-R SuperDrive; two FireWire and USB ports; four full-length 64-bit PCI slots at 33 MHz; 10/100/1000BASE-T Ethernet; AirPort ready; built-in 56K V.90 modem; iTunes; iMovie 2 and iDVD software for a suggested retail price of $3,499 (US).

SuperDrive writes to standard 4.7GB DVD-R discs, available from The Apple Store (www.apple.com) in packs of 5 for a suggested retail price of $49.95 (US).

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators and creative professionals and consumers around the world through its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.

Press Contacts:
Nathalie Welch
Apple
(408) 974-5430
welch@apple.com

Darren Ballegeer
Edelman Worldwide
(650) 968-4033 ext. 2735
darren.ballegeer@edelman.com

NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple's PR website (www.apple.com/pr/), or call Apple's Media Helpline at (408) 974-2042.

Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, Apple Store, DVD Studio Pro,Final Cut Pro, iDVD, iMovie, Power Mac and QuickTime are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.