ABM co-sponsors Dubai Jazz Festival with world's most advanced digital music player

A new music star is set to take centre stage at the Philips Dubai International Jazz Festival 2003. Apple's best of breed mp3 player packs thousands of songs plus contacts on a massive FireWire hard drive - and it's available for both Mac and PC users. It is also compatible with Microsoft Windows.

Just the size of a pack of cards, the iPod can hold up to four thousand songs in CD-quality sound. Downloading digital music from your computer to the iPod is lightning fast thanks to its in-built FireWire - 1,000 songs in less than 10 minutes.

Navigating your music library is also easy thanks to the iPod's touch-sensitive scroll-wheel, another industry first from Apple. Jazz and other music fans can easily access their favourite songs in seconds, browsing music by playlist, artist, genre or song.

Far from being just an mp3 player, the iPod also doubles up as an external hard drive, coming in generous 20GB, 10GB and 5GB sizes. Its contacts feature lets users view names and addresses downloaded from applications such as Microsoft Entourage, Palm Desktop and Mac OS X Address Book.

"iPod is the ideal companion for Middle East music fans," said Elias Abou _ Rustom, Marketing Director at Arab Business Machine Ltd. (ABM). "Its wide dynamic range suits all genres of music - from deep, pulse-pounding bass to sharp, crystal-clear highs."

"Like the latest mobile phones, the iPod features an LED backlight for clear visibility in low-light situations, indoors or outdoors. And skip-free technology means it's great for users on the move - jogging, driving, or at the gym."