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September 07, 2007
Apple Announces New Goodies...
... and Ice gets busy creating a wish list for them.
Apple had one of it's infamous "media events" on Wednesday. This event focussed on the evolution of the iPod & iTunes. I was really excited by some of the announcements. First off the iPod brached a new direction in it's product offering. We now have the iPod touch. It's got all of the same stuff on it as the iPhone except the phone functionality. It's sizes are a bit limited at 8gb and 16gb, but it shares a really great new feature with the iPhone in that it will be able to purchase songs from the iTunes store over wi-fi. This is the first time people will be able to purchase iTunes content on the go! Apple is calling this awesome new feature the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store.
The iPod touch not only features this new version of iTunes, but also gets you some of the coolest aspects of the iPhone as well. For instance: the Safari Web Browser (over wi-fi, no edge), YouTube, and the multi-touch features of the iPhone's display.
Amongst the less important, but still neat feature list of the iPod Touch, there is also a Starbucks Music feature. When you are in a Starbucks, this feature allows you to see information regarding what song is currently playing. This feature will also be pushed to the iPhone. The more prominent part of this feature is that Starbucks will be offering free wi-fi music store access at Starbucks locations to iPhone and iPod Touch users.
In addition to the iPod touch, Apple rebranded the standard iPod model as the iPod Classic. It's very much similar to it's predecessor in design and functionality, but it has an even larger capacity. It comes in either 80GB or 160GB models. I'm eyeing the 160GB version in silver myself. In fact, I just added it to my Wish List on Amazon.com!
Along with the increased storage capacity, it shares a revised user interface with the updated iPod Nano. The new UI features a variation of cover flow, and keeps album info and art on the same screen as your playlist to minimize the number of clicks to get where you want to go.
Aside from the software visuals, it has also been graced with a very sleek, sloped-edge design that's not too far a departure from the original design.
There was also a new iPod Nano! This thing is so tremendously cute! It's very short and chubby and I want one but I can't really justify it with the iPhone, an 80GB 5G iPod, and soon to be 180GB iPod Classic. Alas, whoever can justify it will get spiffy new features. Video for the first time on a Nano, The same revised UI as the iPod classic (complete with coverflow), and an extremely high res screen. If you buy it in 8GB it has some cool "pastelish" colors along with a silver and a black. The other option is a 4GB model (good luck fitting video and music on that) but it only comes in Silver.
Last- but not least, we have the iPod Shuffle, who's only relevant update were different colors and the addition of a Product {RED} model which isn't exactly red but it's for a good cause so I won't gripe too much.
Posted by Decemberice at September 7, 2007 11:55 AM