Apple's online music store rocking!

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Computer Inc. said on Monday it has sold more than 10 million songs on its iTunes Music Store since its launch four months ago and announced a new iPod music player that can store as many as 10,000 songs.

Apple, which has earned praise for its easy-to-use online music store, said the new iPod, which has a 40-gigabyte capacity, costs $499 and is now available.

Backed by the five major record labels, Apple's online music store got off to a quick start, selling 1 million songs at 99 cents each in its first week in business by May 5. Some nine days later, Apple said it had sold 2 million songs.

In recent years, since the rise and fall of file-swapping service Napster, the music industry's fight against digital music piracy has spilled into courts of law and the court of public opinion.

CD sales have slumped for three years, a decline that the record industry blames on online file-sharing sites where music is traded freely, and, sometimes, before it is even released.

A recent industry study claimed that more than one billion illegally copied compact disc recordings were sold last year.

Customers of Apple's online music store are allowed to burn songs on an unlimited number of CDs for personal use, may download them on up to three computers, and transfer them to any number of iPods.

Apple's service differs from other online music services, many of which are subscription-based. But one recent entry, BuyMusic.com, is selling music downloads for as low as 79 cents per song and $7.95 per album.

Also on Monday, RealNetworks Inc. said that it had streamed more than 16 million on-demand to its Rhapsody subscribers in August, an average rate of more than 500,000 songs per day.

"August's numbers prove what we've been saying for months: legal music services have unquestionably caught the ears of music fans," said Sean Ryan, vice president of music services for Real Networks.

Cupertino, California-based Apple also sells a 10-gigabyte model for $299 and a 20-gigabyte model for $399. They can all be used with both Apple Macintosh and Windows computers.

Apple, whose music store is integrated into its popular iTunes music jukebox software, will offer a version of the music store that works on Windows computers later this year.

Apple also announced on Monday faster versions of its iMac desktop computers, which have either 15- or 17-inch flat panel displays that float above the computer's lamp-base-shaped central processing unit.

The faster iMacs have PowerPC G4 microprocessors running at speeds of up to 1.25 gigahertz, or at 1.25 billion cycles per second, and boast faster memory and graphics chips.

The new iMacs also have the faster USB 2.0 connection for linking devices such as digital cameras and iPods to the computer.

Shares of Apple rose 24 cents to close at $22.74 on the Nasdaq.

® Reuters