Mousetrap blog: what we thought of the new iPods | Apple owns up to iPhone problems I Video: Jobs on the iPod

Apple took the wraps off its offerings for the world’s Christmas present list with a revamped range of iPods and a new playlist function for iTunes.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, mocked speculation about his health with a quote from Mark Twain: “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

His frail appearance in June prompted reports that he might have suffered a reoccurrence of the pancreatic cancer diagnosed and successfully treated four year ago.

Last night at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, he was on stage for about 40 minutes, thin but energetic as he presented his company’s latest updates in the iconic iPod range.

The most eye-catching was the new iPod Nano. In a nod to its original shape, it is longer and thinner with a curved aluminium design. It has an in-built accelerometer which means that the image on the screen - of a photo, album cover or video - flips to fit whichever way the device is held.

The accelerometer also allows it to have, for the first time, a “shake-to-shuffle” mode which means users can shake the device and play a random tune from its downloaded library of music.

The new fourth generation Nano is said to be the thinnest iPod yet and this version comes in nine different colours.

The new Nano is expected to sell in the UK for £109 for the 8GB version and £149 for the 16GB version, enough to store 4,000 songs. They should be available in UK stores shortly.

The new Nano also features the new “Genius” playlist function from the updated iTunes online music store. iTunes version 8, available as a free download, has an updated browser feature and for the first time High Definition (HD) television programmes will be available.

But Steve Jobs spent most time describing the Genius function. If you select a song and click on the Genius icon, the service automatically creates a playlist from your library of music of songs that go together.

It does this by learning which songs millions of other iTunes users have put together for their self-made playlists. Apple said that when you turn on iTunes 8’s new Genius feature, information about your music library is anonymously sent to the iTunes Store, where it is combined with the anonymously-gathered knowledge from millions of other iTunes users and processed through Apple-developed algorithms.

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