Apple Computer Inc

As competitors continue to pull out of the portable audio player market, Apple Computer Inc. beefed up its iPod product mix with a new 1-gigabyte version of the nano and lower-priced shuffles. The pencil-thin, flash-memory-based iPod nano player now ranges from $149 for the 1-gigabyte model to $249 for the 4-gigabyte model. Previously, the 2-gigabyte nano was the least expensive model at $199. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple also cut the prices of its bare-bones iPod shuffle players.

Apple Computer Inc., its losses ebbing but still huge, sought to convince customers it's on the comeback path a day after it reported a $708-million quarterly loss. The troubled personal computer pioneer placed full-page ads in major newspapers in which Chairman Gil Amelio expressed confidence in the company's recovery. Amelio, in a television interview, also vigorously countered persistent speculation that Apple could be sold or taken over.

Apple Computer Inc. rolled out software Monday that can turn a Macintosh personal computer into a mini-Hollywood movie studio, spicing up text with film, video, animation and sound. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company that took publishing into the electronic age in the 1980s now aims to leap ahead in "multimedia" products in the 1990s with its QuickTime software for desktop movie making.

Apple Computer Inc. and clone maker UMAX Computer Corp. said they have reached an agreement over rights to the latest version of the Macintosh operating system. The announcement came a week after Apple bought the main assets of Power Computing Corp., the most successful maker of Mac copy-cat computers.

Beleaguered Apple Computer Inc., searching for a way to reinvigorate its business, is trying to use the Macworld show here this week to position its Macintosh computer as the ideal vehicle for cruising the information highway. Like many companies in the computer industry caught off-guard by the popularity of the Internet--and particularly the graphical portion known as the World Wide Web--Apple is scrambling to put together a business strategy to capitalize on the Net.