In case you were hiding under a rock hiding from today's scheduled "end of the world," yesterday was a major day for Apple and their darling iPod family. Oh yeah, and Steve Jobs is not dead as was previously rumored.

First, the new iPod Nano brings a new form factor. Gone is the fat and wide iPod nano, and its replacement is a sleek and sexy, curved tall beauty. It is crazy thin and is said to fit well in your hand. The 8GB unit will run $149 and the 16GB Nano will set you back $199. Also, addition to the new form factor you get a slew of new colors including orange, purple, and red.

Second, the iPod Touch lost a few inches and gained some features. It features a curve bevel like the iPhone, but it thinner. Also, it has a built-in receiver for the Nike + iPod unit. If you add the new onboard speakers and external volume control you get a nice unit. When you knock $100 off the price, you get a great iPod. The 8GB unit will run $229, the 16GB is $299 and the 32GB is $399. The iPod touch is no longer the iPhone minus a phone. It is officially its own unit.

Finally, the firmware coming to iPods and iPhone will feature a new Pandora-ish "genius" feature that will create playlists that reflect the "sound and feel" of your iTunes library. The 2.1 upgrade will reportedly fix some of my iPhone nightmares as well.

Toss in an version 8.0 of the iTunes software, mixit all together, and iPods had a great day. Oh yeah, and Steve Jobs is not dead.

Source.