Apple live blog: September 2010 music event as it unfolded

Welcome to CNET UK's live blog of Apple's September product announcement. We sent our most caffeine-filled journalists to the press conference, to bring you up-to-the-minute updates and UK-focused commentary. Tell us your reactions to Apple's new products in the comments section at the bottom of the page or on the CNET UK Facebook page.

19:30: That's it, folks! Our ringing ears are off for some rest. Make sure you check back later for our first impressions of the new products. Bye!

19:27: The iPod shuffle 2GB will be £39, and available next week. The iPod nano 8GB will be £130. You'll pay £160 for the 16GB model, also out next week.

19:24: Chris is still singing, but we have UK prices. Apple TV will cost £99 and can be pre-ordered today. The iPod touch 8GB will cost £189, the 32GB model will cost £249, and the 64GB will set you back £329. They'll be out next week.

19:17: Uh-oh, Chris' jacket is off. My wife's brother is a very good pub singer. They should have got him to do this. It would have been in tune. Where is auto-tune when you need it?

19:14: Once this is done, we'll get our hands on the new products and we'll update the story with whatever UK pricing information we can find. In the meantime, can someone please ask Chris Martin to write songs that actually sit within his vocal range? It's like listening to the world's best-paid cat sing. Thanks.

19:12: We're now about to be treated to a performance by Coldplay. We're bracing ourselves. Where are our earplugs? Oh, it's not all of Coldplay, just Chris Martin. We want our money back! What's that? It's free? Oh, okay.

19:09: Steve is summing up and wrapping up. The Apple TV and iPod nano could be big at Christmas. Let us know in the comments section what you think. Apple TV will ship within four weeks.

19:06: You can stream movies stored on an iPad to your Apple TV -- now that is clever. Woo-hoo! The UK will get Apple TV! It will cost $99 in the US. Our guess is that means £100 here. We can't wait to hear Sky, Virgin and Project Canvas' reactions to this.

19:00: Steve hasn't mentioned price yet, but it should be cheap -- there's very few electronics inside this device. Virgin Media could learn a lot from the simplicity of Apple's interface -- it's very straightforward.

18:57: The menus look similar to the way they do now -- so very pretty. We will be both impressed and surprised if this comes out in the UK at the same time as the US -- the rights to get TV rentals this cheap would be a nightmare. Fingers crossed though. YouTube is also supported, natch.

18:56: In the US, they can rent HD movies for $4.99. We wonder if this is US-only? HD TV shows will be 99 cents to rent in the US. Apple has ABC and Fox on board, but not the rest of the US studios. The rest of the networks will follow, says Steve. Apple TV also supports streaming photos from Flickr.

18:55: You can stream from your computer. It's basically a media streamer then.

18:54: There's no power brick, but it has HDMI, Ethernet and optical audio ports. It also has Wi-Fi built in. It comes with an aluminium remote. Now you will rent everything -- you don't buy movies, so no need for storage. Steve says it's cheaper to rent several times than it is to buy.

18:52: Steve says they don't want to manage storage, or sync to a computer -- it's too complicated. They want the hardware to be silent, cool and small. Today Apple launches the second-gen Apple TV. It's a quarter of the size of the old one. It fits into the palm of Steve's hand.

18:51: It's Apple TV. Steve says it's never been a huge hit, but users that have the device love it. Users say they want Hollywood movies and TV shows, not "amateur hour". They also want HD, lower prices, and they don't want a computer on their TV apparently.

18:50: iTunes 10 is available today. Our advice if you're on a PC is to wait a week or so in case of any nasty bugs. Mac guys, you'll be fine. Steve has "One more thing -- actually one more hobby."

18:49: Ping will also be available on the iPhone and iPod touch. It shows up as a new button at the bottom of the iTunes store app.

18:47: We're now watching a demo. It looks simple -- nothing revolutionary -- but we suspect Apple is aiming for simplicity of use rather than features, which is its strength. Ooh -- Steve Jobs has a Ping profile! Hopefully this will be the source of a great many news stories, like his emails to random punters.

18:44: It's interesting that he's emphasising privacy -- he says it's super-simple. It's easy to make the contrast with Facebook's hard-to-fathom privacy settings. Ping is available now, across much of the world.

18:43: It's very similar to what's already out there -- find the people you want, and press a 'follow' button to receive updates from them.

18:42: You get a custom top-ten chart that shows what people you follow are downloading from iTunes.

18:40: Ping is unveiled -- a social network for music, built right in to iTunes. You can follow artists and friends, and see what they are listening to.

18:38: Next up is iTunes 10. Apple is dumping the CD from the iTunes logo. What's new? "It's more elegant." Haven't heard that description of iTunes before.

18:35: All the iPods will be available from next week -- pre-order today, says Jobs. We're now looking at the new iPod ads. However good or bad it is in reality, we have no doubt the iPod nano will sell well.

18:34: It also has the same chip as the iPhone 4, a front-facing camera, FaceTime video calling, a gyro, and a rear camera with HD video recording capability. You can edit videos, like you can with the iPhone 4 -- it's basically the iPhone 4 without the phone. There are three models -- 8GB, 32GB and 64GB.

18:32: Steve says it's the number-one portable game player in the world, outselling Nintendo and Sony's portable gaming thingies combined. 1.5bn games and entertainment apps have been downloaded. The new one is thinner, although we're struggling to see the difference from the pictures. Otherwise it looks pretty similar. But it has the 'retina' display from the iPhone 4 -- that will look good.

