The new iPod generation

The Touch is Apple’s whizziest player to date, says linton chiswick

Last week, Apple announced an entirely revamped range of iPods; which is, arguably, news since Apple dominates the portable music player business like Heinz dominates the business of baking beans.

The Shuffle - the little one without the screen (£49.99) - retains its tiny clip-on form factor and still measures in at 1GB (enough for roughly 240 songs) but the hues are completely new. It's gone very Miami Vice, in muted pastel shades.

The iPod's teenage sibling,
the Nano, has had its edges

rounded and is stubbier than it used to be. However it now includes a two-inch, high-resolution display, bringing video and a new user interface (Coverflow allows you to flick through album cover art) to a

music player that's still easily pocketable. The Nano now comes in 4GB (£99, silver) and 8GB (£129, a choice of colours) varieties.

The big iPod is now the iPod Classic: slimmer, sharing the Nano's new user interface, and in Silver or Black, at 80GB (£159) and a giant 160GB (£229).

But the biggest news is the brand new Touch, almost an