Apple has announced that QuickTime is currently being downloaded from its Web site some one million times every three days. Thatis 333,000 times a day, for those keeping score at home. The company is locked in a battle for Internet multimedia and streaming content with Microsoftis Windows Media Player format, and RealNetworksi Real Player. Apple has been in third place in that contest for some time, but the company claims that downloads of its technology are increasing. From Apple:

Driven by the popularity of high-quality QuickTime® content on popular web sites, one million copies of Appleis QuickTime 5 are being downloaded every three days. The rate of QuickTime 5 downloads has steadily increased since its launch in April, putting QuickTime 5 on track to exceed 100 million downloads in its first year of distribution.

The growth of QuickTime 5 is being driven by QuickTime news, entertainment and virtual reality (VR) content on popular web sites such as:

• CNN, NPR and ESPN Radio;
• HBO, The Cartoon Network, Disney and Warner Bros.;
• Appleis own movie trailer site and hundreds of motion picture sites such as Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Lord of the Rings and Spider-Man; and
• Honda, General Motors and Nokia, who use QuickTime VR to showcase their products in multiple dimensions.

"More than 300,000 people download QuickTime 5 to their Macs and PCs every day," said Philip Schiller, Appleis vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The incredible quality of QuickTime content delivered by popular movie trailers such as Star Wars Episode II and Lord of the Rings, and nonstop news coverage from top organizations like CNN and NPR are driving this record setting download rate."

QuickTime 5 is Appleis industry-leading software for creating, playing and streaming high-quality audio and video over the Internet and is available as a free download for Mac® and Windows users at www.apple.com/quicktime. QuickTime Pro is Appleis professional-level upgrade to QuickTime Player and provides powerful content authoring and media encoding capabilities. QuickTime Pro is available for $29.99 (US) at www.apple.com/quicktime/buy. Since it was launched, more than 1 million copies of QuickTime Pro have been sold.

Apple® is driving the adoption and promotion of open standards such as MPEG-4, the emerging standard for streaming high-quality audio and video over the Internet. Apple is a cofounder of the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA), which is dedicated to the development of products and technologies that adhere to industry standards. QuickTime was chosen by the International Organization for Standards (ISO) as the file format for MPEG-4, and Apple is working with other ISMA members to bring interoperable MPEG-4 products and technologies to market.

You can find more information on QuickTime at Appleis Web site.