Apple hints at interest in music industry

By William Selway
Bloomberg News Service

CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple Computer Chief Executive Steve Jobs said last week some reports about the company's interest in the music business are true.

"There have been a lot of rumors about a lot of things the last few weeks, and all that I can tell you right now is many of them are not true," Jobs said when asked about reports that Apple wants to buy a music company.

"And some of them are true, and I can't really go into which is which right now," he added.

Jobs commented publicly for the first time two weeks ago on reports that Apple may spend $6 billion to buy Vivendi's Universal Music Group. "Apple has never made any offer to invest in or acquire a major music company," Jobs said in the statement.

Now his latest comments suggest there's more to the rumors than Apple initially wanted to acknowledge.

According to a person familiar with the matter, Jobs has expressed interest in acquiring Universal Music, the world's largest recording company and home to top-selling artists such as Eminem, U2 and Shania Twain. Such a purchase would provide Apple with a vast collection of songs for the online music service that it is expected to announce this week, analysts say.

Jobs said the company would like to expand on the success of its iPod music player and iTunes, the music software that marked Apple's first foray into the digital music business more than two years ago. "But we really can't talk about unannounced products," he said in a question-and-answer session at the company's annual shareholder meeting.