Steve Jobs was on hand to announce the latest products from Apple today along with Phil Schiller and Jeff Robbin. Here is a recap of today’s event:
- First, a quick iPhone update: 30 million have now been sold. A lot of its success is attributed to the App Store which now features 75,000 applications and has recorded 1.8 billion downloads.
- The next version of the iPhone OS, iPhone 3.1, is now ready and will be available for download today. It will come with a new Genius for apps which works like the music Genius. Some 30,000 ringtones (from four record labels) are now available for US$1.29 each as well for the iPhone.
- iTunes is now the largest music retailer in the world, it has topped 8.5 billion song downloads. Credit cards are now tied to over 100 million accounts.
- The latest version, iTunes 9, is now available (and coming soon as an upgrade) with a number of new features:
- Genius Mixes will automatically play similar songs from your library.
- Improved synchronization capabilities with more options
- Home Sharing that will let you copy songs, movies, etc. between up to 5 computers
- An improved layout with a new menu system across the top for simpler navigation
- Drag-and-drop support, iPhone application management within iTunes, and more
- iTunes LP: Albums will be available with bonus material such as lyrics, videos, other material created by the artists themselves, and more
- Bonus content will also be available for movies (like DVD extras)
- And now on to the iPod lineup which has a 73.8 percent market share. Over 220 million sold now with the iPod touch being the fastest growing model with over 20 million sold.
- Schiller pointed out that the iPod touch is a great gaming machine. Games are on average cheaper than they are for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP and there are a lot more of them (Over 21,000 compared to 3,680 for the DS and just over 600 for the PSP).
- A number of new games were previewed. Among these were Assassin’s Creed 2, Nova (a first person shooter) and Madden NFL 2010.
- The 8GB iPod touch will now sell for US$199 (CA$219) and 32GB model for US$299 (CA$329). A new 64GB model will sell for US$399 (CA$429). The latter two models will also benefit from faster performance and the ability to run OpenGL ES 2.0 like the iPhone 3GS.
- The iPod classic will continue to sell for US$249 (CA$279) but will now come with a 160GB hard drive.
- The iPod shuffle will now come in black, silver, pink, green and blue. 2GB model will sell for US$59 (CA$69) and 4GB for US$79 (CA$89). A 4GB polished stainless steel will also be available in Apple Stores for US$99 (CA$109).
- The iPod nano gains a camera, a larger 2.2-inch display, a speaker, a built-in FM tuner with Live Pause and iTunes Tagging, and Genius Mixes. There are plenty of colours to choose from: red, pink, orange, silver, black, purple, blue, green, yellow, and orange.