Apple “Rock ‘n’ Roll” Event Recap

Today Apple announced their annual iPod line refresh. It was full of the usual upgrades and expected adjustments, no tablet announcements but at the beginning of the event Steve Jobs did indicate that he was working on a lot of great new stuff for the future. Overall it was a bit of a yawn in comparison to other events that Apple has held. Nonetheless there were updates so if you missed the live coverage of the Apple Event that took place today in San Francisco here’s a (very) quick recap of the announcements:

iTunes 9:

• Genius mixes – continuously makes mixes of songs from your library that “go well together” based on Genius technology
• Syncing is faster, smoother, more customization abiltilies and available between up to 5 computers
• Manage order of applications through iTunes
• iTunes LP – get tons of extras for albums and movies (liner notes, lyrics, images, behind the scenes interviews, deleted scenes, etc…)
• Interface refresh – navigation around iTunes store is more intuitive

iPhone 3.1 Software:

• Genius feature is now being applied to App Store, get recommendations based on the apps you have
• Pre-Cut Ringtones available for $1.29

iPod line-up refreshed:

• iPod Touch:
  • being hailed as a “pocket computer” and “portable gaming device”
  • price decreases to $199 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB, $399 for 64GB
  • now 50% faster
• iPod Classic:
  • now 160GB for $249
• iPod Nano:
  • now has video camera (no still camera) with built in microphone and speaker
  • ability to create Genius mixes
  • ability to listen to FM Radio
  • larger display
  • pedometer
  • 8 GB for $149 and 16GB for $179

The event ended with Steve Jobs thanking everyone for coming and stating “we’ll see you soon” with a bit of an eyebrow raise and gleam in his eye as if to imply we will be hearing more from Apple very soon - ahem Tablet?  I guess we’ll all just have to stay tuned.