Third timeis the charm, or so Apple appears to have said to Best Buy. Apple has entered into an agreement to sell its products at Best Buy for a third time. The company will be selling the iPod, its very popular MP3 player at both Best Buyis retail outlets and Web site. Apple used to sell Macs at Best Buy, but pulled out of the retailing giant in January of 1998 because of Best Buyis amazingly poor support for the Mac platform. Best Buy had a particularly bad reputation for its display Macs to be out-of-date, for keeping them in dusty corners, and for the floor machines to often not function at all. In addition, Best Buy employees have long been known for bad-mouthing Macs and steering customers towards Wintel products.

In October, 1998, shortly after Apple introduced the iMac, the company moved back into Best Buy. This yielded similar results as Best Buy was again not able to provide a positive Mac experience for customers. Apple again pulled out of the retailer after Best Buy refused to stock all five "Fruit Flavored" iMacs in April of 1999.

The new agreement has Best Buy providing two Windows models of the iPod, the 10 GB and 20 GB units, and the 10 GB unit for the Mac. The company will sell the entire iPod line for Mac and Windows on its Web site, including the 5 GB model. The units are scheduled to begin appearing on Best Buy shelves on September 15th.

Apple® and Best Buy today announced that iPod will be available at all Best Buy retail locations and on BestBuy.com beginning September 15. With more than 500 retail stores in 47 states throughout the U.S. and 16 million visitors to its online store each month, Best Buy is the nationis leading specialty retailer of consumer electronics.

Now shipping for both Mac® and Windows, iPod is the only portable digital music player with Auto-sync, an innovative feature that automatically downloads an entire digital music library into an iPod and keeps it up-to-date whenever the iPod is plugged in.

Best Buy will offer three iPod configurations in their retail stores -- the 10GB iPod for Windows, the 20GB iPod for Windows and the 10GB iPod for Mac -- as well as the entire line of iPod portable digital music players on their commercial Web site at www.BestBuy.com.

iPod for Mac requires Mac® OS X version 10.1 or Mac OS 9.2, iTunes 2.0.4 and a Macintosh® with built-in FireWire port. iPod for Windows requires a PC with built-in FireWire or a Windows-certified FireWire card and Windows Me, Windows 2000 or Windows XP Home or Professional.

* Some iPod features require a Mac and iTunes 3.

You can find more information on Best Buy at the companyis Web site, and more information on the iPod at Appleis Web site.