Apple unveils new iPod models
SAN FRANCISCO: Apple on Wednesday unveiled new versions of its best-selling iPod media player with touch screens and video games, giving its chief executive, Steve Jobs, new gadgets to entice buyers during the holiday shopping season.
The company will add a new iPod Shuffle and a smaller iPod Nano to its lineup, Jobs said at an Apple event called “The Beat Goes On.” The new Nano, available in five colors, features a 2.5-inch, or 6.4-centimeter, screen for watching movies and playing games like a Sudoko program developed by Electronic Arts. Prices will start at $149.
Apple also said it would introduce a new version of its iTunes music software. Customers will now be able to buy ring tones for 99 cents and add them to their iPhones.
Computer users have downloaded more than 600 million copies of iTunes, said Jobs, who wore his trademark black turtleneck and jeans.
Jobs typically unveils new iPods to spur orders in the last three months of the year, one of Apples biggest sales periods. The iPod, along with sales of songs and videos through the companys iTunes store, accounted for more than a third of its revenue last quarter.
Aside from the June release of the iPhone, which combines the media player and a mobile phone, Apple had not updated the iPod in almost a year.
Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research in San Francisco, said, “Over the holidays, the iPod and accessories can contribute as much as half of their revenue or more.”
Apples introduction of the $79, clip-on iPod Shuffle in October helped drive iPod shipments to a record 21.1 million units during the 2006 holiday season.
Since then, Jobs has added the iPhone, which features a 3.5-inch, color touch screen.
Shares of Apple fell $2.89, or 2 percent, to $141.27 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market after investors were apparently disappointed about the upgrades.
Apple has sold more than 100 million iPods since 2001, when it introduced the device. It is the best-selling digital media player in the United States, with about a 70 percent share of the market, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm based in Port Washington, New York. Apples iTunes is also the most popular site providing legal music downloads, NPD added. Microsoft cuts Zunes price
Microsoft cut the price of its 30-gigabyte Zune digital media player to $199, a $50 reduction, The Associated Press reported from Seattle.
“Its part of the normal product life cycle, something weve had on the books for months,” wrote Cesar Menendez, a Microsoft employee, on the companys Zune Insider blog.
