Over the course of its hour-and-fifteen minute ‘rock and roll’ 09-09-09 event in San Francisco, Apple revealed its new lineup of iPod models, new software development updates and even Steve Jobs himself in a disputably renewed health condition.

As the presentation began, Jobs took the stage for the first time since 2008 and announced that he had successfully recovered from his liver transplant five months ago. At the same time, he also expressed a rather humble statement for himself towards the organ donor who generously allowed him to regain his health. Now that he has had a near-death experience, he made it known to the world at large that everyone should now become an organ donor.



In a rather frail but happy tone of voice, he also exclaimed, "So, I'm vertical, I'm back at Apple and loving every minute of it, and I’m getting to work with some talented teams to come up with some great products for the future. It's wonderful."

Apple also announced that its fruit-themed media player iTunes underwent a “significant” update, moving all the way to version 9 (or 9.0.0.17 to be exact). The all-in-one media player now features a redesigned iTunes Store with a slightly more simplified interface navigation in our opinion. Tabs for Music, Movies, TV Shows, App Store, Podcasts Audiobooks and iTunes U are now located at the top center of the marketplace and the intuitive Cover Flow style navigation through media is now replaced by side scrolling.



Device syncing to iPod and iPhone has supposedly been improved as well, as the company is now offering more fine-grained control for syncing music by genre or artist, straight from the Music tab of the sync dialog. The iTunes 9 update also boasts better syncing of Movies in Windows and Mac and Photos specifically on Mac (using iPhoto's Events and People identification). However, our favorite new feature would undoubtedly have to be the ability to organize downloaded Apps from iTunes itself. As many iPod and iPhone users know, this can be a hassle from the devices itself, particularly on slower models such as the original iPhone and iPod Touch.



Apple also decided to include an LP feature in iTunes 9 which is rather useful for older generations who still enjoy indulging themselves in classic 12-inch vinyl phonographs. The media player will now display animated lyrics and liner notes, artist performance videos, artist and band photos and plenty of bonus material from those dusty LPs that you collect in your garage. All said, Apple is making matters one step more convenient in our attempts digitize the entire 20th century of music and make it as interactive and immersive as possible.



On the product side of the presentation, the company announced that it has sold more than 30 million iPhone models to date, more than 20 million iPod Touch models, more than 100 million iPod Nano models, and over 220 million iPod models in total. This amounts to some serious, although expected, market share for Apple and if its numbers are indeed accurate, it will have a very smooth sailing Q4 to end off the rest of the year.

Let’s take matters a step back for a second and examine what was going on behind the scenes prior to the event. Many consumers and journalists briefly reported that the iPod Touch 2nd generation underwent some price slashing across almost every major retailer. The 8GB model fell from $229 to $189, the 16GB model fell from $299 to $249 and the 32GB model fell from $399 to just $279. On the other hand, prices were slashed on the iPod Nano 4th generation from $149 for the 8GB down to $129 and from $199 for the 16GB down to $149. Finally, the iPod Classic 6th generation 120GB received a price cut from $249 to $229.

What was predicted to be a major announcement for the iPod Touch lineup turned out to be a heartfelt disappointment followed by a neutral consumer response. Apple announced that its new iPod Touch lineup would consist of 8GB, 32GB and 64GB models priced at $199, $299 and $399 respectively. At the same time, the possibilities of the camera/compass/GPS

features that we all expected in these 3rd generation multi-touch devices were completely dismissed and were instead replaced by a large emphasis on gaming. The idea behind this strategy was for Apple to minimize overall costs of the product and put it in the minds of consumers that the iPod Touch is centrally a gaming platform at this point in time. The push for OpenGL ES 2.0 was also made very clear with this new generation.





Hardware wise, the iPod Touch 3rd generation incorporates the same 65nm ARM Cortex A8 600MHz processor and PowerVR SGX graphics core found in the iPhone 3G S. We can now expect the device to be an iPhone 3G S minus camera/compass/GPS/3G phone capabilities. Apple has instead decided to focus primarily on OpenGL ES 2.0 support for its renewed fruit-themed multi-touch gaming platform.

 


On another note, there were some rumors that remained corrected. While many analysts had confidently predicted the death of the iPod Classic at the event, the device actually maintained its position in the music aficionado marketplace with a reasonable spec bump to 160GB of storage capacity at a price of just $249. Basically, the only difference between this device and the 6th generation 120GB device is a capacity of 40GB more for $20 bucks more.



The event also saw the continuation of the iPod Shuffle lineup. The microsocopic media player now comes in five colors with the new additions of green, blue, and pink along with the existing black and silver options. The 2GB goes for $49, the 4GB for $79, and there is also a special edition polished stainless steel 4GB version for $99 sold as an Apple Store exclusive.



Out of all the hardware refreshments, the biggest news of all comes from the innovation in the iPod nano lineup. It seems as if Apple exclusively decided to reinvigorate demand for this lineup because its marketing focus points are made much clearer over its other iPod lineups.

Primarily, new iPod nano 5th generation surprisingly sports a very small H.264 VGA video camera capable of capturing 640x480p video at 30fps with AAC audio. It also features fifteen special effect modes similar to what’s found in Photo Booth on Mac OS X. At the same time, the device sports a 17.5% larger 2.2-inch display at 240x376, up from the 2-inch 240x320 display on the 3rd and 4th generation models. More interestingly, the new iPod nano adds support for FM Radio with Live Pause. Essentially, the device can pause live radio feeds for up to 15 minutes, giving it the status of “pocket radio TiVo.” Apple has now officially “reinvented” the pocket radio (Sony Walkman). We have reason to believe that the generational group known as Generation Y is going to think this is a massive revolution as the majority are oblivious to the fact their parents and grandparents have been using radio since the early 1940s.



The new iPod nano 5th generation is available in pink, red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, violet, silver and black. More specifically, an 8GB model is available at $149 and a 16GB model at $179 respectively. We do have some criticism regarding Apple’s pricing structure, however. Due to the fact that the iPod Touch 8GB is now $199, it would seem economically rational to position the 8GB nano at $129 and the 16GB at $159 in order to compensate for the large platform difference between a strictly music-oriented micro portable device and a multi-touch computing platform.

Regardless of our disposition, Apple is going to be seeing more positive income in its next quarter and perhaps well into the first half of 2010.