But they aren’t that great! I was kinda hoping that this year Apple would do something amazing with the iPod line but they really didn’t. They kept everything relatively the same except for a few small changes. There are a few things that I like about what they have changed but also a few things that I really disliked.

First of all, the only noticeably different thing is the nano. I personally like the overall design and the change to shiny aluminum but there was no need to make the screen taller. It was already borderline too tall but they had to go and make it even taller. It seems out of proportion and top-heavy. It looks almost ridiculous against the click wheel. The second thing they added was the video camera. I think this is absolutely ridiculous. The idea of a camera on an iPod nano just doesn’t work. The nano is just so small that a decent camera can’t fit inside of it. Now they have some crappy 320×240 video shooting camera. It surprised me that they chose to only let it take video. I’m sure they could have at least gotten a 1.3 megapixel camera on there to take pictures.

The new touch is visually unchanged. They updated the software a bit and added the ability to play HD movies. This was most likely an attempt to fight off the upcoming Zune HD. The processor in the touch was upgraded and it now supports Open GL but that means nothing to most people. I’m very disappointed that Apple decided to skip the camera in the touch. If they thought to put one in the nano, why not the touch? They could have put a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus just like the iPhone but they didn’t. They also could have added a microphone considering the growing amount of microphone-requiring applications in the App Store. They seemed to leave that out as well. The lack of these features is holding me back from buying the new touch to replace my old second gen.

The shuffles were all updated to the buttonless shuffles. They look nice but lack usability. That’s really all there is to the shuffle. The last change they made was to iTunes and the iTunes store. iTunes 9 is loaded with new features and a polished-up interface. The iTunes store also has a new interface. It’s a bit hard to get used to but I really like what they have done. I like the ability to play the songs right where you are in the store with the small play thumbnail rather than having to go to the album page. It’s a bit more like the iTunes store on the iPhone. There’s a new Genius feature called Genius Mixes. This automatically takes your most listened to songs and artists and combines them into genre-similar groups and makes a Genius playlist off of that. It’s a pretty good idea to me.