Apple today unveiled it’s new iPods, starting with the iPod shuffle. New colours were added, featuring a Product (red) version as well. No size boost or added features, just the same 240 song / 1gb player with a clip.

Steve quickly moved onto the massively rumored iPod Nano (codename: phatty) with a new interface and an all metal design, larger 320×240 screen and video. music playback time stays the same, even with the larger screen and it gets 5 hours worth of video playback time.

The first shock of the event was the iPod “classic” [yes, it's been around long enough to join coke with a classic branding] with the same new UI, but sporting 80gb and 160gb hard drive based storage, in the same form factor as the old 30gb and 80gb models. These iPods also have been given an all-metal facade, black and silver options, no white in sight in the iPod line up any more

The iPod touch was next, basically an 8gb or 16gb version of the iPhone, without the phone. Wifi functions and safari remain. Great for people who don’t want an iPhone, but not really of any real value if you’re thinking of or already have an iPhone

Itunes also received a few new features, Ringtones being the obvious one here, as there was a slight slip up when they did the iPhone intro, and that showed the iPhone’s sync display in iTunes having a ringtone tab

iTunes’ biggest improvement is the addition of a wireless service on the iPod touch and the iPhone to allow people to buy content directly to their iPods and sync back to iTunes, intertwined in this is an Apple/Starbucks deal where Starbucks shows the now playing and 10 last played songs if you are sitting in a Starbucks, using their wifi network (for free, but only for the store).

Three things that didn’t come from the event

• The Beatles on iTunes, although it was hinted at
• iPhones elsewhere, Europe and Asia still do not have the iPhone, neither does Canada
• iPhone SDK: it’s only a matter of time, we’re not at 1.1 apparently

Filed under: Apple, Hardware, Industry News