September 3th, 1999

[8:15 AM]
SoundJam MP Updated, Includes Pentium Smashing G4 Optimization
The good people at Casady & Greene aren't fooling around when it come to the G4. They have released a new version, 1.1, of SoundJam MP, their Mac MP3 client, that includes G4 optimization among other improvements. This means that for the first time since MP3s first took off, the Mac (through the G4) is the best and fastest platform for MP3s. According to Casady & Greene:

Casady & Greene announced today that SoundJam MP version 1.1 has been optimized for the Power Mac G4 with Velocity Engine making it the fastest MP3 encoder on the market, bar none, up to 5 times faster than on G3-based machines and faster than any Pentium-based encoder.

Additional new features in SoundJam MP includes improved ID3 Support, Genre information is now alphabetized and can be typed in as well as selected from the menu. SoundJam MP 1.1 offers new plug-ins including WhiteCap and a smoother and faster Melt-O-Rama which also supports Power Mac G4 with Velocity Engine. SoundJam MP supports the upcoming Rio500 MP3 audio player. SoundJam MP will in fact be the Macintosh solution for the upcoming Rio500.

You can find more information on SoundJam MP at the company's web site. The updater is free to registered users and can be downloaded from the SoundJam MP web site. The full version is priced at US$39.95 as an electronic download, and US$49.95 as a shrink-wrapped box.

The Mac Observer Spin: Gotta love the G4! Wintel has utterly dominated the MP3 market since it first began to take off. There were relatively few quality options for playing MP3s on the Mac until recently and there are now several good quality apps for playing and encoding MP3s on the Mac. SoundJam MP is the first product to offer G4 optimization, but the other products will undoubtedly fall in line soon.

In any event, Casady & Greene, being first out of the blocks, has made the Mac the premier platform for working with and playing MP3s. This is a good thing. Why?

MP3s are hot items, especially among young people. We have talked to people who had thought about an iMac, but ended going Wintel because there was no Mac equivalent of WinAMP on the Mac at that time. Making the Mac the premium platform for MP3 performance could attract more customers to the Mac market in general. It's always cool to be hip.

SoundJam MP