Apple unveils touch-screen iPod

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters)

 

Apple Inc. unveiled new iPods on Wednesday including a model with an iPhone-style touch screen and wireless Internet connectivity, refreshing the product line at a time when its digital media strategy is facing renewed attacks from rivals.

 

Apple also introduced higher capacity versions of the original hard-drive iPod and added video and games to its iPod nano, which stores songs and photos on flash memory chips.

 

The iPhone-style iPod Touch will cost $299 for a version with 8 gigabytes of storage and $399 for 16 GB. The new nanos will cost $149 for 4GB and $199 for 8GB. New versions of the hard-drive iPod will retail for $249 for 80GB and $349 for 160GB.

 

Chief Executive Steve Jobs said the company's iTunes music service was improved to let songs to be made into iPhone ring tones for 99 cents each.

 

Will any of you be interested in buying this gadget or are you more bothered when the heavily rumoured Beatles & Led Zeppelin back catalogues finally become available to digitally download on Apple's I-Tunes?

New Apple iPod Nano has 2.5-inch screen

SAN FRANCISCO - Apple Inc.

 

CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday unveiled a new version of the company's popular iPod media player that is based on the iPhone, featuring wireless Internet access and a Web browser but not cell phone capability.

 

Dubbed iPod Touch, the 8-millimeter-thick device and can store photos, music, videos and other digital data. It features the same 3.5-inch, touch-screen display as the iPhone, on which light finger touches allow the user to scroll through menus and use two fingers to resize pictures.

 

The iPod Touch also has built-in wireless Internet access and the Safari Web browser, including Google and Yahoo search engines and easy access to YouTube videos. The iPhone, which runs on the AT&T cellular network, also includes Wi-Fi.

 

An 8-gigabyte version will cost $299. A 16-gigabyte version will cost $399. It will be shipped worldwide starting later this month.

 

"It's one of the seven wonders of the world, it's just incredible," Jobs told employees and journalists gathered at a special media event near downtown San Francisco.

 

Jobs also unveiled other new versions of the company's market-leading iPod, including an iPod Nano with a 2.5-inch video monitor for watching movies and playing built-in games. The current version has a 2-inch screen but does not play videos.

 

"It's incredibly tiny. It's incredibly thin," Jobs said of the new Nano, which features a 320-by-240-pixel screen with 24 hours of audio playback. "We think it's really, really beautiful."

 

The new Nano, which will be in stores starting this weekend, will come in a 4-gigabyte version for $149, and an 8-gigabyte version for $199.

 

Apple also announced it will be selling ring tones for the iPhone for 99 cents, plus the 99-cent cost of the song. Ring tones from more than 500,000 songs available on iTunes will go on sale next week.

 

Sounds good, but firstly, why in the culture box? :P And secondly, I hope they stop making them smaller from now. Its impractical!

Creative Zens all the way! However, I love gadgets like this so if I had the money (which I don't/won't) I would be seriously tempted to buy a touch screen iPod :o