First look: Apple's new iPods

(Credit: Donald Bell)

Apple's newly announced iPods are sure to wreak havoc on holiday wish lists this year. Here's the lowdown straight from Job's mouth to our ears.

New iPod Nano

The new iPod Nano, which is just as slender as its predecessor but shorter and squatter, has a 2-inch display with an iPod video's 320x240 resolution. The new Nano--available beginning this weekend--supports Cover Flow and video games (three are included--Vortex, Sudoku, and a mystery game). Cover Flow on the Nano shows albums against a white background, differentiating itself from the iPhone's cover flow. The Now Playing screen now shows cover artwork, artist, title, and rating information all in one view. Browsing music, videos, and photos now takes advantage of a split-screen view that offers a visual preview of the selection on the right half of the screen. The new Nano will be available in a $149 4GB version (available only in silver), and a $199 8GB version, which will come in multiple colors (silver, black, red, periwinkle, and jade). Battery life is rated at 24 hours for music and five hours for video. Here's our video First Look for the new iPod Nano.

New iPod Classic

Available in both 80GB ($249) and 160GB ($349) capacities, the iPod Classic, which will be available beginning this weekend, is a refinement of the 5G iPod design. It's lighter and thinner, and offers the same user interface as the new Nano. As with the Nano, the Classic now comes encased in anodized aluminum and is available in either black or silver.

New iPod Touch

Look familiar?

(Credit: Ina Fried)

At only 8mm thin, the iPod Touch makes good on the promise of a phone-less iPhone. The user interface is identical to the iPhone's iPod. The display uses the iPhone's same multitouch interface and takes advantage of accelerometer technology that will trigger a landscape mode when turned on its side. The iPod Touch will be available sometime this month in 8GB ($299) and 16GB ($399) capacities.

Also, four new Shuffle colors are on the way, including a red Shuffle to benefit the AIDS relief in Africa.

For up-to-the-minute information on the latest iPod news, check out CNET's iPod Central.

[hawk9858]

Early iPhone purchasers just got ripped off!

Alot of really upset people out there, the ones (like me) who stood in-line on June 30th and paid $599 for a phone that 7 weeks later is $399. So many pissed off posts in the Apple Discussion/iPhone forum that they shut it down for "Maintenance". So for $200 I had the priviledge, like so mnay others, of working the bugs out of their beta iPhone!!!

I expected a price drop within 6-9 months and I paid the price to have "one of the first's" but I'll be damned if mine became $200 less obsolete in less than 7 weeks!!!

SJ just lost a loyal Apple customer.

[Magishine]

Such is the price of being an early adapter....

One of the biggest things about computers is that the first version of something is always rather buggy. That's why so many people said to wait on the iPhone.

Also, Christmas is coming up, so it was almost guarenteed that the iPhone would get a drop before that.

And also, have you ever bought a computer that was top of the line when you purchased it, but got a price drop within a month or so? I have. Plenty of times. It's no different here.

Though I wouldn't be surprised if they price dropped due to it being unlocked. That way it's more attractive to those who want to buy it for another carrier.

[catapult99]

1GB Shuffle, an iPod Touch with 16GB? Out of Touch

All I can say is so much for the hype. They couldn't even bump up the shuffle to 2 gigs? The Touch is a joke. They should through a 120GB drive vs 16GB of flash memory. No memory card expansion. At least the new Creative Zen has an SD card so it is not obsolete two months later. http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zen/

Steve is milking the market! Enough of the hype!

[catapult99]

I Touch? More Like Out of Touch!

All I can say is so much for the hype. They couldn't even bump up the shuffle to 2 gigs? The Touch is a joke. They should have put in a 120GB drive vs 16GB of flash memory. No memory card expansion. At least the new Creative Zen has an SD card so it is not obsolete two months later. http://www.creative.com/products/mp3/zen/

Steve is milking the market! Enough of the hype!

[Magishine]

Well actually....

If they bumped up the shuffle to 2 gigs, I imagine they would have to bump up the price also. And not to many people would pay a lot for a screenless MP3 player.

As for the touch, I don't see a problem with it. 8GB seems to be a good amount of space for me personally. Plus you get youtube and the web all for a lot less than what I expected.

