Apple's New Thing (iPod)

Brief bullets of what's happening with the announcement of Apple's new digital device gathered from a variety of sources:

• Jobs reviews Apple's "digital hub" concept announced in January. Speaks of the Mac as the focal point of one's digital lifestyle.
• Jobs mentions early November as ship time for iDVD2
• (from macminute): Apple introduces iPod, a digital audio player (MP3, MP2, more) with a 5GB hard drive (1000 songs). 20 minute skip protection. FireWire-equipped, first such music player. 10 hour battery, lithium-polymar ("most advanced battery; more advanced than laptop batteries"), takes 1 hour to charge. Size of a deck of cards: 2.4" wide, 4" tall, 3/4" thick.
• (from macminute): Backlit LCD display, playlist support, ID3 tag support, very fast and easy to go through list of songs and playlist with a scroll wheel. Interfaces with iTunes.
• iTunes 2 coming in November
• iPod will ship November 10
• iPod price = $399 (see it at the Apple Store)

Here's a link to Apple's iPod product page. It's worth nothing that this device doubles as a 5GB portable firewire HD for moving files here and there. While there are larger capacity, HD-based, portable MP3 players out there--all of them are larger than the iPod (significantly so). The iPod seems to hit a 'sweet spot' between size and storage capacity, while offering impressive battery life. $399 is a touch higher than many would anticipate, it seems.