Well a little earlier today Apple's music-centric event took place at Moscone West. The venue was about 2000 seats large which overshadowed Apple's previous Mac event at Cupertino tenfold. There were a lot of announcements, almost all of which related to Apple's music business, so I'd just like to recap real quickly.

NewNanoApple now has 4 products in their iPod line. They started by showing off a re-designed iPod Shuffle, which now has updated colors. Not very much to see there. Next they quickly moved on to the updated Nano which, much to my chagrin, is an exact copy of the version we saw in the previously leaked "Fat Nano" images. That's kind of a bummer, especially considering the outrageous claims I made not too long ago as per my conspiracy theory. The Nano is surprisingly small, especially when you consider the width but I'm still pretty surprised with the design. Steve Jobs stated that Apple customers had been requesting a Nano that had a larger screen like the original iPod had, thus their decision to go with the new wide format. Along with the Nano, Steve showed off the new iPod interface which includes album and video previews, and is basically an all-over beautified version of the old UI. Not bad looking at all, though it seemed a little sluggish on the Nano hardware from what I read...probably due to the Nano's limited processing capabilities. The 4 gig version of the Nano will cost $149 while the 8 gig nano will be $199.

iPod ClassicNext he moved on to the iPod, which has now been renamed the iPod Classic (dun, dun, dun!). The Classic iPod now has a metal design and is thinner than previous versions. The most surprising thing about this revision is the capacity. It starts out at 80 gigs (which was the highest capacity you could get up until now) and goes to 160 gigs. That's an amazing amount of space considering the Macbook I'm using to write this has a 160 gig hard drive and houses much more than music. The capacity will be nice for those who have a lot of video on their iPod though. This decision was kind of sketchy in my opinion. I don't know how many people will really need 160 gigs worth of music - I think it might have been better for them to have smaller capacities and a cheaper price. The iPod Classic also has the updated interface that's found in the Nano. The 80 gig version will cost $249 while the 160 gig version will be $349.

iPod TouchThe really exciting announcement from the event was the introduction of the iPod Touch. Think of an iPhone, minus the phone. Its design is almost identical to that of the iPhone's except a little thinner. Obviously you get all of the cool touch effects like flipping through coverflow, finger pinch to resize photos, and the touch keyboard. Very impressive, I must say. This is exactly what I've wanted ever since I realized that I had no way of getting my hands on an iPhone. It gets even better however - the iPod Touch is wifi enabled and includes Safari. That means you can browse the web just like you can on an iPhone, plus you're able to access the built-in YouTube application. All of the websites built exclusively for the iPhone (like Facebook's iPhone variant) also work for the iPod Touch, so you get to benefit from months of iPhone web-development right out of the gate. The battery life, according to Steve, is 22 hours for audio and 5 hours for video. He didn't mention anything about how wifi use might eat up the battery, but let's assume that will be a factor. The iPod Touch will come in 8 and 16 gig versions which are priced at $299 and $399 respectively. This is the one thing I'm not very happy about. Four-hundred dollars for a 16 gigabyte iPod seems pretty steep, especially since Steve also announced a price drop for the iPhone at this event which will bring it down to $399 as well. I wish it was a less expensive but I'm still pretty sure I'll pick one up.

Along with the iPod Touch (I have to keep myself from calling it an iPhone, I've typed that incorrectly multiple times throughout this post) Apple announced new wifi capability for iTunes. This means that you can access the iTunes music store from the iPod Touch wirelessly to purchase music. Steve also announced a new partnership with Starbucks, who will now offer free wifi in their coffee shops for iTouch users to access the iTunes wireless store. You mean I can access an online store for free? Amazing. Obviously these two announcements only benefit people who use iTunes and drink Starbucks coffee - I don't do either - but I'm sure someone out there is excited.

So that's it...I'm sure I didn't cover everything but you can find more at Engadget, Gizmodo, and many other sites.

Currently Listening To: Brad Sucks - Overreacting
Currently Playing: Bioshock, Battlefield 2142, Streets of Rage 2