Apple Announces New iPods; Drops $200 off iPhone

[Wondermonkey]

With a Cover Flow-themed widescreen graphic for its invitation, Apple has invited selected members of the media to a September 5, 2007 “Special Event” in San Francisco, California. The graphic, titled “The beat goes on," shows a silhouetted iTunes dancer holding a fifth-generation iPod in hand alongside six album covers.

As with other major iPod- and iTunes-themed events, the Moscone Center has been selected as the venue, suggesting the need for greater seating capacity than the smaller Mac- and iPod accessory events Apple has staged in months and years past.

Widescreen 6th Generation iPod in 5, 4, 3...

[Jon Liu]

I absolutely love the iPhone's implementation of cover flow, so this will be exciting for sure.

[Wondermonkey]

The following are some mock-ups based on leak photos that Apple pulled from rumor sites. All concerning tomorrow's announcement:

First, the reportedly new iPod Nano:



And, the rumored iPod Touch, which is similar in look to the iPhone, just a bit thicker.

[Serren]

Since I am looking to replace my lost Zune, I am very interested in this news. Hopefully one will have a nice big touch screen with lots of video codec support. A web browser would be super cool also.

[Wondermonkey]

Confirmed so far:

New version of iTunes coming. Supports custom ringtones...

There’s going to be a custom iTunes ringtones builder, making songs from 500,000 participating songs that you’ve purchased from iTunes. You make ringtones yourself out of 500k songs, 99 cents in addition to the cost of the song. There’s more than 6 million songs in iTunes, but only 500k are ringtone-able.



When you plug in your iPhone, a bell icon will pop up and show you which songs you can make into ringtones. Pick up to 30 seconds of the song, make fade ins, fade outs, and create your ringtone before you click the buy button. When you plug in your phone, you can sync them over. Steve is going to demo the process now.



Steve’s assigning Aretha’s Respect to his wife’s contact, previewing the selected section before confirming the purchase. As a reminder, you can already make your own (unonfficial) ringtones for free with tools, and upload them to your iPhone with programs like iFuntastic (Mac) and iBrickr (Windows).



TODAY, they will replace the entire lineup, from the Shuffle to the big boy iPod.

New shuffles: $79, 1GB, color refresh, and a RED (for Africa) iPod. Not much change here.



Now, the iPod Nano. People have said they want to watch video on the iPod Nano, and they want to watch it on a bigger display. Customers also want Cover Flow, games, more storage, and a full metal design. Pretty much most of the features in the iPhone.











When you’re browsing the main menu (which only takes up the left half of the screen), the right hand side displays a sample of whatever section you’re browsing. Music shows random album art, video shows a snip from the video, and photos show a photo.

Movies similar. Drill down into the videos menu, and bring up the videos like the Video iPod does. Steve shows off a clip from the Daily Show with John Hodgman and his net neutrality bit when he says he’s a PC.



iPod Nano Battery life: 24 hours of audio playback, 5 hours of video playback.

Storage & Price: Two versions, 4GB and 8GB. 4GB will only come in Silver and be priced at $149, and 8GB will come in all colors at $199. They’ve shipped Nanos already, and will be in stores by this weekend. It will work with the iPod + Nike kit, so good news runners.



Now, the iPod. They haven’t called it anything but “the iPod”, but Steve says it’s time to give it a name. The name? iPod Classic. Complete with a new “full metal” design and even thinner than the last model.

The storage will start at 80GB, and will be thinner than the old 30GB version (5th Gen). There will also be a thicker one at 160GB, but thinner than its predecessor (the old 80GB). So, 80GB and 160GB models. 40,000 songs in your pocket.

The 80GB model has 25 hours music, 5 hours video. The 160GB has 40 hours music, 7 hours video.

Price: 80GB for $249, 160GB for $349. Ships today, with the new enhanced UI (Same as the Nanos).

All the iPods are available today.

The iPod Touch is 8mm thin, and has just about the same size screen as the iPhone. “We think it’s one of the seven wonders of the world.” It has multi-touch, Calendar, Contacts, Clock, Calculator, Settings, and a bunch of icons they didn’t show yet. Stay tuned.

“We’re not done yet.” Moving on to the iPhone. When they released the iPhone, they said the iPod on it was the best iPod ever. They’re moving that interface to an iPod, and calling it the iPod Touch (same as the rumor said). Yes, touchscreen iPod is here.

The iPod looks exactly like it does on the iPhone. Cover Flow, big album art, and flick flick flicking to get around. There’s Video as well, same as on the iPhone (demo video: Weeds), displayed on the 3.5-inch screen. Photo library’s there as well (someone else’s family, naturally), complete with pinch and swipe and all the iPhone junk.









It’s confirmed: The back of the iPod Touch has a black bit on the top right in order for the Wi-Fi antenna to connect out. “Others have done this before and failed.”

Steve says you’re fine connecting to your Wi-Fi at home, but when you’re on other Wi-Fi networks in the outdoors, a webpage will pop up asking you to enter your information. This prohibits normal devices from accessing the net, but the iPod Touch has Safari, so you can log in just fine.

YouTube: Also included. Watch YouTube videos over Wi-Fi to your iPod Touch. Same as on the iPhone.

The iPod Touch also has slide to unlock, and when you open it up, it has the home screen, which is similar to the iPhone.

Storage: 8GB and 16GB, $299 and $399. Ships in a few weeks (this month).

iPod Touch battery life: 22 hours music, 5 hours video.







OH SNAP







iTunes mobile coming to iPhone as well, and Apple will be partnering with Starbucks somehow...

Starbucks integration: When you get near a Starbucks location, you’ll get a Starbucks icon in iTunes Store. You can buy songs that are playing over the Starbucks music selection, and you can even look at the last 10 songs that’s been played and buy the songs there.





HUGE iPhone price drop!

$399 for the 8GB model, 4GB has been discontinued!

[The Milk Man 09]

Like Serren I am also looking forward to seeing what is coming, my ipod has been through a lot and I need a new one because now it is nothing more than a hard drive and I would like a functional one again.

[Epyon MX]

Jeez! That's thin!

[Wondermonkey]

Keep refreshing!

[KEEZY]

iPod explosion!

[Crippler]

LOL. iPhone is now $399! Take that with no lube suckers who waited in line.

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by Crippler

LOL. iPhone is now $399! Take that with no lube suckers who waited in line.

Easy there tiger, Apple has a LOOOOONNNNG history of giving refunds when they drop prices close to the launch.

$399 iPhones!

Awesome-O!

[Crippler]

The iPod Touch is hot. But, it doesn't have enough storage. Way to drop that ball. If it came with at least 30GB, I would have traded in my Zune for that and my 360 for a PS3.

[Wondermonkey]

Originally Posted by Crippler

The iPod Touch is hot. But, it doesn't have enough storage. Way to drop that ball. If it came with at least 30GB, I would have traded in my Zune for that and my 360 for a PS3.

What 360?

[Crippler]

Originally Posted by Wondermonkey

What 360?

Exactly. MS