APPLE'S big new idea, an online music service that is entirely legal and above board, has been launched.

Called the Apple Music Store, (www.apple.com/music/store), it integrates closely with Apple's iTunes software, which has been updated to coincide with the launch of the Store.

The service is alarmingly simple to use. From inside the iTunes program, users can call up details of hundreds of artists and more than 200,000 individual songs. Just clicking on a song downloads a 30-second sample, and another click downloads the entire song, at a charge of 99 cents. Entire albums cost 10 dollars.

You'll note the American currency in those figures. For the time being, the new service is only available in the USA, although Apple says it is working on making it available worldwide.