To celebrate the release of its new iPods, Apple booked Richie Hawtin to do a DJ gig at the company's SoHo store. The techno icon usually segues seamlessly from song to song, but his iPod set was choppy because the MP3 player doesn't have pitch control, the feature that allows DJs using turntables to slow down or speed up beats so tracks flow together. The omission isn't for lack of demand - those records get heavy. "When Apple called me about the new iPod, I was like, 'That's cool,' but pitch control is what I really want," Hawtin says. "I could hook two iPods up to a mixer." At Hawtin's SoHo appearance - and at some sets by other DJs at Apple's 53 retail outlets - rumors circulated that he might get his wish. Don't trade in your needles yet, though. "We can't confirm that pitch control will be a feature," says an Apple spokesperson. "But DJs are a constituency we're interested in reaching."
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