As nearly all of you already know by now, today was Apple’s music related media event in San Francisco. At the center of attention of course is the Apple iPod – the real catalyst behind everything that Apple has come to symbolize over the last 7+ years. Let’s quickly rundown all the major new announcements from today’s event.

On the hardware front, we have new versions of the iPod nano and the iPod touch. On the nano front, Apple introduced their fourth generation nano – returning the small player back to some of it’s roots and abandoning the “fat” design introduced in the third generation nano. Features of the fourth gen nano include the following:

• New curved aluminum and glass enclosure
• Two inch display
• 24 hours of music playback or four hours of video playback
• Includes Apple’s “Genius” technology which automatically creates playlists from songs in your library
• New user interface
• High resolution portrait display
• Built-in accelerometer which switches to Cover Flow when rotated and goes into Shuffle mode when lightly shaken (think SanDisk Sansa Shaker here!)
• New 16GB model
• Available in nine colors (silver, blue, purple, green, orange, yellow, pink, (PRODUCT) RED and black)

The fourth generation iPod nano is priced as follows:

• 8GB model for $149
• 16GB model for $199

So the big takeaway here is – new (yet old) curved design, built-in accelerometer, updated UI, and bigger storage. Fans of the old iPod nano design will certainly appreciate the new fourth gen design but overall – the nano is a bit under-whelming if you ask me. Plus.. what’s with the shaking? Funny how Apple is starting to copy features found in other media players now..

Ok.. now on to the iPod touch. The touch gets a new thin contoured design which is smaller and lighter than the first generation iPod touch. Some of the new features on the iPod touch include built-in speakers (finally!), integrated Nike + iPod support (you’ll just need to get the optional Nike + iPod sensor which will cost around $19 dollars and of course a compatible Nike sneaker), longer battery life, and… integrated volume controls (again.. FINALLY).

There’s also support for the Genius feature (which actually is a part of iTunes 8 – more on that shortly), and all the good stuff you’ve come to appreciate (or hate) in the 2.0 software.  Price wise, the iPod touch is available in the following configurations:

• 8GB model for $229
• 16GB model for $299
• 32GB model for $399

Oh yes.. in addition to the new iPod touch, there’s a new version of OS X as well – version 2.1. iPhone users with OS X 2.0 will also be getting 2.1 which supposedly comes with a lot of fixes. According to CNET, the fixes include fewer dropped calls, fewer application crashes, better battery life, and faster iTunes backups. Given how much I’ve come to dread my iPhone 3G… this version of OS X better live up to the fixes!!!

Since we’re on the software front, there’s a new version of iTunes out called iTunes 8. iTunes 8 comes with that new Genius technology feature which automatically creates playlists from songs in your music library. All you need to do is select any song in your library, click on the Genius button, and watch iTunes create a playlist of songs that go well together from your library. There’s a Genius Sidebar which also provides song recommendations from the iTunes Store. Genius works by learning from music tastes from all the iTunes users out there (all anonymous of course).

In addition to the new iTunes software application, Apple also announced the return of NBC to the iTunes Store. Yes.. Battlestar Galactica is finally back!! W00T! With NBC back in iTunes, you’ll be able to select shows from NBC, USA Network, SCI FI Channel, Bravo, Sleuth and NBC News. Standard definition shows will be available for $1.99 per episode. HD shows (yes, HD TV shows will be available on iTunes also) will be available for $2.99. Finally, it what appears to be Apple giving way to NBC here, select NBC shows will be available for 99 cents an episode. Finally – NBC will be offering one free episode from each of their top series, in either SD or HD, on iTunes for the next two weeks. The premiere episodes of upcoming NBC shows such as Knight Rider, My Own Worst Enemy, and Kath & Kim, will also be available on iTunes a week before the actual aired broadcast.

Soo.. that’s basically it.

The truth is – I was a bit under-whelmed with all of this. Perhaps I was expecting a tad bit more from Apple. Perhaps, I wanted to see a bit more innovation from the company. Oh well.. I suppose it’s a good thing that the company is focusing on building a better iPod/iPhone experience. Here’s hoping that the new software updates will be 1) stabile and 2) reliable.

One major thought.. how about a complete rewrite of iTunes software for the PC? Who out there thinks it’s just one big slow application???

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