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Apple Announces New iPod Nano, Showtime Joins iTunes

Big news from Apple today.

The creators from Cupertino have announced to TMZ that Apple will begin selling a new, even more affordable version of the Nano, which was introduced this past fall.

Greg Joswiak, VP of Worldwide Product Marketing for iPod, says the company is introducing a new 1 GB model for $149 (the previous model was 4 GB for $249) and a new 512 MB model of their popular Shuffle which will sell for $69. In addition, their regular 1 GB model will be reduced to $99.

None of the popular iPod features have been cut to get to those prices. All iPods will continue to include a dock connector which gives access to the over 2,000 iPod accessories.

"What's amazing is that when you compare the iPod's ramp to that of the Walkman is that we're growing at a substantially greater rate," Joswiak tells TMZ. "The Walkman people were creating a tape player, and they ended up commanding a shrinking part of that market. But we link great hardware with great software and great services, and that's why we continue to grow in both volume and market value."

iPod continues to be the most populardigital music player in the world; over 40 million have been sold,30 million in 2005 alone.

In addition iTunes, Apples music playerand retailer, has announced that they are adding the popularShowtime series 'Weeds,' 'Fat Actress,' and 'Sleeper Cell' to theirvideo store. The entire first seasons of the former two can bepurchased, along with "Sleeper Cell's' first seven episodes whichhave already aired.

According to Eddy Cue, VP of iTunes, 12million pieces of video have been purchased and downloaded in thefour months that video has been available; over 8 million in thelast month alone.

"It's hard for us to speculate whereit's going to go," Cue says. "But we know we're heading in theright direction. Your focus is to grow the catalog, and to expandit in the right direction. We just began our billionth songcountdown today. We're at 951,000,000 now."