Apple revamps the iPod Nano, promises iPhone fixes

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No big surprises during today’s big Apple event. Chief Executive Steve Jobs took the stage at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to unveil the thinnest iPod Nano ever for the fall season, available in nine colors (the black version isn’t pictured above) and at lower prices ($149 for 8-gigabyte and $199 for 16-gigabyte). The announcement shores up Apple’s product line going into the Christmas shopping season.

The event was also an opportunity for Jobs to show himself after speculation swirled in June that he was sick. Seemingly unchanged since he last appeared thin to many in June, Jobs pointed to a sentence on the screen that read: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.’

Among the other announcements: NBC Universal’s TV shows, such as ‘The Office’ and ‘Heroes,’ are coming back to the iTunes store. NBC had taken its shows off of iTunes because it wanted Apple to be more flexible in how it priced them. Jobs said that TV shows would be available in HD for $1 more.

Jobs said an upcoming software update for the iPhone should fix many of the problems people had experienced, including dropped calls and sluggishness syncing to iTunes.

An upgrade to iTunes will come with a new service called Genius playlist, which creates a playlist of songs that go well together from a person’s iTunes library with one click.

— Michelle Quinn