Apple launches iTunes store in Brazil

Apple has launched its iTunes store in Brazil as well as in 15 other Latin American countries.

The iTunes Store in Brazil offers a catalog of more than 20 million songs, including from top Brazilian stars Ivete Sangalo and Marisa Monte.

Also available for purchase and download are a broad selections of international artists such as the Beatles, Rihanna and Coldplay.

Most of the songs are priced at 99 US cents and most albums at $9.99.

Apple said it was also bringing the iTunes Store to 15 other Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela.

Apple's App Store offers more than 500,000 apps to hundreds of millions of iPad, iPhone and iPod users in 123 countries.

Apple releases iTunes 10.1.2

Apple has released iTunes 10.1.2, a stability and performance update for everyone’s favorite media-playing / iOS-device-syncing / app-shopping tool.

The company’s characteristically terse release notes say only that “iTunes 10.1.2 provides a number of important stability and performance improvements.”

However, the update’s “Read Before You Install iTunes“ document - which you only see if you download the new version from Apple’s iTunes site, and not when you download via Software Update - specifically mentions that 10.1.2 also adds support for syncing “with iPhone 4 (CDMA model).” The company’s CDMA iPhone will debut on Verizon on February 10.

The update requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard or later.