Posted Monday, April 21, 2003

Here Comes Apple's Music Service. Maybe.

MacCentral is reporting that Apple is planning a special event in San Francisco for April 28.

While Apple is being characteristically cagey about the subject of the event, MacCentral reports that the invitation -- one of which, ahem, your correspondent has yet to receive -- says there will be "announcements that will be music to your ears."

Sounds like we may see the long-rumored Apple music service. Which means we'll also probably see new iPods as well as iTunes 4.

One of the rumors swirling around Apple and downloadable music has been that the company is in negotiations to purchase Vivendi's Universal Music, a major record label. Apple has denied this, too.

That doesn't mean someone hasn't had fun with the rumor. A friend of mine recently discovered that the domain name "appleuniversal.com" has been reserved. A whois lookup indeed shows the registrant as being Apple Computer. But the registration entry also says:

Hahahah!!! Tricked You!!!
April Fools
Tricked You!, HA HA HA HAHAHA
US

And there you have it -- an April Fool's joke for the Internet Age.