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I spent an hour or so tweeting about Apple's "It's only rock and roll " iPod event today. The event delivered on almost all counts. It even had a few surprises and, for some, a disappoinment or two. First of all, and perhaps most signifantly, Apple did a nice job of spreading out features among its new iPod lineup, which has been updated all around. There's a faster and lower cost iPod Touch (with no camera), an iPod Classic with more storage, the 5th generation iPod nano with a shooter for video but not stills (?), a new more memory-rich iPod Shuffle, a free update to iPhone OS 3.1, and a major overhaul of iTunes in version 9. Oh, by the way, while we didn't get the expected addition of The Beatles catalog to iTunes, which was remastered, Norah Jones did perform at the end of the event for attendees. All of this news (and more) was delivered through the steady hands of Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who made a triumphant return to public duty today. Jobs, who reiceved a liver transplant five months ago, quipped, "I'm vertical, I'm back at Apple and I'm loving every day of it," continuing “I’m very happy to be here, and thank you all." "I now have the liver of a mid-20s person who died in a car crash and was generous enough to donate their organs," Jobs added. "I wouldn’t be here without such generosity, so I hope all of us can be as generous and elect to be organ donors.” Below are some statstics Jobs and company set forth to help put today's annoucments in perspective. Taken indvidually and as whole they're pretty impressive, unheard of in the consumer electronics space. Apple today accounts for 73.8% over the MP3 player market. Runner up SanDisk with its Sansa line is at 7.2%, Microsoft's Zune 1.1% and all others combined hold 17.9% of the market. To date, Apple's sold over 30 million iPhones and 220 million iPods. Of those iPods, the iPod touch accounts for 20 million and the iPod nano 100 million units. iTunes is far and way the number one music retailar in the world with over 8.5 billion songs sold. iTunes has over 100 million accounts linked to credit cards. And, last but not least, the App Store now contains over 75,000 apps. iTunes 9 30K $1.29 ringtones now available from the four major record lables Improved syncing Home Sharing now lets you easily transfer songs, movies and TV shows to up to five computers in your home. Tunes LP - to deliver an immersive experience for select albums on the iTunes Store with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits and more. iTunes Extras - to provides a similar experience for movies on iTunes with features including documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews and interactive galleries. Genius Mixes - using the results of over 27 million music libraries with over 54 billion songs that have been submitted and analyzed by Genius. The new Genius Mixes feature is like having a “Genius” DJ that automatically generates up to 12 endless mixes of songs from your iTunes library that go great together. App Organization - you can now organize your iPhone apps right in iTunes on your computer and they will automatically appear on your iPhone with the same layout.A Redesigned iTunes Store Learn more about iTunes 9 here. iPod nanoThe fifth generation iPod nano is the first iPod to integrate a camera, mic and speaker. The camera is good for video but, it seems, not for still pictures. It is also the first iPod with a built-in FM radio, with live pause and iTunes Tagging, as well as a built-in pedometer. It sports a 2.2-inch color display, a polished aluminum and glass enclosure, and is available in 8GB for $149 and a 16GB for $179 editions in nine colors, including silver, black, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, (PRODUCT) RED and pink. Learn more about the new iPod nano here. iPod touchThe latest edition of the iPod touch promises to be faster and more powerful than past versions thanks to a processor upgrade, OpenGL support, and iPhone OS 3.1. Still no camera or mic for this iPod, though. Apple's lowered the price to $199 for the 8GB model, $299 for 32GB, and $399 at 54GB model. Existing iPod touch users can update to the latest iPhone OS 3.1 software for $4.95. iPod touch owners who already have the 3.0 software get the 3.1 software update for free, however. Learn more about the new iPod nano here. iPod ClassicThe storage capacity of the current iPod model closed to the original is now back up to 160GB from 120GB. Presumably, it users a single platter hard drive unlike the previous 160GB iPod Classic model, which used a less stable dual-platter solution. This iPod Classic 160GB goes for $249 and is available in silver and black. Whle the iPod Classic, to some surpise, survived Appple’s iPod overhaul, it didn't get any new features (e.g. a camera or mic) other than the bump up in storage. Learn more about the new iPod nano here. iPod ShuffleThe iPod shuffle is now available in five colors. iPod shuffle’s controls are located on the headphone cord, letting you navigatey music without even looking. With the press of a button, you can play, pause, adjust volume and switch playlists, plus the VoiceOver feature lets iPod shuffle speak song titles, artists and playlist names. A new 2GB model goes for $59 and a 4GB model for $79—and comes in silver, black, pink, blue and green. A special edition stainless steel version goes for $99. Learn more about the new iPod Shuffle here. iPhone OS 3.1iPhone OS 3.1 gives you Genius recommendations for apps you might like based on those you’ve already downloaded; lets you download ringtones wirelessly; allows you to use iTunes on your computer to drag apps onto a virtual Home screens, then sync them to your iPhone; have iTunes create up to 12 playlists based on what’s already in your library; and more:
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