So, it's an iPhone without the calls
Updated on 06 September 2007
Channel 4 News online looks a back at a night of Apple launches including the headline-grabbing iPod Touch.
The latest Apple launch was most notable not for the start of the new, but the end of the old.
The sleek white plastic cases that helped the little music player seduce a generation of gadget lovers could be on the way out.
The headline-grabbing item in the new clutch of music players from Apple is called Touch - basically an iPhone which doesn't make calls.
With characteristic understatement, Apple chief Steve Jobs described the new gadget as 'one of the seven wonders of the world'.
It has the iPhone's widely praised touch-sensitive screen, and a wireless connection which will allow users to surf the internet and download songs whenever they're in range of a wireless hotspot such as a web café.
If that café happens to be a branch of Starbucks, cappuccino sippers who like the sound of a song playing on the in-store stereo will be able to download it automatically.
The gadgets will cost £199 or £269 in the UK, and have room for up to 3,500 songs.
With characteristic understatement, Apple chief Steve Jobs (pictured below, left) described the new gadget as 'one of the seven wonders of the world'.
The new-look iPod doesn't mean the death of the iconic iPod with its famous controller wheel.
That is rebadged as the iPod Classic, which now comes with a larger hard drive, with room for 40,000 songs, and a black or silver metallic cover. The smaller end of the range, the shuffle and the nano, also get a revamp.
Jobs is hoping that his magic marketing touch will bring life to markets which have been slow to take off until now.
Until now there has been little mass-market interest in handheld devices with a wireless internet connection. Europe and the US have not seen much interest in portable devices to play video and TV - but Jobs is making a big bet on both.
However, with its limited storage capacity, the new Touch device may find it difficult to carve out a niche between the Classic with its huge hard disk, and the iPhone, which makes phone calls and has a mobile data connection.
Despite all the hoopla, there was little in the announcement to surprise anyone - most of the new features had been trailed for weeks before by the hype machine which whips itself into a frenzy before every Apple announcement.
This circus of iPodolaters will now shift its focus to the Apple Expo in Paris on 25 September, which is traditionally the platform Jobs uses to unveil products specifically aimed at the European market.
There, the company is widely expected to announce a European version of the iPhone, with a 3G internet connection - which would cure one of the flaws of the US incarnation of iPhone, namely its slow internet access.
And though the announcements may not have been surprising, one of them could leave a nasty taste in the mouth of the gadget lovers who queued up for days to buy the iPhone on the day of its release.
Jobs announced that the machines' hefty price tag will be cut by a third.
