iPhone/iPod Touch firmware 2.1 on Friday

Just announced at the Apple live event, firmware 2.1 for iphone and iPod Touch will be available from Friday 12th September. Improvements include significantly better battery life, fewer call drops and a lot of fixed bugs. No mention so far of the rumoured held back features, the only thing that looks new is the genius smart playlist function. The update is free for users of version 2, and $9.99 for iPod Touch owners upgrading from version 1 firmwares.

UPDATE Reports are appearing that iPod Touch V2.1 is already available, if so I will try to update and post some screenshots of the new features.

Apple updates iPod range as expected

The ‘Let’s Rock’ event is still running so the announcements are not finished, but here’s the details on the iPod updates so far. There’s not much that hadn’t been leaked before the even started, so it’s up to the ‘one more thing’ to supply any surprises. Here’s the new range:

• iPod Shuffle – five colours available in either 1Gb $49 (£32) or 2Gb $69 (£45)
• iPod Classic – Just one model from now on, the slimmer version with 120Gb of storage. Selling for $249 (£179), available in a silver or black finish.
• iPod Nano – returns to the taller shape as shown in recently leaked photo’s. Has a built in accelerometer to detect orientation, and the rumoured ’shake to shuffle’ feature is included. Battery life is 24 hours for music, 4 hours for video. Available in a range of bright colours with the 8Gb at $149 (£109) and 16Gb at $199 (£149).
• iPod Touch gets an iPhone style curved back, built in volume controls (visible in the image below) and speaker. The Nike+ receiver is also built in. 8Gb at $229 (£169), 16Gb at $299 (£219) and 32Gb at $399 £279). Battery life is 36 hours for music, 6 hours for video. Ships with firmware 2.1. Apple appear to be pushing the iPod Touch as a portable gaming device.