Steve Jobs Unveils New ITunes, iPod Nano, iPod Touch (AAPL)

As expected, Apple boss Steve Jobs announced new iPods today, as well as a new version of Apple's iTunes software.

The iPod nano is once again tall and skinny -- and even more colorful. A built-in motion sensor will tell it when to display a vertical image and when to display a horizontal image. Bigger capacity, but same entry price: An 8-gig model will cost $149, while a 16-gig model will cost $199.
The iPod touch gets a new metal case, a built-in speaker, and built-in volume control. It'll also support Nike+iPod built-in. As expected, it's cheaper -- but still not as cheap as Apple's cheapest iPhone. An 8-gig iPod touch will cost $229 -- $70 less; a 16-gig touch will run $299, a $100 discount; and a 32-gig iPod touch will cost $399, also a $100 discount.
The iPod classic continues its road to retirement. Only one model -- 120 gigabytes -- remains.

Jobs also announced that Apple would release an update to the iPhone software -- version 2.1 -- on Friday, which should help with battery life, stability, and a few other quirks.

Live Coverage:

1 p.m.: Jobs on stage Steve Jobs: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.

1:02: iTunes -- 8.5 mn songs. 3,00 applications for iPhone and iPod Touch. 65M accounts. Enabled us to slowly become the number one music distributor in any format -- ahead of Walmart Best Buy Amazon and Target.

1:03: Adding HDTV shows today. Buy them for $2.99 -- $1 more than standard definition and you can watch them on your computer

1:0: NBC is coming back to iTunes. Office, Monk, Battlestar Galactica, 30 Rock, Heroes, etc. coming in HD and Standard Definition.

1:05: Introducing iTunes 8. The biggest new things are HD TV shows, accessibility, built in Voice Over and all othe accessibility features, browsing and Genius.

Browsing: Current browsing is not space efficient. Adding the ability to look by album cover, added a bar at the top and you can look at everything graphically by Album, Artist, Genre, Composer

Genius: Groups together like song. Make different playlists. How does it work. Added Genius algorithms to itunes store in the cloud. Genius is opt-in voluntary, and it sends info to iTunes, things like track names, play counts ratings playlists.

1:09: Demo of the new iTunes. Sort by album and open each album to see a song (playng Respect by Aretha Franklin). The sorting and browisng works the same for the movies and TV shows. Showing an episode of the Office in HD. The shows are pretty crystal clear even on the giant screen.

1:11: Going into music, playing Gravity by John Mayer. Push the Genius button, Genius has made a playlist. You can refresh or set the size of the playlist.

1:13: Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis brought up Roy Orbison's POh, Pretty Woman, and Wild Things, among others.

1:14: iTunes 8 available today at Apple.com

1:14: the iPod: NPD Data shows iPod with a 73.4% market share in the U.S. Number 2 is other, number 3 is SanDisk, number 4 is Microsoft. Over 5,000 accessories for iPod. Annonce products even before we want them to. 90% of cars in the US offer iPod integration.

1:16: Discontinuing the thick iPod. 120GB will be $249

1:16: Shipped the first Nano in 2005. Second generation vertical form factor and colors was really a beloved product. Third was the horizontal one. New iPod Nano with vertical form factor larger screen, black scroll wheel. Portrait aspect feature but same high res display. But it's the thinnest iPod they've ever made. Oval shape.

1:19: Accelerometer on the iPod Nano, create Genius playlists on Nano. Hi-res display turns horizontal like the iPhone when you move the phone. Full size album art. Video is fantastic. If yu push and hold down the center button you get a pop up menu. you can start a genius playlist, add songs to existing playlists, etc. Calendar, stop watch, record voice when it detects a microphone

1:20: Demo of the Nano: Playing a Beck song -- Guess I'm Doing Fine. While the music is playing, you can rotate the nano sideways and scroll through Cover Flow. Scrolled through and picked Bob Dylan, Don't Think Twice, It's All Right. Push the center button and start a genius playlist based on the two songs. (America by Simon and Garfunkel). Not connected to iTunes or anything esle right now. New feature: Shake to shuffle -- Shake the Nano and it shuffles (Dean Martin -- Ain't That a Kick In the Head, John Mayer -- Split Screen Sadness).