18:31: The iPod touch is the most popular iPod, Jobs says.

18:30: Steve didn't realise the screen was upside down! He's not infallible! There is hope for us all! It comes in seven different colours. There will be 8GB and 16GB versions.

18:28: The interface is a small version of iOS. It'll be interesting to see later if that screen is just too small to use in real life. You can rotate the screen with two fingers. That's cool.

18:27: The pictures we're seeing are seriously impressive. After years of seeing basically the same nano unveiled again and again, it looks pretty exciting. Looks like it has lost the camera on the previous-gen model, although we'll have to confirm that in our hands-on article later.

18:24: Now the iPod nano. This is the big one -- Apple's gone with a multi-touch screen. It's tiny -- a square with room for four icons on the screen. It's nearly half as small and light as the previous model. It has a clip and hard volume buttons. It supports FM radio, and Nike+. It has a 24-hour battery life.

18:22: Steve is walking us through the previous generations of the shuffle -- the second was the best in our opinion. "People missed the buttons." The new one basically features the central button of the second-gen model. It's a square shape that's as small as it could be. It has a clip on the back. It supports playlists, Genius Mixes and VoiceOver, which reads out song titles and so on. The battery lasts for 15 hours. It comes in five different colours, for $49 in the US -- so about £50 here, we'd guess.

18:21: Now onto the new iPods. Apple's sold 275m iPods. Ooh -- every iPod has been redesigned. Bad luck if you just bought one. The iPod shuffle is first up.

18:20: Folders works in the same way as on the iPhone. iOS 4.2 will be out in November. It will be a free update.

18:17: AirPlay is the new name for AirTunes. You will be able to stream audio and videos over Wi-Fi. Steve is demoing iOS 4.2 on an iPad, playing music while checking email (yes, it supports multitasking).

18:16: Now we're looking at iOS 4.2, which will be out later this year. It's all about the iPad. It brings the iOS 4.1 features to the iPad, along with wireless printing and 'AirPlay'. You print from the tools menu on the iPad. The print jobs appear in the block of apps at the bottom.

18:15: Steve is back! iOS 4.1 will be available next week, as a free download from iTunes.

18:13: Capps is showing how easy it is for game developers to integrate the multi-player stuff, as it's all done for them by Apple. There are a few third parties that do this sort of thing already, but this could kill them off, and Apple's offering does look easy and visually impressive. Project Sword will be out at Christmas time.

18:11: Mike Capps, president of Epic Games, is now on the stage. He's talking about Project Sword -- a role-playing adventure. It's a 3D game with sword fighting. The graphics look good considering this is on a phone.

18:10: More on Game Center. It's all about multi-player games. You can compare scores, and you're automatically matched with people of a similar skill level. Users invite you -- the invite looks like a standard iPhone message.

18:09: Here's what high-dynamic-range photos are: the phone takes three photos -- normal exposure, under-exposed and over-exposed -- and combines them. Steve is showing how this can pull out more detail in the background.

18:07: iOS 4.1 is introduced today. Lots of bugs have been fixed. High-dynamic-range photos are new. Also new is hi-def video upload over Wi-Fi, and Game Center support.

18:06: Apple is activating 230,000 devices per day (new activations). Over 6.5bn apps are now on the App Store -- 200 apps every second are being downloaded. Whatever you think of the iPhone, that's an amazing stat.

18:05: Now onto iOS, the operating system on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Apple has shipped 120m iOS devices since the first appearance of the operating system.

18:04: Over half of customers are buying Macs for the first time -- you have to admire the job Apple has done with this.

18:03: Apple now has 300 shops, in ten countries. It's about to be 11, with the addition of Spain. Some days, over 1m people visit. Yeah, but how does it compare to PC World, Thurrock?

18:02: They look impressive on the pictures, and packed, as always. Will Covent Garden be called out? Yes! We're not left out. "It's fantastic," says Jobs.

18:01: Steve is starting with an update on the Apple shops. This is normally the bit the head of Europe does -- wonder if he's annoyed at his thunder being stolen? Steve Jobs is excited about the Paris and Shanghai stores.

18:00: The copyright message is up. Strap yourselves in folks. Yay! It's Steve -- he's looking good and happy to be on stage.

17:59: The press conference is taking place in the YBCA Theater in San Francisco. Wasn't that a song? "It's fun to watch Apple at the YBCA..."

17:58: We have live video from San Francisco! Everyone looks so tanned, happy and ordered.

17:53: The arrival of the head of Apple Europe is either delayed, or has been cancelled. Much speculation in the hall as to whether The Beatles will finally show up on the iTunes store after a track by the band was heard.

17:49: So far, our plan of attack is going well.

17:46: Your reaction from our Facebook wall so far to the increased song samples on iTunes: "Booya! Making mixed tapes like I used to do with the radio top-40 countdown when I was young, trying to stop the tape before the DJ spoke," Daniel Simmonds says. Luke Curtis is all about Spotify.

17:42: We are expecting the head of Apple Europe to pop on stage shortly to tell us how well the company's done -- we'll let you know what he says. After the event is over, we're expecting to get our hands on whatever new products are launched, when we'll bring you our first impressions. Until then, let us know what you want to see come out of today's announcements in the comments section.

17:41: We've ensconced ourselves in the French section of the Apple press conference, ready once again for the annual weirdness that is sitting in a large room watching a man in America voice his wisdom via satellite. So far we have found out that Apple serve Strathmore water (controversial?). Also we learnt that the length you can preview a song in iTunes might increase to 90 seconds from 30.