Apple launches iTunes LP

09:20 | Thursday September 10, 2009

This is the public launch of what has been known as Project Cocktail. On top of the album, additional bundled elements can include liner notes, artwork, memorabilia, lyrics and video footage.

It was unveilved yesterday at Apple’s It’s Only Rock & Roll product event, which also saw the public return of Apple CEO Steve Jobs after a leave of absence due to illness.

The name, look and feel of iTunes LP suggests that it will work best for classic catalogue albums where additional content, such as short documentaries, can be created exclusively for the format. Apple said that it has handed over the development tools to acts and labels so they can build their own unique bundles for the format.

There was no confirmation of pricing for albums sold this way. That will surely depend on the breadth of additional elements bundled into the package. While audio and video content will sync onto devices likes the iPod and the iPhone, it appears that not all the interactive elements and content will work on portable players.

While iTunes LP was the headline product of the event, Apple also announced that it was now offering ringtones, with a total of 30,000 titles currently available.

Innovation around devices was mainly the addition of a video camera built into the iPod Nano. The iPod Classic saw storage increased (again) to 160GB and a drop in price across the iPod suite including the Nano and Shuffle.

Apple revealed that it has sold 30m iPhones and 20m iPod Touch devices to date. With sales of 100m, the iPod Nano is the most successful MP3 player in the world. Apple added that it has 100m registered iTunes accounts and has sold 8.5bn songs so far.

The company announced that it has now delivered 1.8bn app downloads from a catalogue of 75,000 titles. It has also brought the Genius technology over from iTunes to make app recommendations to consumers.