A Closer Look at the New iPods

Today at Apple’s “It’s only Rock and Roll” event the company announced several changes to the popular iPod line of mp3 players. While the event didn’t lead to a camera for the iPod Touch, like many had suspected, the upgrades and price cuts keep Apple competitive with the forthcoming Zune HD.

Keep reading to find out more about the iPod Nano 5G, iPod Touch 3G and updates to the iPod Classic and iPod shuffle lines.

iPod Nano:

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It makes sense to start out with a closer look at the iPod Nano since it certainly has one of the most fundamental changes to the new iPods announced today. That change is the addition of a video camera which shoots in 640×480 at up to 30 frames per second and offers 15 different real-time special effects. Your movies will come complete with AAC audio which is captured by the microphone that has also been added to the Nano 5g.

Here’s a hands on video with the iPod Nano 5G from SlashGear showing off the new camera and video features.

Apple’s introduction of the Nano at today’s event pitted it against the Flip camcorder but given the limited resolution even a good performance will likely leave the Nano as handy camera for capturing on the go movies an impromptu scenes rather than a true camcorder replacement. Nano users will be able to view their movies the 5G Nano’s larger 2.2” screen and listen in on the newly included speaker or move them to a computer for easy uploading to YouTube.

Other notable additions to the iPod Nano include an FM Tuner which comes complete with iTunes tagging and the ability to pause a radio program and a pedometer with Nike support to track your steps and calories burned.

Price:  8GB – $149 and 16GB – $179

iPod Classic:

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The iPod classic retains its classic status, garnering a size bump and nothing else at today’s event but for an iPod that some were predicting to be put out to pasture an increase to 160 GBs and no price jump makes for a decent update.

iPod Shuffle:

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The shuffle also saw a price cut today and got new colors and a special stainless steel edition. During the event Apple announced that new headphones would be available which could control the tiny player from manufacturers such as Sony, V-Moda and others. For more info on the iPod Shuffle special edition be sure to check out SlashGear’s hands on.

Prices:

  • 2GB – $59
  • 4GB – $79
  • 4GB stainless steel case – $99

iPod Touch:

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While I was disappointed by the lack of a camera on the new iPod Touch, or iPod Touch 3g as some are calling the 3rd generation device all was not lost. Apple bumped up the capacity of the iPod Touch to a whopping 64 GB’s of flash memory!

The cost for a new iPod Touch has also been lowered to $199 in order to make it more accessible to consumers. According to an interview given to the San Francisco Chronicle this magical” price point was one of the major reasons why there is no camera in the new iPod Touch.

Costs are as follows:

  • 8 GB – $199
  • 32 GB – $299
  • 64GB – $399

Aside from Memory the new iPod Touch has some big improvements, noticeably that it’s faster. The new power is there to support the inclusion of Open GL which provides a better gaming platform pitting the device against the likes of the Sony PSP and the Nintendo DS when it comes to gaming. At the event several games were demo’d which showcased the new power including a FPS called Nova from Gameloft which Engadget called “Impressive” comparing it to Halo and noting a solid” frame rate in their liveblog of the event.

All of these new iPods are available right now from the Apple Store.

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