Ham Express

Picture from Engadget

Today’s Apple event was pretty much a “big deal” for sure. Steve Jobs started everything off with a joke saying, “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” (click here if you don’t get it). The event was stacked with so many new Apple products. Apple announced many new things like new sleek iPods, new ipod accessories, and a full update of iTunes with many new features. They even threw in some great news for all of us iPhone owners, the announcement of iPhone firmware 2.1. So click the read more link for the full rundown on all the new stuff.

iTunes 8

One of Apple’s biggest announcements today was the full update of iTunes to 8.0. iTunes 8 includes a whole new assortment of amazing features to enhance your music experience. The new iTunes 8 now has HD TV shows, the new grid view (pictured above), a great new visualizer (pictured below), and the all new genius feature. iTunes 8 is currently available as a free download here.

The All New Genius Feature

Genius is a great new way to listen to your favorite music by creating smart playlists and recommending music by your tastes. The Genius feature allows you to select a song then click the genius button and it will instantly create a playlist with your music of all the songs that are related to that song you selected. As you click through your music the Genius sidebar will recommend new music that you may like. Genius playlist and sidebar both work together to make it easy to listen to you music and even easier to find music you want to listen to. The genius feature is even built-in on all the iPods and even the iPhone.

New iPod Nanos

The rumors that were going around and all the spy pictures turned out to be true. The new Nano is must taller than its older version but, believe it or not, is actually thiner. The 4G iPod Nano is now the thinnest iPod ever measuring just under a quarter of an inch (.24 inch). It now includes a built-in accelerometer that will detect whether the iPod is tilted or not, so now you can watch videos on its beautiful 2in. screen. Apple also decided to add in a cool new feature that allows you to shuffle your music with a quick shake of the iPod. And the best thing is that the iPod comes in 9 beautiful colors. The new Nano will be available today for $149 for the 8gb model and $199 for the 16gb model.

iPhone Firmware 2.1

Image taken by Engadget

Steve Jobs even announced that the new iPhone update 2.1 will be available this Friday as a free download. He did not mention any of the new features but did mention that the update will include:

• Significantly better battery life
• Fewer call drops
• Bug fixes
• Faster backups to iTunes
• No App crashes 

When the iPhone originally was announced Steve had promised background notifications for 3rd party apps by September, but he did not mention whether this update would include those features or any of the other rumored features.

New iPod Shuffle In 4 New Colors!

Nothing to explain here

New In-Ear Headphones

These new Headphones deliver great sound quality with 2 drivers in each headphone. That means a woofer and tweeter in each headphone. These headphone even have a control capsule on the right-ear cable that contains a mic and 3 buttons to allow you to adjust volume, play/pause music or video playback, and even skip through music. There is even a case included to store your headphones when not in use. These headphones are compatible with all the new iPods, but they do not say it is compatible with the iPhone which seems odd. These will also work on the older iPods but the control capsule will not work. The headphones have no set release date except for coming soon.

New iPod Touch

Apple now calls their iPod Touch the funnest iPod ever with many new features and a new sleek design. The iPod touch now has a built-in speaker and even volume controls (pictured below). The iPods new battery lasts longer too with 36 hours of audio or 6 hours of video. It also now features built-in Nike+iPod support allowing the iPod touch to work with any Nike+ Shoe. And the best thing is that the iPod now includes the App Store for free. The iPod Touch is available now, $229 for the 8gb model, $299 for the 16gb model, and $399 for the 32gb model.

So yea that’s pretty much it. A lot of new things came out from Apple today, what do you think of all the new stuff? I think I might be getting a new iPod, maybe the Nano. Do you plan on getting any new ipods or anything else from Apple? Let me know in the comments below.

[UPDATE] : You can watch the entire event here on Apple’s website. Enjoy!