Apple today announced a handful of minor updates to its iPod line: the iPod Nano and iPod Touch have received modest upgrades and price cuts. The iPod Classic, however, is MIA.

 

The Nano ($129 for 8GB and $149 for 16GB) will retain the same basic form factor of last year's model, but is given bigger icons to improve navigation, improves Nike+ support, and is given some new clock faces for people who want to use it as a watch. It seems like a firmware update could do all of this for the old Nano, but no such update was introduced Update: iPod Nano firmware 1.2, downloadable via iTunes, upgrades last year's Nano to this year's interface, making the products functionally identical.

 

The iPod Touch (8GB for $199, 32GB for $299, 64GB for $399) remains the same on the inside, but gets new capabilities courtesy of iOS 5 (reinforcing the software-centric nature of these updates). It now also comes in white. Apple’s decision not to use the A5 in the iPod Touch reflects both the fact that the A4 is still Good Enough for most tasks, and the fact that Apple needs all the A5s it can get for its phones and tablets.

 

I expect the iPod Classic will be discontinued, but cannot confirm or deny this at this time - the product was absent from Apple's slides, for what that's worth. Update: I'm now reading that the iPod Classic is still mentioned in Apple's press release: the 160GB model wil run $249. The iPod shuffle remains the same - last year's 2GB player for $49.