Apple shows off Apple TV and 2010 range

This week is going to be a busy one for the world of technology – the IFA is taking place in Germany and Apple has just shown off their new 2010 models of the Nano, Shuffle iPod Touch and their new Apple TV gizmo.

There isn’t much to say about the new Shuffle so we’ll get that out of the way first. It has a 15 hour battery, the button has made a comeback and is now on the front of the device, it comes in five colours and will be available from next week. $49 will bag you a 2GB model.

The Nano has had the biggest overhaul and has turned the most heads. It now has a touch screen which replaces the click wheel and it’s 46% smaller and 42% lighter. It comes in seven colours and has a 24 hour battery. It’s not all good news though – there’s no camera and no video playback. And although it has a time and date function, there’s no alarm feature…because it doesn’t have a speaker. Prices are set at $149 for 8GB or $179 for 16GB.

As predicted by many, the new iPod Touch is simply an thinner iPhone 4 minus the phone features. That means it’ll feature a retina display from the iPhone 4, an Apple A4 core, 3-axis gyroscope and FaceTime support due to the addition of a front camera. It’ll be arriving in US stores next week at a price of $229 for 8GB, $299 for 32GB, and $399 for 64GB. No 16GB or 128GB models it would seem.

If anything, Apple TV is inexpensive. The tiny black box will only cost $99. It sits under your TV and allows you to stream TV shows and movies onto your picturebox in 720p. Apple says that 720p works best for picture quality and bandwidth. Round the back you’ll find a HDMI port, Ethernet, optical audio, USB sockets and it also has 802.11n WiFi. TV shows from ABC and Fox will cost 99 cents at time,while HD movies will cost $4.99. Other services set to appear include YouTube, Netflix, photo sharing site Flickr and Mobile Me. Rotten Tomatoes will be providing information for the movie database. The device also comes with a white-coloured remote that resembles an elongated Shuffle.

Apple claimed during their conference that the iPod Touch is now the #1 gaming device outselling the Nintendo DS and PSP combined. This however does seem a little hard to swallow – at last count 132 million Nintendo DS handhelds have been sold compared to 120 million iPod Touch units.

Nintendo should be worried though, especially if Epic’s new iPhone engine – which can be seen for yourself by downloading the Epic Citadel demo – is anything to go by. You can read a little bit more about that over on Kotaku.