Apple held a special event dubbed, “Let’s Rock” today at The Yuerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco. I was going to attend the meeting but there were conflicts with scheduling but I didn’t miss much by not attending the event other than witnessing Steve’s awesome presentation skills.

Steve took that stage at 10AM local time to revise and refresh every iPod, make some announcements and release iTunes 8.0. iTunes 8 packed some new features, the iPod classic got a price drop and the iPod Touch received a slight redesign and some extra features that bring it on par with iPhone 3G. The big news was a new iPod nano. The iPod nano is Apple’s highest selling music player since its release and the new design adds a wider screen for better movie viewing, an accelerometer, more colors and a new design that’s thinner than the previous nano.

It has been a while since Apple has made me say “wow.” The last time Apple truly amazed me was when the MacBook Air was released in January of this year and the original iPhone was announced in January 2007. Lately, changes have been progressive and not revolutionary but there are some specific details from today that I think are pretty cool. You might want to read Apple’s Press Releases from today if you aren’t familiar with the announcements.

The iPod nano finally goes video with a widescreen display. I haven’t confirmed if the screen is true 16:9 aspect ratio but Apple does some very inventive things with the new screen real estate. Turning the iPod nano sideways changes to coverflow mode and videos all play in landscape mode for the best possible viewing experience. While browsing for the next song, the current playing song shows in the bottom 20% of the nano’s screen. The new nano has a glass screen which might not be a good thing but certainly makes for a more crisp picture when viewing photos and movies. The nano comes in 8 colors and 8 or 16 gigabyte capacities. I’m sure it’s a retail nightmare to stock 16 different nanos to a few hundred Apple Stores but all of those choices should equal many more sales for Apple.

The iPod Touch is the same thickness as before but the edges mimic The iPhone 3G as they taper down to nothing on the edges. The back is still stainless steel which means scratches will remain highly visible. I am extremely happy that Nike+iPod integration is built in to the iPod Touch because the only reason I keep using my 1st generation nano is for the Nike integration.

iTunes 8’s killer feature is the genius playlist that works like Pandora but for music that is already in your library. I can assemble 25 - 75 songs just like a particular song or artist that I like and iTunes puts it all in one playlist. It also shows songs that are in The iTunes Store that I can purchase to make my playlist complete. iTunes 8 also adds support for HD television episodes which is going to be awesome but HD episodes only play on your computer and not the iPod or iPhone. Apple also announced that NBC is back on iTunes which completely rocks. I personally thought NBC was dumb for ditching Apple last October and it’s nice to see them back in business.

That’s all for Apple news today.