For anyone who’s followed the rumors and speculation leading up to today’s announcement, there really wasn’t anything all too surprising: the “classic” iPod got it’s usual size upgrade, the Nano gained some weight; and, as everyone expected, the new kid on the block is the Touch, an iPod-only iPhone. However, despite the fact that nothing Apple did today was all too stunning, Apple fans everywhere still went wild as usual.

Like most of these things, the keynote started off pretty tame and got more exciting as it went along – albeit only a little. Apple CEO Steve Jobs spent the first few minutes praising the success and popularity of the iTunes music store, and then got down to business.

Ringtones

The first announcement was met with quite some applause. Apple will now – finally – allow iPhone owners to customize their ringtones. Amusingly, the applause quickly died down when everyone realized how ludicrous Apple’s ringtone customization system really is. If you want to make your favorite tune into a ringtone, you’d better hope that it’s one of the 500,000 “participating songs,” because if it’s not, you’re simply out of luck. And if you manage to find a tune you like, you’ll have to pay another 99 cents on top of the song price to actually make it into a 30-second ringtone. So, do you still want that custom ringtone?

The New Shuffle…huh?

After a little more iPod praise, Steve was ready to “start out easy” with the new “refreshed” iPod Shuffle. It took me a while to figure out what was new with this model: Was it the design? No. Maybe the size? Nope, same old. Steve’s ego? Possibly. Oh wait, it’s the color!

All Apple did to the Shuffle was give it a new paint job. The player now comes in silver, blue, green, purple, and (Product) Red. It still only holds 240 songs (on 1GB), and it still costs $79.

The Overweight Nano

A little further up the price curve, you’ll find the new iPod Nano, which Apple’s site still describes as being sleek. Yeah right! If a video iPod ever mated with a first generation Nano, the resulting product would be short and disproportionately wide, and that’s exactly what this new Nano is. Fortunately, some of the better traits from each of its possible parents are also present, like a solid state drive, a stainless steel enclosure, and the ability to play vidoes, run basic games, and display images.

The screen is 2 inches wide, and sports 76,800 pixels – that’s 240 up, and 320 across. Apple claims that you’ll be able to get up to 24 hours of battery life out of the device if you’re listening to music, but only 5 hours if you do little else but watch videos. The new fatty Nano comes in two size: 4GB and 8GB. The 4GB weighs in at $149, while the 8GB model will go for about $199.

The “Classic”

After 5 similar keynotes, this iPod needs little introduction. It’s so iconic that Steve thought it would be appropriate to name it the iPod Classic. Unlike the fatty Nano, the 6th generation “Classic” actually lost a little bit of weight, making it even thinner. Don’t let its slim appearance fool you, however, it packs a whopping 160GB of storage – if you’re willing to pay for it, that is. If you’re keeping track, that means that you’ll now be able to squeeze an astounding 40,000 tunes in your pocket, as opposed to the first iPod, which only held a 1,000 songs.

The Classic also sports a new interface, designed to incorporate CoverFlow. You’ll also be able to browse your songs on one side of the screen, while viewing the cover art for each perspective album on the other half. Well, so much for the elegance of the interface…

Much like the new fatty Nano, the Classic will also be housed in “an anodized aluminum and polished stainless steel enclosure” – no word yet on how this new combo stands up to scratches. The Classic comes in two sizes as well: 80GB, worth 20,000 songs; and 160GB, which is good for 40,000.

All of this sounds really great, until, or course, you find the Buy page and see the price. Apple wants $249 for the 80GB and $349 for the 160GB.

iPod Touch

Oh, and one more thing: remember that iPhone that never really took off and that everyone wanted as an iPod-only device? Well, lo and behold, it’s here, and it’s called the iPod Touch. The Touch is slightly smaller in size than the iPhone, but besides that, it looks pretty much exactly like it.

Not only does it look too much like the iPhone, it does almost the exact same thing, except for make calls, obviously. The Touch uses the same interface (that was not invented by Apple) to navigate through menus, photos, videos, and music. The cheap version even comes in the same disappointing storage capacity: 8GB.

The unit features a 3.5” inch display, that makes it ideal for viewing photos, watching movies, and not to mention, surfing the Internet. To make Internet access as easy as possible, Apple cleverly included a 802.11b/g Wi-Fi antenna into the unit. The touch also has an accelerometer and light sensor just like its cousin, so that it can determine its orientation and environment to properly adjust the display for the optimum viewing experience. According to Apple, the battery should be good for anywhere between 5 and 22 hours, depending on how many videos and songs you put it through.

The Touch only comes in one color, but at least you can choose which of the two meager storage options you’d like: either 8GB or 16GB. The 8GB goes for $299 and the 16GB goes for $399.

iPhone Price Drop

Steve concluded the keynote by saying that Apple will be discontinuing the 4GB iPhone, and lowering the price of the 8GB model from $599 down to $399. Interestingly, according to Engagdet.com, this annoucement elicited the greatest applause from the audience, suggesting that this was the only real piece of news that really took everyone by surprise.

Watch the Keynote

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