苹果将推出在线音乐服务iTunes Match

      苹果公司(Apple Inc.)周一开始“迫使”消费者购买更多的苹果产品──不是靠花哨的新款手机，而是凭藉意在将各种苹果产品更紧密地联系在一起的软件和在线服务。

      仍在休病假的苹果首席执行长乔布斯(Steve Jobs)抱病亮相，展示了苹果新的在线音乐服务“iTunes Match”。

      乔布斯2004年被诊断患有胰腺癌，他两年前接受了肝脏移植手术。乔布斯在会上穿着他标志性的黑色高领衫和牛仔裤，人显得瘦削，演示中大部分时间他都在台下，让其他人进行演示。

      苹果此次新展示的软件功能许多都没有突破性创新，市场上的现有产品已或多或少具备这些功能。以苹果手机一项新的短信服务iMessage为例，它就与Research In Motion Ltd.的黑莓(BlackBerry)Messenger服务类似。

      投行Piper Jaffray & Co.的行业分析师芒斯特(Gene Munster)说，这全是为了鼓励用户买多种产品。他还说，苹果此举会强化光圈效应，买了一种苹果产品的消费者最后还会买其他产品。

      苹果说，大部分新软件和功能将于秋季上市，不过它将马上推出“iTunes in the Cloud”功能的一个版本。这项服务使人们可以通过任何产品访问从iTunes网店购买的音乐。

      苹果将与唱片公司和音乐发行商分享25美元的年费，自己保留30%，另外的70%给音乐公司。这就使iTunes Match成为唱片行业从可能为盗版的数字内容获得收入的首次尝试之一。谷歌和亚马逊最近都开始推出在线“云”音乐服务，不过没有与唱片公司分帐。

Apple Offers New Musical Slice

      Apple Inc. moved to compel consumers to buy more of its devices on Monday -- not with a fancy new phone, but with software and online services designed to more closely tie its gadgets together.

     Chief Executive Steve Jobs took a break from his medical leave of absence to show off a new online music service called iTunes Match.

      The service would for the first time -- with the blessing of record labels -- give legitimacy to digital music that users have saved on their computers regardless of whether it was purchased or illegally copied.

       For $25 a year, Apple's software will let users remotely access songs in their private collections, whether or not they were obtained through iTunes. The software, which keeps copies of the songs on Apple servers, will work with any computer but won't sync with non-Apple mobile devices such as BlackBerrys or Android-based tablets.

      The service is an effort by Apple to strengthen its dominance in the digital-music industry, making it difficult for Amazon.com Inc. to take customers and combat the rise of smartphones running Google Inc.'s Android software.

      Apple didn't unveil a new iPhone at its annual conference for developers, as it has in each of the past four years. Instead the focus was on online services and new versions of the company's mobile and computer operating systems.

     Apple said iTunes Match will work with iCloud, a free service that stores documents, photos, music, apps and other content remotely and pushes it to every compatible device that a user has, including iPhones, iPads and Macintosh computers.

     'We want people to see what these devices can really do and what the software can really do,' said Mr. Jobs, who went on medical leave in January for an undisclosed ailment.

     The CEO, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004 and who received a liver transplant two years ago, appeared thin in his trademark black turtleneck and jeans and spent most of the presentation offstage, letting others run it.

      Many of Apple's new software features don't break new ground in that they already are available in the marketplace in some form. A new messaging service for Apple mobile devices called iMessage, for example, echoes Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry Messenger service.

      'It's all about encouraging customers to buy multiple devices,' said Gene Munster, an industry analyst for Piper Jaffray & Co. 'It strengthens the halo effect' of consumers who buy one Apple product ending up getting others, he added.

      Apple said most of the new software and features will be available in the fall, though it will make a version of a feature called 'iTunes in the Cloud' available to consumers right away. The service lets people access music that was purchased from the iTunes store from any device.

     Apple will split the $25 annual fee with record companies and music publishers, keeping 30% for itself and giving the other 70% to the music companies. That makes iTunes Match one of the first attempts by the record industry to collect revenue from digital content that may have been pirated. Google and Amazon both recently started offering online 'cloud' music services, but don't share revenue from them with record labels.