Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Steve Jobs took the stage at the Apple press event in San Francisco on Wednesday morning and promptly dialed up Madonna in London.

He thanked her for putting all of her songs on iTunes--something the Material Girl has resisted until now, Jobs said. The addition of all of Madonna's albums and individual songs was one of the first announcements of the morning. The other: Author J.K. Rowling has signed an exclusive deal to make all six Harry Potter books available for download in the music store.

Also, Jobs previewed the next version of iTunes, iTunes 5, which he said is available today as a free download on Apple.com.

Jobs [also] made the big annoucement of an iTunes-enabled Rokr cell phone made by Motorola. The phone, which will be in stores this weekend, can hold 100 songs and has two speakers and the ability to shuffle through tunes. "The way we think of this phone is it's really an iPod Shuffle right on your phone," Jobs said as he demonstrated the new gadget. Jobs announced that Cingular will be the U.S. carrier for the iTunes phone. "Today the talk ends and the music begins," said Ralph de la Vega, Cingular's chief operating officer.