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Release Date: August 05, 2009
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iTunes New Music Releases

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Genre: Rock
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  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Once More, with Feeling

    • 10 out of 10
    • Various Artists
    • Most musical episodes of TV shows frankly stink. They are usually little more than ill-conceived vehicles intended to let the stars show off what musical talent they have. Once More, With Feeling,

  • Go Away White

    • 10 out of 10
    • Bauhaus
    • Go Away White is an album I've been waiting more than 20 years to hear, and the good news is that it was worth the wait.  The latest -- and last, no...for real this time -- album from

  • Abnormal Anonymous

    • 8 out of 10
    • Congo Norvell
    • Very few albums manage to capture snapshots of a quality of life in the manner that Congo Norvell's sophomore record, "Abnormals Anonymous," does.

      Comparisons to the Velvet Underground are

  • Kind of Blue

    • 10 out of 10
    • Miles Davis
    • The jazz album to end all jazz albums. Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly and the list goes on. The who's who of who's who in jazz have assembled for this monumental record. Get this
  • Supermodified

    • 10 out of 10
    • Amon Tobin
    • The genius is in the beats. Amon Tobin creates fantastic, groovy beats behind beats. "Supermodified" rolls through your expectations of breakbeat music, and turns them up a bit. It's a mellow album, p

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News

Apple Will Keep Apple TV Sales Obscured

Apple intends to hide specific sales numbers for its soon-to-be-released Apple TV, according to an Apple executive. The company, which stopped breaking out individual sales numbers for its product lines more than two years ago, will include Apple TV sales as part of its "Music and Related Products and Services" line in its financial reporting, effectively obscuring performance for the device.

When Apple introduces a new product, like the Apple TV, they typically keep sales numbers close to the vest until they can gauge the success of the product. In Apple's Q1 Earnings Conference Call on Wednesday, Apple was asked some pointed questions about how Apple viewed the product and how they would report sales, but Apple declined to provide many details.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster asked Apple executives about the Apple TV and projected sales and noted that it is the best-selling product on Apple's Web site right now. "How should we think about the Apple TV opportunity?" he asked.

"We just announced last week," responded Apple COO Tim Cook, "that we just started taking orders, and we plan to ship as Steve indicated in February. For this particular quarter, we'll have just a few shipping weeks, and we've incorporated our thinking about the both the supply and demand side into the guidance that Peter gave earlier."

That refers to the guidance given for total sales in Q2 of US$4.8 to 4.9B.

Mr. Munster also tried to elicit information from Apple on how the company views its new Apple TV product line, asking executives if they looked at it as a broad platform, or more of a niche product like AirPort Express.

"If you're asking from a demand point of view," said Mr. Cook, "I think we'll see as we move forward. It's really too early to tell. From a how we're positioning the product, as Steve indicated in the keynote, we see this as the DVD player of the 21st century. So it's clearly not a niche."

In summary, Apple is taking a traditional approach to keeping sales numbers on a new product close to the vest so that they can react to the product's success (or failure) before anyone else can.

Bryan Chaffin contributed to this report.

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