1:23: thumbing through photos of Zacak Lake, CA. Turn the Nano for landscape photos.

1:24: 24 hours of batterr life for Music and 4 hrs for Video.

1:24: We want to be environmentally conscious with making these. The Nano has Arsenic free glass, BFR Free, Mercury Free, PVC Free, Highly Recyclable

1:27: 8GB and 16GB ($199). From new headphones you can control volume and play/pause ($29). New in-ear earphones, woofer and Tweeter on each side ($79).

1:28: Nano comes in 8 colors.

1:28: New Nano ad showcasing all 8 colors. Both models shipping this week.

1:29: iPod Touch: Incredible product, unlike anything in the marketplace. For this holiday season, we're making it better. New iPod Touch has same 3.5 inch display, but it's even thinner, with the stainless steel design. What's different? Integrated volume controls into the side. Accelerometer still there. New Built-in a speaker. Really hard with something this thin -- for casual listening not for Audiophiles. Genius playlist creation and the app store built in.

1:31: Built in Nike +iPod. Receiver is built in to the touch, so all you need is the transmitter for your shoe.

1:33: Users have downloaded over 100,000,000 apps from the app store. Today is the 60th day the app store has been open.

1:34: About 700 games on the app store, and a lot of them are free. Definitely somehting here for everbody. App store is available in 62 countries.

1:34: Demo of new iPod Touch -- playing Green Day American Idiot . And Genius playlist brought up Purple Haze (Jimi Hendrix), Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2). Refreshing the playlist brings another list of 25 songs.

1:36: Has the recent Iron Man movie on his iPod Touch (the DVD comes out on Sept. 30).

1:37: Phil Shiller Demo of some games that are not on the market yet (or just recently on the iPod Touch). Spore Origins -- the beginning of the Spore game -- in the primordial ooze phase. Creature creator, you can pinch and zoom and change th character just like in the PC version of the game.

1:39: goal of the game is eat or be eaten. Jumping into level 15, and he's controlling the character using the accelerometer. Looking for things smaller than him that he can eat. Goal is to protect your character and eat and get stronger. Already in App store.

1:40: Real Soccer 2009 shipping today (from GameLoft). Picking the U.S., playing Italy. Stadium rendered in 3D. Using actual team data for the correct rosters. Game is originally designed for D-pad controls. But the D-Pad is on the touch screen. Came out today.

1:42: Need For Speed Undercover coming out on all platforms at the same time (EA Racing game). Coming out November. Control the car with the accelerometer, graphics are pretty clear.

1:45: Jobs back -- Battery life -- 36 hrs for music, 6 hrs for video. Environmental checklist looks like Nano.

1:45: New iPod touch -- the funnest iPod ever. We think people are going to really love it. Three models, 8GB model for $229, $16 GB model for $299, 32 GB for $399. All three models are available today.

1:48: new iPod Touch has the software version 2.1. If you have the old iPod Touch and you upgraded to 2.0, it's a free upgrade to 2.1. If not -- $9.99.

1:49: 2.1 software update: backing up to iTunes is dramatically faster for iPhone. That update is available Friday.

1:49: We think we've got the best lineup we've ever had for this holiday season. At the end of June we had sold more than 160M iPods.

1:50: Whenever we have a music event we think it's important to remind ourselves and our customers why we do this in the first place. The reason is like you we love music: Today got a real special guest who's agreed to come and perform. Sold over 16 million albums, tour is one of the hottest tickets this summer. #1 selling Male artist in ipod history -- Jack Johnson.

1:51: Singing songs from album "Sleep Through The Static."

1:58: Jack Johnson done: Seems kinda weird that I'd be the number one over U2. Maybe they don't count because they're a band. I'm used to 20-something girls right here (pointing to front row). I really want to thank iTunes, my music thing came along right as that started. They've always been really supportive.

2:00: Wait -- another Jack Johnson song.

2:03: Jack Johnson off, Steve Jobs back on.

2:04: Thank You all for coming this morning and go get your hands on some of these new products. Thank You.

2:04: Keynote over.

Steve Jobs Unveils New iTunes, iPod Nano, iPod Touch (AAPL)