At a special event Wedndesday in San Francisco, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs and senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller unveiled updates for the iPod Touch, Classic, Nano and iPod Shuffle models.
For the iPod Touch and Classic, the update will include capacity upgrades and price drops. The hard drive based classic model will cost $329 and hold 160GB worth of media. The iPod Touch will feature a maximum capacity of 64GB, while the low-end 8GB model has been dropped to a price of $268.
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| The iPod Nano family: new Nano 8GB ($199), 16GB Nano ($249). Also in the Apple iPod range: iPod Shuffle 2GB ($79), 4GB ($109), iPod Classic 160GB (now $329), iPod Touch 8GB (now $268) |
Schiller said that the price cut reflects a lesson Apple learned several years ago when sales of the iPod Mini soared upon the introduction of a US$199 model.
"We learned something that day, US$199 is a magic price point in the iPod market," said Schiller.
"With that price point we can reach more customers, so that is just what we're going to do with the iPod Touch."
Additionally, the iPod Touch will receive a software update. Both the Touch and the iPhone will receive the new 3.1 software as a free update from Apple. The new firmware will fix a number of bugs as well as new Genius and Ring Tone features for the App Store service.
Not to be outdone was the iPod Nano, which received a significant hardware update in the addition of a built-in video camera as well as an FM tuner and new voice features. The new Nano will be offered in a $199 8GB model and a $249 16GB model.
For the iPod Shuffle, the update will include support for third party handsets along with new colour options, starting at $79 for the 2GB model, $109 for the 4GB model in silver, black, pink, blue and green, and the addition of a special 4GB $139 model which features a stainless steel casing.