Apple adds video to one iPod, reduces price of others

Jake Widman
Thursday, 10 September 2009 00:27

Your IT - Mobility

At its widely anticipated "It’s only rock and roll, but we like it" event in San Francisco today, Apple disappointed those who were hoping for news of a tablet Mac or supersized iPod Touch. But the company did add a video camera to one iPod line, as rumored, cut the price and increased the capacity of another, and introduced a new version of iTunes.

The event started with an appearance by Steve Jobs, who said "I'm back at Apple and loving every day of it." He also thanked the organ donor from whom he was able to receive a new liver.

After the usual rundown of iTunes sales stats, he went on to introduce iPhone OS 3.1, available today as a free download. New features include ringtones available from the App Store at US$1.29 each.

Jobs then went on to introduce iTunes 9 and a resigned iTunes Store. The new Store features a cleaner interface, with fewer boxes and a navigation bar across the top rather than on the left.

The iTunes store has been redesigned; click for larger version. (Image courtesy Apple.)

It also enables customers to set up wishlists that they can share via Facebook and Twitter.

As for iTunes itself, it now supports syncing music by artist or genre, as well as syncing photos by event or person.

It also supports "home sharing," which enables users to copy content over a network to up to five computers. And the Genius Playlist feature has been extended to Genius Mixes, which will play songs that go together indefinitely.

And iTunes 9, as reported earlier, introduces Cocktail, a digital album format. Cocktail packages songs with liner notes, videos, and lyrics.

For the iPod news, see Page 2.