Apple unveils new iPod Touch, new iPod colours

TORONTO – Apple has unveiled a new iPod touch, with an upgraded camera and faster chip, along with a new lineup of colours for its entire iPod lineup.

The new iPod touch features an eight megapixel camera and Apple’s A8 chip, which currently runs in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. The A8 chip will provide ten times faster graphics performance when playing games on the device, according to Apple.

The iPod touch will also be available in 128GB of storage for the first time.

Apple’s entire iPod lineup – which includes the iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle – will also now be available in space grey, silver, gold, pink and blue.

Apple spilled the beans on the new iPod colours earlier this month when it launched an update to its iTunes software. Many users noticed a picture depicting the devices in new colours – including gold.

The leaked colours were spotted when users plugged tried to synch their iPod to the new software with their music.

The move comes as iPod’s popularity has waned.

The iPod was Apple’s first successful foray beyond personal computers, and it paved the way for Apple to release the iPhone six years later, in 2007. Although music players existed before, the iPod was the first to simplify syncing with digital music collections on personal computers.

In recent years, though, many people use smartphones instead to listen to music. The last time Apple gave figures for iPod sales, for the July-September quarter last year, Apple sold 2.6 million iPods, a 24 per cent decline from the previous year and a fraction of the 39 million iPhones sold that quarter. As demand has slowed, so has Apple’s updates to the iPod: Apple no longer updates its iPods annually like it usually does with its top sellers.

The new iPods will be available starting Wednesday. The iPod touch starts at $249for the 16GB model and goes up to $499 for the 128GB model.

– With files from The Associated Press