Published: October 2, 2008

Just when people are beginning to ponder holiday gifts, Apple Incorporated held a press event on Sept. 9 in San Francisco to unveil new iPods and related software. Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, took center stage to present the newest gadgets that Apple has to offer.

One of the major announcements that Apple made during this event was the redesign of its iPod nano. This is the fourth iteration of the nano, and according to Jobs; it is the thinnest iPod yet. The new nano improves upon its predecessors in several areas. The first is the inclusion of an accelerometer, which allows the unit to switch the orientation of the picture when placed sideways. The best example of this can be seen when watching a movie; you can tilt the nano sideways to watch it in widescreen. The accelerometer can also be used for Cover Flow, an application that allows music listeners to browse the album art of the music in their iPods. Finally, this accelerometer allows the songs to shuffle, or randomly pick another song, just by shaking the unit. The new nano is also the first iPod that has the functionality to record audio. The nano is available in nine colors: black, silver, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red and pink. It costs $149 for the eight-gigabyte model and $199 for the 16GB version.

The other major announcement made by Jobs was an addition to Apple’s industry juggernaut, the iTunes store that, according to Jobs, has more than 8,500,000 songs. The addition is called Genius and it functions as a smart playlist that looks at the kind of music you listen to and then creates a playlist out of the music on your computer. All that you need to do is pick a song and Genius will pull songs from your personal music library to match that song. Everyone who uses Genius will have their music compilations uploaded to Apple so that Genius will essentially become familiar with their musical tastes. All information uploaded to the computers at Apple will be kept confidential and used only to look at the kinds of music that people compile. Genius doesn’t just work through iTunes, but is also available for iPods through a software update. This means that Genius can make a playlist out of the songs that are already on your iPod.

In addition to the new nano and Genius functionality, Apple brought out some updates for the iPod touch. The iPod touch has been made thinner and now includes a built-in speaker and volume control located on the outside of the unit. Additionally, new lower prices have been given to the touches. The eight GB is $229.00, the 16 GB is $299.00 and the new 32GB model is priced at $399.00. Then there is the iPod classic, which came in two sizes, the larger, more expensive version and the thinner, less expensive counterpart. Jobs said that the larger version has been discontinued, but the thinner version will now have the 120GB capacity that the larger one did and  will still have the $249.00 price of the thinner version.

These brand new iPods will provide hours of entertainment for the sleepy-eyed morning commuter or the resident too tired to get out of bed and switch on their computer. You can watch the complete version of the press event on Apple’s We site, Apple.com or download it as a podcast from the iTunes store.