What to Expect from Apple's iPod Event

Ars Technica reports: Tuesday, September 9 descends upon us, and Apple fans know what that means: it's almost time for Apple's traditional fall iPod event, this time dubbed "Let's Rock." The event, which Apple indirectly announced last week by sending out invites to media contacts, has been widely expected for several months now, as the company has held special events in September for the past several years in order to introduce various updates to its iPod line.

As usual, what will actually happen during this year's special event remains (officially) unknown. Unofficially, however, there's a lot that we "know," or at least expect. The surest bets revolve around renewed iPod nano designs, iPod touch designs, and price drops. Rumors about the iPod nano shedding the pounds and going back to its more svelte "stick" design began back in July, with Digg founder Kevin Rose renewing buzz about it in late August. In addition to having a widescreen display, the device itself is said to be "rounded" with "curved glass," allegedly confirmed by spy photos of the new nano over the weekend. For those who still love colors, the new nano will supposedly come in new ones, such as orange.

Additionally, the iPod touch is supposed to be receiving cosmetic changes in order to make it more iPhone 3G-like. This means that the back will be more tapered to help disguise the miniscule increase in thickness. Of course, this won't be all--supposedly the price of the iPod touch will drop (as has been rumored since the beginning of time, and even moreso since the introduction of the cheaper iPhone 3G).

Finally, it's widely expected that iTunes 8 will be making its debut on Tuesday, complete with a smattering of new features like a Pandora-like Genius feature, Genius Sidebar, Grid view, and more. We were originally skeptical of this claim (that it would launch on September 9, not that it existed with these features) based on what we had heard about iTunes 8's progress. However, we received word over the weekend that it had finally been approved for release and that iPhone 2.1 firmware was possibly slated to come along with it. And, on top of it all, what we've heard about iPhone 2.1 may not be all that's in the update: supposedly there are features that were removed before the firmware was seeded to developers. We don't know what those features could be or whether this is happening for sure, but if it is, hopefully we're not in for the same "very public beta" ride that we were on for iPhone 2.0.

Some analysts and Apple-watchers believe that Tuesday's Apple Event will be a snoozer, and that everything that is expected to happen has already leaked. However, Apple rarely allows such a thing to happen. Even with so many (and so frequent) leaks across the Web, the company may still have something big up its sleeve for that "one more thing..." After telling various members of the media that the event will be a "big deal," Apple sure does seem to want everyone to be there, and not just to confirm the existence of everything we've already heard about.

-by Jacqui Cheng