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A Byte of Apple : New iPods, iTunes 10 and Apple TV announced and dissected!

2010-09-02 01:33
Throwing open its typically-closed-doors to a live web audience, albeit only for those on the Mac OS or iOS platform, Apple unveiled a slew of new products and services to a capacity crowd at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. There were upgrades detailed for the iOS platform, including the iPad, a whole new line-up of iPods, a brand new arisen-from-the-ashes Apple TV and iTunes 10 going all social! In case you missed it, hereв s all the news you can use, list style for easy consumption, including some nuggets that the casual observer may have missed in the din of last nightв s news. New iPod Touch: The iPhone4 without the phone As we estimated, the new iPod Touch got all the hardware upgrades from the iPhone 4, including a high resolution Retina Display, the potent A4 chip and the 3-axis gyroscope for gaming. And finally, the iPod Touch gets some camera love, with a front facing camera for FaceTime sessions with other iPods/iPhones and a rear camera for casual photography. All this, while managing to lose some serious weight - the new iPod Touch is all of 7.2 mm thick (or thin) - thatв s significantly thinner than the impossibly thin previous gen. It makes the iPhone 4 look fat. Enough said. The iPod Touch also adds in 720p HD video recording, but according to the tech specs, the new iPod Touch 8217;s rear camera takes photos at a disappointingly low 960Ч720 resolution. On sale next week in the US, expect an early October availability in India - in time for Diwali, maybe Pricing is at $229, $299 and $399 for the 8, 32 and 64 GB models. Significantly, even the entry-level iPod Touch gets all the fancy hardware upgrades, which makes a strong case for a no-contract-riddled device that has almost all of the stuff we love about the iPhone 4 at a seriously tempting price point. New iPod nano: Hip to be Square Gone is the click-wheel of the hugely popular iPod nano, replaced by a square touch screen, almost like a miniature iOS device. The size reductions are so drastic that like the newly announced iPod shuffle, it has a clip that allows it to be worn. It also figures a 24-hour battery life, and a screen that can be rotated with a pinch-and-twist action. Color options are the same as the shuffle, plus a granite and red version. Availability is the same as the Touch, and it retails at $149 for 8GB, and $179 for 16GB. Appleв s added in watch-face time display, so a watch strap accessory is only a matter of time! While VoiceOver, FM and Nike+ were retained, the size reduction didnв t come without its share of exclusions - not only is the rear camera (and video recording) gone, so is video playback. Also, while the UI looks like the nanoв s running iOS, with several features looking like exact duplicates from the iOS devices, the iPod Nano is running its own custom operating system, with an iOS-like skin slapped on top. New iPod Shuffle: V2 + V3 In an admission to failings of the last shuffle specifically in terms of the missing butt...
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