Mac and Music News

Apple today introduced its third generation iPods, which hold up to 7,500 songs in a stunning enclosure that is lighter and thinner than two CDs.

The new ultra-portable iPods feature completely solid-state "no moving parts" navigation wheel and buttons; an elegant new dock with audio out for fast and easy connection to your computer or stereo; an "On-The-Go" playlist so users can build a playlist right on their iPod; a customizable main menu so users can promote the features they use most often to their top level menu; and Apple's unique, patent pending Auto-Sync for automatically syncing your computer's music library with iPod.

The new ultra-portable iPods are available in three models: a 10GB model for just $299 (US), a 15GB model for $399 (US) and a 30GB model for $499 (US).

> New iPods

Sonasphere is a sample-based live sound performance system with a generative 3D interface. The units, samples, effects and mix are represented as floating objects in a three dimensional space and can be connected together a bit like "max objects". The beta version 7 is free and has been conceived specially for Mac OSX by Nao Tokui.

A few minutes ago, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, an online music store that lets customers quickly find, purchase and download the music they want for 99 cents per song, without subscription fees. The iTunes Music Store offers groundbreaking personal use rights, including burning songs onto an unlimited number of CDs for personal use, listening to songs on an unlimited number of iPods, playing songs on up to three Macintosh computers, and using songs in any application on the Mac.