Jobs talks iTunes pricing, Intel Macs at Apple Expo

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs at a press conference on Tuesday talked about the company's upcoming Intel Macs and called the music industry "greedy" for considering a hike in the price of digital music downloads, warning such a move would drive users back to piracy.

Speaking to reporters before the opening of Apple Expo in Paris, Jobs acknowledged that some record companies were pushing him to raise the price of each song download beyond the current 99 cents rate.

"If they want to raise the prices, it means that they are getting greedy," Jobs said, according to the Associated Press. "If the price goes up, [consumers] will go back to piracy and everybody loses."

According to Macworld UK, Jobs also confirmed Apple’s switch to Intel processors remains on schedule, saying: “We said we’d be shipping by next June and we are on track to have that be a true statement”.

Commenting on the illegal distribution and manipulation of early copies of Mac OS X for Intel to run on standard PC hard, Jobs said: "We don’t know how having OS X available for PCs would affect Macs”, and promised, “we will have technology in OS X for Intel so that it cannot be installed in other PCs”.

Still, it appears that Apple will take no seat to software pirates and hackers alike. "Theft is bad”, Jobs said. “You don’t want to burn in Hell. We choose to give away some software for free, we choose not to give away other software."

Meanwhile, Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president of the iPod division, told reporters the company was not planning to add radio features to its digital player because there was not enough demand for it.

Pascal Cagni, Apple's European Boss, was also present at the conference and gave an update on Apple's performance in the region. “In Europe in the last quarter Apple saw the fastest ever growth - 6-7 per cent year-on-year [...] We have done very well in the UK, and fantastically with the iPod, and in Russia and Turkey too”.

Apple’s US market share now stands at 4.5%, with its world-wide market share at 3%.

Additional coverage of the press conference is available from Macworld UK.