Apple Launches the iTunes Music Store for US Customers

Apple today launched the iTunes Music Store, a revolutionary online music store that lets US-based customers quickly find, purchase and download the music they want for just 99 cents per song, without subscription fees. The iTunes Music Store offers groundbreaking personal use rights, including burning songs onto anunlimited number of CDs for personal use, listening to songs on an unlimitednumber of iPods, playing songs on up to three Macintosh computers, and usingsongs in any application on the Mac, including iPhoto, iMovie and iDVD.

“The iTunes Music Store offers the revolutionary rights to burn an unlimited number of CDs for personal use and to put music on an unlimited number of iPods for on-the-go listening”, said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. “Consumers don't want to be treated like criminals and artists don't want their valuable work stolen. The iTunes Music Store offers a groundbreaking solution for both”.

The iTunes Music Store features over 200,000 songs from music companiesincluding BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and Warner. Userscan easily search the entire music store to instantly locate any song bytitle, artist or album, or browse the entire collection of songs by genre,artist and album. Users can listen to a free 30-second high-quality previewof any song in the store, then purchase and download their favourite songsor complete albums in pristine digital quality with just one click.

The iTunes Music Store also features exclusive tracks from over 20 artists,including Bob Dylan, U2, Eminem, Sheryl Crow and Sting, as well as specialmusic videos from several of these artists which users can watch for free.In addition, the iTunes Music Store highlights new releases, stafffavourites and up-and-coming artists, and delivers a compelling variety ofmusic from many genres and time periods, ranging from Rock and Hip Hop toJazz and Classical. The ability to browse the entire music store by genre,artist and album combined with free high-quality previews of every song letsusers explore music in an entirely new way, to easily find the hits theylove and discover gems they've never heard before.

All music on the iTunes Music Store is encoded in the industry-standard AACaudio format at 128 kilobits per second which enables smaller files andfaster download times while rivalling CD-quality sound superior to thequality of MP3 files at the same size. The AAC audio format, developed byDolby, was also adopted to provide the audio encoding for theindustry-standard MPEG-4 video format.

The iTunes Music Store is fully integrated into iTunes 4*, the fourth majorrelease of Apple's popular digital music jukebox software, allowing users to purchase**, download, organise and listen to their music using just oneapplication. iTunes 4 features major new enhancements including Rendezvousmusic-sharing between Macs, so users can legally stream their music to otherMacs without the hassle of copying files from computer to computer.

Pricing & Availability:

iTunes 4 with the iTunes Music Store is available as a free downloadimmediately at www.apple.com/ie/itunes.

The iTunes Music Store requires a valid credit card with a US billingaddress, a Mac equipped with iTunes 4 and Mac OS X version 10.1.5 or later.Further information about Apple's digital music products can be found atwww.apple.com/ie/ipod and www.apple.com/music.

Press Contacts:
Apple UK and Ireland Public Relations
Email: media.uk@apple.com
Phone: +44 (0)20 8218 1440