Apple Release New iPods, and We Swoon (Again)

By Louis in News on Sep 5, 2007 5:55PM

Why is it that we don't get butterflies in our stomach and run up to the nearest computer store to check out the newest Dell products or when a new Motorola phone is announced we don't hop over to a cell store? Well, they aren't Apple.

So what did our loyal leader, Steve Jobs, have to show us today? Ringtones, the iPod Classic, the iPod Touch, and the iPod nano. We wish we could go to these press conference but Chicagoist won't foot the bill to fly us out to the west coast. Instead we just wear jeans and a black mock turtle neck, stand on our couch, and give a miniature press conference to stuffed animals, repeating verbatim what Steve said.

What was introduced after the jump.

After a brief recap of how awesome Apple is in the music industry (third largest retailer), Steve announced a ringtone maker built right into iTunes, allowing you to pick the segment of a song you want and to add to your iPhone. Now we can compete with the people who have those fancy ringtones. This will be available next week.

Then the iPod shuffle got a small refresh with some new colors for the holiday season, including a Product (RED) version. The iPod nano got an overhaul with a new, previously reported, squatty design, a fresh interface, videos, games, and that nifty CoverFlow program that allows you to browse album covers. Priced at $149 and $199 for 4 and 8gb, available this weekend in an array of pastels.

The standard iPod got a new pair of pants too, but to be Apple terminology correct, it is now called the iPod Classic. Full metal skin, new interface, and an astounding 160gb hard drive on the larger model. That comes to around 40,000 songs...in your pocket. Prices are $250 and $350 for the 80gb and 160gb, also in stores this weekend.

But if you really want to be cooler than everyone you know, you will be picking up an iPod Touch. At 8mm thick and looking almost exactly like the iPhone, you have the iPod Touch. With everything but a cell phone, it is the iPhone that isn't an iPhone. Priced at $299 and $399 for 8gb and 16gb, it will be available next month.

Also, in what is our favorite annoucement, the iPod Touch will be able to connect to and purchase songs via a wireless connection from the iTunes Music Store. Luckily for those in the Chicagoist offices who are sporting spiffy new iPhones, the wireless iTunes Music store will be available soon for us too. Unfortunately for us, the iPhones we paid $599 for are now only $399.

Finally, Apple also announced a deal with Starbucks that will allow users of the iPhone or iPod Touch to open up the wireless music store and a fifth button will appear allowing you to see what the Starbucks is playing at that moment, and, of course, buy it from the iTunes Music Store. The west coast gets it first, but this feature won't arrive in Chicago Starbucks until sometime in 2008.

So we don't want to sound like salesmen for Apple, but we can't help ourselves. Now we will go stare in disgust at our out of date iPod Video.