Apple drops iReview service

In a small but significant reveral of its year-old effort to break into Web content and services, Apple Computer Inc. last week quietly pulled the plug on its online iReview feature.

A few days after iReview disappeared from its Web site, Apple officially confirmed its cancellation to those sites that were linked to the Apple Web site review guide.

"Dear iReview Badge recipient," an e-mail from Apple Computer Internet Services said, "iReview has been removed from http://www.apple.com. Please remove any badge and hyperlink references to iReview from your Web site."

The e-mail, which was carbon-copied to every recipient instead of using blind carbon-copying, gave no reason for the discontinuation of iReview. Apple (aapl) did not return phone calls requesting comment about the move.

iReview debuted at the January 2000 edition of Macworld Expo/San Francisco, where CEO Steve Jobs introduced it as one of the company's first-generation iTools, an assortment of online services that included greeting-card authoring and file storage for Mac users.

At its inception, iReview included more than 250 reviewed and rated sites, and more than 1,000 had been posted by last summer. Since that time, however, the service has added few new reviews or updates.

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