Apple launches new iPods and iTunes 7

Just in case you missed it last night, here's a roundup of the new Apple announcements. We watched the almighty Steve give his presentation via live satellite link in London, which was quite neat - even if people clapping his announcements was slightly surreal.

iPods

Steve introduced new iPods across the range. The new iPod video comes in 30GB and 80GB sizes. The screen is brighter, battery life is longer and the price is lower - £189 ($249) for the 30GB and £259 ($349) for the 80GB.

The Nano has had a substantial update, and is basically now a really thin iPod Mini. The Nano comes in a variety of aluminium anodised colours and has 2GB (silver), 4GB (blue, green, pink) and 8GB (black) capacities.

Both iPods get software updates to allow for 'gapless' playback between songs (preserving those track-to-track mixes on albums).

The Shuffle gets a massive revamp, being cut down in size, a new casing in aluminium and a clip on the back to attach it to clothing. Jobs said that Shuffle users liked the fact it was 'wearable', and that was the premise they had started with for this iteration.

iTunes

The ubiquitous Apple MP3 software has been updated to version 7, and brings with it some decent updates. A new Cover Flow mode allows you to browse your albums by cover art, which looks awesome. Talking of which, if you have music that you haven't got art for, iTunes will add covers on if the album is available on iTunes - regardless of the dubious source you got it from originally.

iTunes also adds movie downloads - if you're a US resident. Films from Disney studios including Miramax, Touchstone, Pixar and Disney are available for either $9.99, $12.99 or $14.99 for new releases. Movies - and all video content, in fact - now comes in a higher resolution of 640x480, rather than 320x240 as it has been previously. To account for the larger download sizes, version 7 also adds a download manager within the player itself.

If you're in the UK, you're still out of luck - no movies and still no TV, but with a promise that we might see videos early next year.

iTV

Apple also pre-announced a new product due to launch next year, and internally called iTV. It's a streaming media adaptor that will connect to a TV and allow you to stream music, video and photos from iTunes straight to your TV. It will cost $299 and have digital and analogue outputs, as well as ethernet and wireless connectivity. Jobs called it the final piece in Apple's digital media strategy.

Amazingly, he revealed that 75% of all cars sold in 2007 will have an iPod connectivity option. How's that for ubiquity?

What do you make of the new iTunes and iPods? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.