Well, Steve Jobs is on stage in San Francisco, so let's begin our coverage of the event as it unfolds.

Brief hat-tip to Woz. Always good to see Apple's top geek get recognition.

Brief round up on new stores and apple retail. Jobs says that traffic is upwards of a million people per day, and half of all Mac sales are to new users.

On to iOS: 230,000 new activations per day. More than 6.5 billion apps, 200 downloads every second.

iOS 4.1 now being announced. Bug fixes. HDR photos (will be explained later) HD uploads, TV rentals and game centre.

HDR photos: takes multiple exposure photos and combines for best image. Should be useful for those quick outdoor shots.

Gamecenter: API and app made for multi-player and online games.Users can manage games, friend lists, leaderboards match up automatically. This could help Apple keep momentum in the gaming area amidst stepped-up efforts from the PSP and Android platforms. Epic Games now demonstrating Project Sword RPG.

Steve now back onstage. iOS 4.1 coming out next week as a free download on ITunes. Onto a sneak peek of 4.2, out in November this year and focusing on iPad. All the bells and whistles of iOS 4, wireless printing support.

Remember AirTunes? It's back for iPad under the name AirPlay.Jobs is demonstrating it by running Pandora while browsing the web. About time iPad got an implementation of iOS 4.

Alright, onto the meat of the matter: New iPods!

New version of every model. First, the Shuffle... buttons are back, design looks an awful lot like the second generation, with buttons and playlists from the third generation. Slightly smaller as well. Five colours, $49 retail price.

Onto the Nano: Clickwheel is gone, multi-touch is in. At that size could there be problems for those of us with big, clumsy thumbs? 24 hour battery life, FM radio, all that Nike+ stuff for the workout crowd. To get an idea of the new design, think a small, square iPhone screen with a clip on the back.

iPod Touch: touted as "iPhone without the contract." O2 and AT&T must be thrilled with that.
Upgrades: Thinner case, retina display. A4 processor, 3 axis gyro, front camera and FaceTime over WiFi. 40 hour battery life. 8GB $229, 32GB $299, 64GB $399. All launching next week, pre-orders starting today.

And now for iTunes... the CD logo is out, button-style logo is in. List view turned into hybrid view.. replaces repeated album titles with cover art. Ping music sharing. Jobs describes as Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes. Lists, shares recent activity. Those who tend to go on embarrassing iTunes buying sprees after a few too many drinks at the pub should be wary. In addition to music sharing, there's concert listings, artist bulletins and event sharing. Pretty standard social networking stuff.

iTunes 10 will be available today. Free download from Apple.

One more thing...

Apple TV: Jobs admits it hasn't been a big seller. Big studio movies, HD movies. Storage and synching are out. Much smaller size, support for Netflix streaming. Slide shows, TV downloads, etc. Nothing extraordinary to turn Apple TV into a game-changer, but a nice upgrade overall. Price cut from $229 to $99. That will definitely help sales. Apple TV just didn't make sense for game console money. Under $100 it is suddenly a tempting device to pick up when out holiday shopping. Will hit the market within 4 weeks.

Time for the musical act. Play Steve off... Coldplay singer Chris Martin.

01 Sep 2010