You know things are quiet in the Apple world when the news sites trip all over themselves to leap on a piece of info as emotionally inert as Kodak licensing QuickTime for use in future digital cameras. It's not exactly the kind of story that gets the heart pounding faster, nor is it the feel-good hit of the summer. It's unlikely to inspire rave reviews like "I laughed, I cried, I bought a digital camera!" In fact, it'll be lucky to draw a five share in the post-Sweeps ratings-- unless someone punches it up with a little rewrite, of course. Because let's face it, Apple's joint press release is okay for a first draft, but it needs a little zazz if it's going to hold the audience's attention.

How about something like this: "Amid falling meteors that plunged most of Rochester, NY and Cupertino, CA into fiery chaos, Kodak today proclaimed its passionate love for Apple's QuickTime, to be used in future digital cameras and alien-hybrid weapons technology." That introduces both meteors and aliens right off the bat, and gets the obligatory love story out of the way quickly so it doesn't slow down the action.

Continuing: "'The ability to use multimedia files in both Mac and Windows environments was an important consideration,' said Willy 'Crusher' Shih, senior veep of Kodak. 'QuickTime is established, broadly used, and most importantly, incredibly hot in a bikini.' Phil 'Blabbermouth' Schiller agreed: 'More than 50 million copies of the QuickTime 4 player have been distributed worldwide, taking out drug-trafficking overlords and corrupt police forces with extreme prejudice all over the globe. And by the way, there's no Apple handheld.'" Let's see, here... Bikinis, drug rings, dirty cops, and a conspiracy coverup. Yup, we think we covered all the necessary hit-making ingredients.

Of course, a summer smash is no good without a product tie-in, and that's where Kodak comes in. When its new consumer-oriented digital cameras ship later this year, they'll feature the ability to capture short video clips directly in QuickTime format, which can be exported to Mac or Windows systems for editing and playback. Between that and the collectible QuickTime wind-up action figures scheduled to appear in Happy Meals during the premiere week, we figure commercial success is a virtual certainty. Art, schmart-- we're talking mass appeal, here!