Steve Jobs: There Have Been Lots Of Rumors. Some Are True, Some Are Not

S teve Jobs made some interesting comments at an Apple shareholder meeting yesterday. Reuters is reporting that Appleis CEO ducked specific questions about whether or not Apple would be buying Universal, and whether or not Apple was introducing a new online music service. Despite the meeting being a shareholder meeting, Steve Jobs tends to stick by his companyis policy of not commenting on unannounced products during those meetings, but he still made some very interesting comments. From the Reuters article:

Steve Jobs, chairman and chief executive of Apple Computer Inc., declined to comment on its forthcoming online music service and its reported talks to buy Vivendiis Universal Music label at the computer makeris annual shareholder meeting on Thursday.

"There have been a lot of rumors in the last few weeks," Jobs said in response to a shareholder question. "Many of them are not true and some of them are true."

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, is readying to launch an online music service, which will allow for users to buy single songs from a deep catalog, record industry sources have told Reuters. The service has already won the praise of some record executives who see it as a potentially powerful weapon against online privacy.

In a further confirmation, Apple sent invitations earlier this week to reporters to an event in San Francisco on Monday, noting that it would be "music to your ears."

Asked by one shareholder if Apple were indeed going to launch such a service, Jobs responded: "Youid think so if you havenit been asleep the last two weeks."

"We really canit talk about unannounced products," he said later, in response to a question regarding the Vivendi V.N EAUG.PA> talks about Universal Music Group, home to acts such as Eminem and U2.

Thereis more information in the full article at Reuters.