Showtime at Apple

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s been announced by Apple this afternoon:

• iPod beefed up to feature 30Gb and 80Gb models.
• iPod Nano gets new, uglier, mini-style design. Presumably, as Grid212 mentioned, because of the problem the original had with scratches. It’s also been bumped up to 2Gb, 4Gb and 8Gb models and has a brighter screen.
• iPod Shuffle gets smaller and restyled to match the new Nano.
• iTunes 7: Movie downloads, Cover Flow (flip through your DVD and CD covers), updated interface and Automatic Album Art (which sounds rather scarily Big Brother: “As long as you have an iTunes Store account, iTunes will automatically fetch available album art for any CD you imported to iTunes.”).
• Downloadable games for iPod like Tetris, Pac-Man and Bejeweled.
• Movie downloads. Still 4:3, though a slightly higher (but still small) 640×480 resolution. It also, predictably, seems to be Disney content right now.

They also announced that they’re working on a sleek looking set-top box tentatively named iTV (no relation, I assume, and, pending a lawsuit from ITV, I am certain it will change) which transmits video from iTunes to TV.