The iPod Classic may have seen a bump from 120GB to 160GB, but all those extra videos you can fit on the spare 40GB aren’t going to look as good, since Apple downgraded the resolution of the Classic’s screen. The last gen’s 2.5-inch screen had a pretty decent 480×320 screen, but the new one is only 320×240, the same resolution as the old-ass iPod Video 30GB.

The Touch, on the other hand, got a faster processor (likely the same as the iPhone 3GS’s) and a bump to 64GB of storage, Apple’s highest flash capacity ever. Probably that new processor accounts for the change, but the Touch’s battery life took a hit, down from 36/6 hours of audio/video to only 30/6 hours. No word yet on how that’ll affect more processor-intensive activities like internet browsing, but battery life overall is likely to be shorter.

Neither of these setbacks is a huge deal, although I’m a little puzzled by the Classic’s lesser screen. Regardless—is either of these spec decreases a dealbreaker for anybody? [DVICE]

Starting with the iPod Touch, the 8GB model will sell for $269, with the 32GB costing $399 and the 64GB set at $549.

The iPod Shuffle now starts at $79 for 2GB, or $109 for a 4GB model. It comes in the same five colours as the US.

The new Nano starts at $199 for 8GB or $249 for 16GB, and is available in silver, black, purple, blue, green, orange, yellow, (PRODUCT) RED and pink.

iTunes 9 and iPhone 3.1 updates are available now as well. iPod Touch owners with software older than 3.0 will have to spring $5.99 for the iPhone update though.

[iPod launch on Giz]

Apple’s iPod shuffle Now Starts at Just $59

World’s Smallest Music Player Now in Five Great Colors

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today announced that iPod shuffle®, the world’s smallest music player and the first music player to talk to you, is now available starting at just $59 in five great colors. iPod shuffle’s intuitive controls are conveniently located on the headphone cord, letting you navigate and enjoy music without even looking. With the press of a button, you can play, pause, adjust volume and switch playlists, plus the VoiceOver feature lets iPod shuffle speak song titles, artists and playlist names. The iPod shuffle is available worldwide today in a new 2GB model for just $59 and a 4GB model for $79, and both models come in silver, black, pink, blue and green.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090909/SF72800)

“iPod shuffle is the world’s smallest music player and now comes in five great colors starting at just $59,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “iPod shuffle is so small that you almost forget it’s there, yet remarkably, it holds up to 1,000 songs and talks to you.”

iPod shuffle is based on Apple’s incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from your music library. iPod shuffle features a sleek and ultra-wearable design with a built-in stainless steel clip. iPod shuffle users can easily clip it to almost anything and take it everywhere.

In addition to the Apple Earphones and Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote, third party manufacturers including Sony, V-MODA, Klipsch and Scosche are supporting built-in headphone controls and Belkin and Scosche offer built-in headphone adapters allowing users to enjoy iPod shuffle with their own headphones.

iPod® is the world’s most popular family of digital music players with over 220 million sold. Apple’s new holiday lineup includes iPod shuffle in five great colors starting at just $59; iPod classic® in a new 160GB model holding up to 40,000 songs for $249; the incredible new iPod nano® with a video camera available in nine brilliant polished aluminum colors starting at $149; and the revolutionary iPod touch® starting at the breakthrough price of just $199.

Pricing & Availability

The third generation iPod shuffle is available immediately for a suggested price of $59 (US) for the 2GB model and $79 (US) for the 4GB model in silver, black, pink, blue and green through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. A 4GB special edition polished stainless steel model is available in a 4GB model for $99 (US) through the Apple Store (www.apple.com) and Apple’s retail stores. iPod shuffle comes with the Apple Earphones with Remote and the iPod shuffle USB cable. iPod shuffle requires a Mac® with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS® X v10.4.11 or later and iTunes® 9 or later; or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista, Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) or later.

The dock uses only one USB cable, and it has been certified by Apple to work natively with iTunes. [Parasync]

I have a 160GB Classic, as I thought I needed it. But with a 32GB iPhone, I end up leaving my iPod at home, even when travelling. I once had a fantasy that I’d sync a ton of video to it, to serve up. That fantasy was never realised, though, because these days it easy to just plug your laptop into a TV. I like having an iPod Touch in the house, however, because when my kid wants to watch videos, I’d rather give her that than my own phone. Besides, some apps like Sonos’ controller and Apple’s Remote are better suited to a device that lives in the living room. An iPod Touch with a camera makes sense, getting a step closer to the iPhone; it’s an equally intuitive device for people who want to keep clear of AT&T.

Put a camera in the Nano, and the opposite occurs: It becomes a mystery object, something unlike all other products in the universe, and not in a good way. It would be something to learn, with even more buried mystery functions than it has right now.

Let’s be honest, the Nano is built to play music. Video playback on that tiny screen is a joke, accelerometer or not, and I have never met a soul who actually stores calendars and contacts, or uses any other mini-app or game. Putting still more tech into the Nano is a mistake that companies other than Apple would make—sure, it will be “neat,” but it’s impractical and a waste of development.

The Classic is a different story, one of diminishing demand. Hard drive players are almost nowhere to be found, and there’s discussion of late that the 1.8″ hard drive is headed for extinction, because flash memory is finally cheap. I think Apple will still sell a Classic, at least until they can pop out 64GB flash iPod Touches for under $US400, but I don’t think they’ll do anything to modify the current Classic in any meaningful way, and they certainly aren’t going to go all the way to 240GB, even though it’s possible.

If the Classic is justifiable for music library owners like me, but mostly a non-starter, the Nano’s raison d’etre is being a “value” option. It’s cheaper than the iPod Touch, which hovers at the $US230 only to distance itself from the 16GB Nano, at $US200. If Apple dipped that iTouch to $US199, they’d sell fewer Nanos than they are selling now.

Screw the camera—what Apple should do is lower the Nano price even more. Samsung and SanDisk sell 8GB players for less than $US100 now, and you can even find a few 16GB players in the $US130 range. That’s $US50 to $US70 lower than what Apple charges, and nowadays, most of those devices will play anything you buy from iTunes—little or no manipulation required. Meanwhile, almost all PMP development from other companies is geared to building a cheap iTouch replacement, not a Nano clone.

As Apple itself declared during their earnings call, “We expect traditional MP3 players to decline over time as we cannibalise ourselves” with iPhone and iPod Touch. They readily admit that iPod Touches sell like hotcakes while demand for clickwheel iPods has slackened. It’s just a puzzle that when these devices should be on life-support, Apple seems to be want to push them further. [iPod/iTunes]

In the melting ice, amidst the thawing dog crap, Whitehorse, Yukon resident Andrew noticed an oddly-familiar rectangular item: An iPod classic. He brought it home and found, to his surprise, that it was fully functional.

Frozen in the “bottom layer” of ice (Christ, how many layers do you think there are?) since, he estimates, early winter, the iPod was frozen solid and not in the best of shape. But after a few minutes of charging, the iPod booted right up and even displayed the correct date, proving once and for all that the iPod classic is to date the only Yukon-approved PMP on the market. [Robulack via TUAW]

In the iPod’s seven years, a sort of price mean has emerged, settling around US$249 despite countless claims of “more space,” “more battery life,” and, err, “more smaller.” It’s no surprise then that US$249 is the price of a new 120GB iPod classic, a few dollars more than a new model 8GB iPod touch and US$50 higher than the cost of a 4th Gen 16GB iPod nano. Click the image above for the full keepsake chart. [iPod on Giz]