Apple iPod is back – New iPod Touch launched with A8 Chip, 8MP Camera and Apple Music

So the rumors were true after all! Apple has brought back a refurbished iPod touch with a variety of colors, a faster processor, better cameras, fitness tracking capabilities and Apple Music. You can say that the new iPod is an iPhone minus the phone capability.

The iPod touch is available in several colors including silver, gold, space gray, pink and blue, all looking fabulous with their PVC-free aluminum body. Under the hood is the 64-bit A8 processor, the same that has been used in the iPhone 6. It also has M8 motion coprocessor that takes care of the fitness tracking.

The new iPod touch has a 4-inch (diagonal) retina display with 1136 x 640 pixels and 326 ppi resolution, an 8MP iSight camera with f/2.4 aperture, autofocus and 1080p HD video recording capability. There is a 1.2MP FaceTime HD front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture and 720p HD video recording capability. Apple has added popular features such as slo-mo and burst mode to give improved photo and video quality.

Apart from this there’s the fingerprint sensor, Siri intelligent assistant, Wi-Fi and Apple Music. Apple claims a battery life of up to 40 hours for audio playback and up to 8 hours for video playback. The device runs iOS 8.

Apple Music is available through the Music app and Apple is offering 3-month free trial to the users. After that, they will have to pay a $9.99 per month membership fee for individual accounts and $14.99 per month for a family plan with up to six family members.

It is obvious that Apple has revived its iPod line because it wants to popularize its new music service. The iPod touch is available since Wednesday from Apple’s online store as well as its retail stores and authorized resellers with prices starting from $199. The lowest 16GB version costs $199, the 32GB version costs $249, the 32GB version costs $299 and the top-end 128GB model costs $399. The 128GB version and the (PRODUCT) RED model will be exclusively sold through the Apple store.

Apple iPod is back – New iPod Touch launched with A8 Chip, 8MP Camera and Apple Music

Apple New Streaming Music Service Will Goes by the name Apple Music

Apple recently announced streaming music service which will be named Apple Music. It promises an integration platform for artists whereby an artist will have a page dedicated to them within the service which then the page can be used to post track samples, photos, videos and concert updates.

On top of that the artists will also able to share the content for other artist to help the other artist to promote their new singles or the upcoming concert. For example, Beyonce can use her page to promote Jay-Z’s new single. The users are allowed to comment on or like these posts provided if they have iTunes account.

The core feature of this music streaming service is the Artists Activity which fortunately, the users are allowed to disable this feature from the Restrictions panel in iOS 8.4 in case if they found this a little bit irritating. The service will be available across all platforms such as iOS, Android and Mac.

For users who have existing Beats Music cloud libraries, they are able to bring over their songs to Apple Music. iTunes Match and iTunes Radio is retained eventhough both of them overlapped each other in terms of functionality. iTunes Radio will be going through a revamp for improved mixes and international rollout to work similar to streaming service.

There are a few things that Apple is going to announce in Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference kickoff on Monday, June 8^th, including iOS 8.4, iOS 9, OS X10.11, Apple TV feature as well as Apple Music. I am looking forward to it.

Apple New Streaming Music Service Will Goes by the name Apple Music