Yesterday, Steve Jobs sported a black button-up shirt, instead of his trademark black turtleneck or t-shirt, during the Apple Showtime announcement yesterday. While the presentation lasted a little over an hour, Jobs completely overhauled the Apple iPod lineup, announced a major update to iTunes, debuted a movie download business, and previewed a product that won’t be released for at least another four months. Pretty good for an hour’s worth of work. Want to know more? Well, we’ve got the run down here.

1. iPod video

   According to Jobs the new and improved video-enabled iPod comes with a screen that is 60% brighter, longer battery life (from 2 hours while playing videos to 3.5 hours), and new earbuds that took Apple 18 months to develop.

   The new iPod is offering two video models, a 30GB at $249 and a 80GB at $349. These provide gapless playback for MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, and uncompressed audio formats. New software features have been added for instant live searching of your iPod content via using the clickwheel to enter characters into a search.

   Of course, as speculated for quite some time, Apple is releasing games for the iPod as well. Games like Bejeweled, Tetris, mini-golf, Pac-Man, Mahjong, Cubis, Texas Hold ‘Em, Vortex and Zuma have been designed to work with th clickwheel interface. While they aren’t included with the iPod, they are available for $4.99 each through the iTunes Music Store.

2. iPod nano v2

   “The iPod nano is the most popular MP3 player in the world,” Jobs said.

   The glossy front which critics complained my get scratched too easily has been replaced with an aluminum counterpart. On top of that, Jobs announced that the nano would be getting a splash of color. That’s right, they’re bringing color back from the mini to the nano. The new nano will be available in blue, pink, silver, green, and black.

   The batteries on these little beauties is getting an upgrade as well. Much like the iPod video, the battery life has almost doubled. 24 hours of play versus 14 from the first generation.

   The nano has also slimmed down (that’s right it’s thinner), as has the box it comes in and all the accessories. The box is barely larger than the nano itself and accessories like the battery charger have been scaled down. Accessories including an armband and lanyard headphones with the new earbud design will be available and it works with the Nike+iPod Sport Kit.

   There are now three models for the nano — 2GB at $149, 4GB at $199, and 8GB at $249

3. iPod Shuffle v2

   While the first generation Shuffle resembled a pack of stick gum, the new shuffle looks looks like a pack of matches. Yes, you heard me, it got smaller as well.

   “Wearability” was one of key importance to first-gen Shuffle owners, said Jobs. So the new model sports an aluminum case with built-in clip. The headphone jack is also located where the device charges and connects to the computer. According to Jobs, the new Shuffle is the worlds smallest mp3 player.

   Available for pre-order and shipping in October the second generation Shuffle holds 1GB and will cost $79.

4. iTunes7

   Apple released the new version of iTunes on Tuesday. This new version has been organized into sections –seperate libraries for music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and radio.

   A three-position switch alternates between different views and a new view, called Album View, has been added which shows album covers and all songs from the album so you can scroll by album. Album cover art will be populated by iTunes if you’re missing the art and have an iTunes Store account.

   Cover Flow View is the third view you can select. It enables song browsing by album cover, it’s a window that shows a 3D representation of the album covers of your music list.

5. Improved Video

   Apple has dropped the word “Music” from its iTunes Store to signify its growth of the service and library content of music, videos, and games. The renamed iTunes Store has expanded five shows on one network to more than 220 shows on more than 40 networks, including major television networks.

   All videos downloaded through the iTunes Store will now be at a 640×480 resolution, instead of it’s previous 320×240 resolution.

   iTunes7 features gapless playback, obviously, and the ability to configure your iPod from inside iTunes. No more having to fight with your preferences. You can also use your iPod to transfer purchased music between multiple iTunes Store authorized computers.

6. Movies

   Apple launched their movie service with more than 75 films by four studios owned by Walt Disney Co. –Miramax, Touchstone, Pixar, and Disney. They will also be adding more including Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and Cars. New releases are priced at $12.99 for pre-orders and during the first week of their release, the same time they will be available on DVD, after that the price jumps to $14.99. However, older library titles will be priced at $9.99 every day.

   Movies are shown at 640×480 resolution and “near-DVD quality”, according to Jobs. Jobs went on to say that if you have a 5 Megabit per second broadband connection you can expect to download a full-length movie in about half an hour. You can also start watching the movie in as little as a minute, while it’s still downloading using the iTunes Download Manager.

   Jobs described audio quality for these movies as “Dolby Surround”. Usage rights for movies is the same as TV shows, so you can’t burn them to disc, though you can share them between multiple authorized computers and iPods. Parental controls have also been updated with MPAA ratings.

   “We hope to take this international in 2007,” added Jobs.

7. iTV

   While iTV is only the code name for this product, it’s rare that Jobs previews a product, much less a quarter before it is set to come out.

   “You can take a movie, download it to a computer, put it on your ipod. But what about that big flat screen TV you just bought?” asked Jobs. “You need a box to drive that big screen TV. How’s the box going to talk to the computer? Do I want to string cables throughout my house? So I’m going to talk to it using wireless network, to get the content from the computer to the box, from the box to the TV.”

   iTV features integrated wireless networking, a power plug, USB 2.0, Ethernet, HDMI plug, component video, analog and optical audio interfaces, has an integrated power supply. It’s meant to shared video files between authorized computers, iPods, and televisions.

   According to Jobs, the “iTV” will be released in the first calendar quarter of 2007 with a price of $299.

Jobs noted that Apple had shipped over 60 million iPods in total by the end of last quarter. He jokingly showed an iPod toilet paper holder to show the widespread range of iPod accessories. Jobs went on to praise iPod connectivity options in automobiles, pointing out that 70% of 2007 model cars sold domestically will have some kind of iPod connectivity, and the Nike+Apple Sport Kit is less than three months old and has already sold 450,000 units, it provides connectivity between the iPod nano and Nike running shoes.

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