iLounge

There’s been a ton of new iPod and iPhone news over the past day. Here’s a quick summary of where you can find all the best information we’ve posted.

Apple introduced three new iPods, refreshed the iPod shuffle, and dropped the price of the iPhone by $200 per model, as detailed in this news story. It also announced new iPod accessories, version 7.4 of iTunes with a 99-cent ringtone creator, and a Starbucks-backed iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store for its portable devices. Apple today offered a $100 Apple Store credit to all early iPhone adopters.

The iPod classic is the sixth-generation hard disk-based iPod, preserving its predecessor’s 2.5” screen size and body footprint, but changing its face material to silver or black metal, upgrading its user interface, and offering 80GB of storage for $249 or 160GB of storage for $349. We have unboxing photos here, a First Look here, and a user interface video here.

The third-generation iPod nano adds a 2” screen with video and game playing features to its super-popular flash memory-based predecessor. A silver version is available for $149 with 4GB of storage, and five colors (red, black, silver, green, and blue) are available in $199 8GB models. We have unboxing photos here, a First Look here, and a user interface video here.

The iPod touch is Apple’s first 3.5” widescreen, multi-touch iPod. Though it preserves some of the wireless (Wi-Fi) functionality and interface of the iPhone, it strips the cell phone, built-in speakers, camera, and microphone, and Bluetooth features out, losing .2” of height, and loses several features such as e-mail and text messaging in the process. It is the first iPod with Safari web browser functionality, but does not currently support iPod games like the new iPod nano and classic models. We have a First Look here, and a user interface video here.

Apple also refreshed last year’s iPod shuffle with four new colors, preserving the original silver model and last year’s $79, 1GB pricing. We have unboxing photos here, and additional color comparisons with last year’s shuffles here.

We’ve also posted an editorial on the new Apple announcements, reflecting our mixed feelings, and a Ten Things You Want to Know article about the new iPods. Much more is coming very soon.