3 Days to Go

Three days out from the now announced Apple iPod Event the rumors are starting to become settled and more concrete. Here is a round up of the new products you can expect from Apple on September 9th (if the rumors turn out the be true, which they will):

New iPod Touches and Nanos (New iPod Classic?):

This rumors is a given considering the FCC released their dimensions earlier this week.

The iPod Touchshould be getting a face lift to be more in line with the new iPhone 3g and the iPod Nano will receive the curved treatment (luckily the screen won’t be curved judging from the images.) Details here and here.

iTunes 8:

Being a completely new update there are going to be quite a few new features. Here is a list from Kevin Rose’s blog post:

iTunes 8 includes Genius, which makes playlists from songs in your library that go great together. Genius also includes Genius sidebar, which recommends music from the iTunes Store that you don’t already have.

With iTunes 8, browse your artists and albums visually with the new Grid view; download your favorite TV shows in HD quality from the iTunes Store; sync your media with iPod nano (4th generation), iPod classic (2nd generation), and iPod touch (2nd generation); and enjoy a stunning new music visualizer.

There is the mention of the 2^nd generation iPod Classic! But it’s probably just a face lift.

What isn’t mentioned in Kevin Rose’s post is the rumored inclusion of a new visualizer from Robert Hodgin. The visualizer is called Magnetosphere and looks awesome! This rumor came up after Hodgin removed the free download from his website saying that he had sold the rights to Magnetosphere to a 3rd party. Later on, Kevin Rose confirmed that Magnetosphere was the visualizer he saw in a build of iTunes 8. More info here.

It all seems to be coming together in the land of Apple. Watch out for all this stuff on September 9th!

Introducing the iPod Ugly

 

Today Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) posted on his blog rumors of new product refreshes from Apple to be released in the next few weeks. Theyr’e bound to be true, I mean he’s Kevin Rose, what sources doesn’t he have? I’m sure most of these will be confirmed if we just wait.

Latest rumors:

-Revamp of entire iPod line.
-Small cosmetic changes to Touch, Nano to see significant redesign (see pic below).
-iPods to see fairly large price drops to distance itself from the $199 iPhone.
-iPod touch 2.1 software, iPhone to get update very soon after.
-iTunes 8.0 (“it’s a big update w/new features”).
-All of this coming in the next 2-3 weeks.

The biggest rumored change to the iPod line is a new Nano. It’s out with chunky-fat and in with tall and slim. The pictures I’ve seen of it look RELLLLYY ugly. It’s curved for some obscure reason. I can see Apple making the Nano taller but not rounded across the face.

The rumored price drop is one I am confident will happen. Apple has done it in the past and they will probably do it again. This is of course to stop the iPhone taking sales away from iPods.

Something Kevin briefly mentioned at the end of the video was Blue-Ray support in Mac OS 10.5.6. He said that in line with this, a Blue-Ray option would be included in the refreshed in the MacBook Pros. This isn’t something outrageous and was guaranteed to happen with time.

With all these rumors flying about it sound like an exciting few months at Apple. I will be watching with anticipation!