iFunia News Blog

From time to time, Apple’s special events hosted by Steve Jobs have been less than thrilling. As expected, Apple refreshed its iPod lineup Wednesday, unveiling redesigned versions of its iPod touch, iPod nano, and iPod shuffle music players. But the company didn’t stop there, using its annual fall music event to also announce an update to its iTunes software and an overhaul of its Apple TV set-top box.

New iPods
After rolling out multitasking and printing features for the iPad and a new video game service for all iOS devices, Apple CEO Steve Jobs dived into the company’s new lineup. First up was a refreshed iPod Shuffle. The iPod shuffle is both regressing and progressing as Apple is bringing back the click-wheel from the second generation shuffle, but keeping the VoiceOver playlists that everyone loved about the third generation shuffle. It’s teeny, holds 15 hours of battery and it comes in five colors. Available next week, it’s got 2GB of storage and it costs $49.

The iPod nano also got a major redesign. Apple ditched the video camera that they added just recently, completely took away the scrollwheel, made the screen smaller and added multitouch. This has 24 hours of battery and comes in seven different colors. It sells for $149 for the 8GB version, $179 for the 16GB. Again, it’ll be available from next week.

Last in the line of iPods is the iPod touch. This generation comes with the iPhone’s Retina display, offering 4X the number of pixels, the Apple A4 chip, 3-axis Gyro, iOS 4.1 and two cameras. The front-facing camera is for FaceTime, which allows users to video call with other iPhone and iPod touch owners. The back camera is capable of shooting HD video. Again, just like with the iPhone, you can edit and upload these videos directly from the iPod. It’s got a 40 hour battery life and it’s retailing for $229, $299, and $399 for the 8GB, 32GB and 64GB, respectively. Like the other two, it’s also available next week.

iTunes 10
Steve Jobs also revealed some details about iTunes 10, which is available for download starting today. The biggest change in iTunes 10 is Ping, a new social networking service that allows you to follow updates from friends and favorite musicians. Also added in to iTunes 10 is a space-saver that makes list-view look a little more colorful. If you have more than five songs from the same album, Apple will take the space from the repeated album name listing and use it to display that albums art work instead. For songs where you don’t have the complete album, iTunes will still display the name of the album where it always has.

Apple TV
This is the one a lot of people have been waiting for: A streaming TV service from Apple. Rumored to be called iTV, Apple has instead kept the Apple TV moniker and reinvented the old version. The company reduced the size of the device, so it’s now 75 percent smaller, and a cool graphite color instead of the old brushed silver.