New iPods, iTunes and Jobs...Thin Is In

Steve Jobs unveiled "the thinnest nano we've ever made" while looking as thin as he's ever been. The Apple Chairman (shall we call him the Core?) recently battled pancreatic cancer and was rumored to have died recently.

Borrowing a line from Mark Twain, Jobs appeared on stage in San Francisco today with a message screen behind him reading "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

Jobs may be alive but Wall Street threw some dirt on Apple's stock price - down $6.13, or 3.9 percent, to $151.79 in afternoon trading.

The announcements (which many Internet sites correctly predicted):

• Two new nanos - longer, sleeker, thinner than previous models with a bigger screen and almost oval-shaped. Like the iPhone and iPod Touch these come with an accelerometer allowing for portrait or landscape viewing with a twist of the wrist. An 8GB model (which holds approximately 2,000 songs) will retail for $149 and a 16GB (approximately 4,000 songs) will be priced at $199.
  


• Three new models of the iPod Touch which is much like an iPhone except that it doesn't make calls. An 8GB version of the new model will sell for $229; a 16GB Touch will be $299 and a 32GB model will be $399. Interesting to note that the biggest capacity a current iPhone has is 16GB.


• A new version of iTunes. Lucky number 8 can be downloaded now with a new look and a new feature or two. The most notable being a Musical Genius. No, they didn't squueze Stevie Wonder or David Byrne in there. Play a song, click the Genius button, and iTunes creates a playlist of other songs from your library that sound similar. In a classic upsell move the Genius also suggests similar songs you can download from iTunes. HD videos can now be had for $2.99. Those can be viewed on iPods and also streamed to TV sets. Apple also buried the hatchet with NBC so its network shows can be downloaded.
  


• More new iPhone software and it better be good. It's no secret that I am not nearly in love with my 3G as I was with my 1st gen iPhone. Slow, buggy, too many resets. An update to the new iPhone software is coming within a few days that supposedly fixes dropped calls, long sync times and other glitches. It's free to iPhone and Touch owners who currently are using version 2.o.

Bottom line from today's announcements...thin is in. Just look at Jobs.