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True to expectation, this afternoon’s Apple announcement has brought major revamps to the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch lines. What’s new?
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At just $50, the new iPod Shuffle still manages 15 hours of battery life; the 2GB phone comes in black, blue, green, pink, and yellow. The biggest fourth-generation change versus the third generation of Shuffle is that Apple is bringing back the buttons: Apple says that people missed them, so they’re bringing them back.
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Next up, the new iPod Nano, in which the changes are even more apparent. 24 hours of battery life despite its far tinier size, and a multitouch screen to displace the clickwheel. (We have to ask: Is this screen too small for comfortable all-touch handling?) “46 percent smaller and 42 percent lighter” than the fourth-gen, the fifth-generation Nano will cost $149 for an 8 GB model and $179 for a 16 GB. You can read all the stuff above, but: There’s a clip, there are volume buttons, there’s VoiceOver, and there’s FM radio compatability (hopefully not a nefarious RIAA plot), Nike+, and a pedometer.
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Lastly, the iPod Touch 4G is upon us. At the risk of displanting reporterly objectivity: Wow. It’s thinner than the already-thin third generation, has the iPhone 4’s “retina display” which may-be-a-big-exaggeration but is still quite high-res, an increasingly Apple-standard A4 chip, a 3-axis gyro for moar gaming, iOS 4.1, and a front camera with FaceTime and a rear camera with HD video recording, all with 40 hours battery life. (For music playing, at least.) Previously, only the iPhone 4 had FaceTime, which only works on Wi-Fi currently anyway; the new iPod Touch could finally allow people to FaceTime without being locked into a monthly fee, although Jobs wasn’t clear on whether the Touch had a microphone, without which the video chat service would be significantly less useful. The iPod Touch 4G costs $229 for the 8GB model, $299 for the 32GB, and $399 for the 64 GB.
All of the new models will be available for preorder today (though the online Apple Store (http://store.apple.com/us)) and will reach consumers starting next week.