New iPods

Today is new iPod day - the "fatty" rumours were real, and now you can get an iPhone without the phone bit on it. I'll add in more details later, but the pics were too pretty not to post straight away.

Oh yeah, and the iPhone price went down by $200 (already!) - decisions, decisions (not really - they're all off limits as we're saving for a new Mac, plus I just got an iPod Nano back in March, and I love it to pieces).

Update: OK, got a little time now to list the changes. Starting small and working our way up, the Shuffle hasn't really changed, just some new pastel colours, and also the product (red) version (it's red, and a portion of the money goes to fighting AIDS in Africa). The Nano is now short and fat, so that you can fit on a screen that will play movies in a watchable format. This was the one that was leaked a few days ago on the internet, but I don't think anyone realized how small this thing actually is in real life. Also, it gets a price drop - we're now down to 150 bucks for the 4 GB and $199 for the 8GB version.

The "normal" iPod is now called the iPod classic - if you can't stand being without your songs or movies, this is the choice for you - you can get the "small" 80GB version for $250, or a new 160GB version for $349 - this even has enough space for Mr Stone to carry around all of his songs.... It still plays movies, and now has coverflow on it (like the Nano - the moving of the album covers back and forwards as a means to browse around your collection).

The big new product (which people hoped and wished for, but weren't sure would happen so soon) was the iPod Touch - basically this is an iPhone without the phone or camera bolted on. The gorgeous touchscreen approach, widescreen video playback and available in 8GB and 16GB formats. It also has WiFi included, which means Safari is on board for browsing the web, as well as a YouTube app like the iPhone and Apple TV.

Two other things - one is there's now a mobile iTunes store, so you can buy songs (but apparently not movies/videos) directly from your iPod, and a team up with Starbucks that allows you to buy the songs you hear in the store just by hitting a button on the iPod. This didn't really seem like a very exciting thing when I first heard it, but then thinking about it, it's kinda cool - not for the actual "oh, I can purchase a song that I'm hearing in a store" kinda way, but more that it pointed towards the future way of the world. It reminded me of the Minority Report, when the adverts in shops scanned your iris and gave adverts specifically targeted to you. I'm not saying we're anywhere close to that, but it's a start.

I think that's about it - Apple has the Christmas market pretty much covered as far as music/video players for your pocket is concerned, with enough new features for existing customers to go back and upgrade, and maybe even entice some of the holdouts to join the iPod club (I'm talking to you Mr Thompson ;-)