[Madinat]

Palm should be suing the pants off apple

so this is basically more of the same from apple, with the ipod touch, you have a phone-less iphone, or a palm tx. capability-wise, the new touch does nothing the tx hasn't been doing for YEARS. the only difference, sadly is the fantastically BEAUTIFUL software apple has, and the horrifyingly crippled blazer internet browser palm is so strangely attached to. but at least my palm has an SD slot!

and that whole touch-screen thingy? if you take off the four side buttons on the tx, you have the ipod touch--brilliant innovation ppl. palm SO needs to get on the ball with their upgrades, *sigh*

[mattmchugh.com]

Apple (once more) flips the bird to early adopters

So, basically, you've got all these people who spent $2600 to lock themselves
into a mediocre 2-year phone service contract, just so they could have a
really cool iPod. Now, Steve drops this i-Bomb on you. Ugh.

Every time I've bought an Apple product, they've released a cooler one a
matter of weeks later. Really infuriates me. Almost makes me want to
consider not considering buying this one.

Ah... who am I kidding? I drank the Kool-Aid back when it was Bondi Blue
and never looked back. Hang on Unka Steve! My AMEX number is a-comin!

-- mattmchugh.com

[bowlert]

You Yanks Got It Easy !

You should visit the UK Store and check out the prices there. Apple either have no idea of the exchange rate or they built in a huge price increace to allow for variations! In the UK its £199 for the 8G thats around $400!!!!

[Rikki Tikki Tavi]

Not so forward looking

Apple is behind the curve with both the iPhone and iPod. The gadgets certainly looks cool, but there are others on the market now that do as much and more. Check out the HTC P3600 - it is a 3G phone with high speed data transfer, it will play videos and music, it has GPS navigation, excellent internet browser and runs Windows Mobile 5 so it can also open and edit attachments, handwriting recognition, predictive text etc etc. It also has a 2mp camera and can take pix and videos. If you buy a Sandisk V-Mate you can record TV to a Mini SD card which then plays perfectly on the HTC P3600. Why would I buy an overpriced iPhone or iPod when there are better alternatives? I also don't like the fact that songs downloaded from iTunes can only be played on an iPod and require conversion before they can be transferred to another player. Not good. Nokia's new music service allows downloaded songs to be played on any device. Apple have become greedy. Yes, the original iPod was a fantastic invention - but Apple are not playing fair with their customers... The figleaf of slick PR will not last forever...

[purpleshorts]

Paid too much?

Funny how the $200 dollar price reduction stories all focus on the few who
paid more and are angry. What about the many who will pay less and be
happy?

Price was the major complaint of most of the negative reviews of iPhone. With
this point remedied, certainly the product is better? But I have yet to read that
anywhere this morning.

Just whining and moaning and buyer's remorse. From people who, a day ago,
would defend their purchase to the death. It is fun to **** and moan, I guess.

[boopiejones]

welcome to the world of technology

name one tech gadget that didn't go down in price soon after it's release? my tv has a $4,000 msrp, i paid $2,000 and could probably get it now for about $1,000. my dvd player was about $200, but i can find a better one for less than $50 these days. my computer was about $800 and is completely obsolete... yes, it sucks that you camped out in line next to a smelly guy dressed as a wookie, and it sucks that you paid $200 more than if you waited a little bit, but what did you expect would happen to iphone prices?

[3rdalbum]

Anti-virus software

How soon before Symantec releases "Norton Antivirus for iPod"? The wi-fi features in the new iPod, combined with the device's ensured popularity, will be a haven for virus writers. I don't have any confidence in Apple's ability to lock down the software; OS X for x86/PPC isn't exactly very secure and there's already an iPhone modding community (closed platform?) . I think I may have been the first to comment about this side of the new iPods, so does that give me the naming rights for the first iPod virus? ;-)

[PokerCardEnt]

iPod Touch is amazing youre all full of yourselves

The iPod touch is EXACTLY what I want, a cool gadget with a gorgeous screen (that beats the hell out of a palm) running OS X that can play music and movies on the go and browse the web, too. And $299 to START is very good. I can wait until Apple cuts the price a bit after the holiday season. Perhaps then 32gb of flash memory will be more affordable and Apple will make the iPod touch with 16/32gb.


And a response to the IDIOT who said they're gonna make viruses for the iPod... LMAO..

It's running OS X. Can anyone tell the special needs section of the class how many viruses there are for OS X? 0. It's impervious to viruses because the OS has been perfected over the years, whereas Windows just gets exponentially worse. (crappier, and crappier, and crappier...)