WWDC, SAN JOSE, California—MAY 15, 2000—Apple® today announced that more than 50 million copies of its QuickTime™ 4 player software have been distributed for Mac® and Windows users worldwide, and gave developers at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) a sneak preview of the next version of QuickTime which will debut this summer.

In addition, Nielsen//NetRatings has named Apple's website, www.apple.com, the most popular destination for movie trailers on the web.* Contributing to the success of Apple.com's QuickTime-based movie trailer section, downloads for New Line Cinema's “The Lord of the Rings” preview, encoded exclusively in QuickTime, topped 12 million since its April 7 debut, making it one of the largest online entertainment events ever.

“We're thrilled that there are now over 50 million copies of QuickTime 4 on both Mac and Windows platforms, and that most on-line viewers choose to watch their movie trailers in QuickTime, getting the very best video quality available on the Internet,” said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.

“More people visited Apple.com's movie trailer section than any other movie trailer web site,” said Jarvis Mak, Internet Analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. “In addition, Apple.com and its partnership with Akamai.com was number one in streaming trailers to movie fans, ahead of film.com and aol.com, whichhosts trailers for moviefone.com.”

Additionally, Apple gave developers at WWDC a sneak preview of its next version of QuickTime, which will be available this summer and includes cross-platform support for MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, Flash 4 for web animation, and an enhanced QuickTime VR playback function providing unlimited spherical views of virtual-reality scenes. The new version of QuickTime also will feature QDesign software that has been optimized to take advantage of the Power Mac™ G4's Velocity Engine™ to encode music up to three times faster.Apple's QuickTime 4 player for Macintosh and Windows users is available as a free download from www.apple.com/quicktime.

* Nielsen//NetRatings data for April 2000.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Apple is committed to bringing the best personal computing experience to students, educators, creative professionals and consumers around the worldthrough its innovative hardware, software and Internet offerings.

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