Apple briefs: Beatles '08, roadmap video, BBC iPlayer on iPhone U.K.
Catching up on late week Apple (AAPL) news…
Beatles on iTunes in 2008. We've heard stories like it before, but this one has a twist. The London Evening Standard reported Saturday that Paul McCartney, who is said to be worth more than $1.65 billion, will begin releasing the Beatles catalog on iTunes in the coming months to help defray the $40 to $60 million it may cost him to get out of his four-year marriage to Heather Mills. A final divorce hearing is set for March 17. But the Standard goes on to say that Mills could could argue that the deal, said to be worth an estimated $400 million, should be included in her settlement. So Sir Paul is going to release a 40-year-old catalog to raise money to pay a settlement that gets bigger as a result of the sale? (link)
iPhone Software Roadmap video. For those who couldn't make it to Cupertino for the March 6 event, Apple has made the entire presentation — all 1 hour and 18 minutes — available in Quicktime and HD. See Steve Jobs present U.S. smartphone market shares in a pie chart tilted to make the iPhone's slice look bigger. See Phil Schiller demo push e-mail and remote wipe. Watch EA's Travis Boatman play a preliminary iPhone version of Will (The Sims) Wright's Spore. (link)
iPlayer on iPhone. As promised (after getting pressured by Mac fans), the BBC has introduced an iPhone and iPod touch version of its iPlayer, which makes BBC shows available for download over the Internet. (link) It's still in beta and is only for British residents and for programs within seven days of broadcast. As Saul Hansel points out in Bits, the Beeb got around the fact that the iPhone doesn't support Flash by reformatting its video into the QuickTime version of H.264 — which is what Google does to put YouTube videos on the device.
