Presenting, the new iTunes... with a social twist!

The snazzy new logo

Apple's upcoming event was generating quite a buzz online. And now, here it is. Apple announced a lot of anticipated stuff. There's the new iPod touch with two cameras, there's the new iPod nano with a touchscreen and the new (not so attractive in my opinion) iPod shuffle, with VoiceOver.

Oh, so Lady Gaga likes MJ?
Photo credit: Apple

One thing that caught my eye was the new iTunes. Now, it's a long time using iTunes 9 (and a long time seeing the old-school logo). Finally, iTunes 10 is here. What's more, it has a new social twist. The web is getting more and more social every day. Apple has caught up with it. The new "social network for music" is called Ping.

Now, Ping is made to help us follow our friends and also artists and know what they're talking about, listening to and downloading. From the website, it seems very much like another version of Twitter, for music. Now, iTunes will probably let your friends know about your activity on the Store, and thus, popularize the artists and other people in the process. Oh yes, and that will generate more revenue for Apple too.

Photo credit: Apple

Now, iTunes 10 has a complete visual revamp. It looks more like the iOS 4 and the new 'iDevices'. The volume control slider, for example, looks a lot like the switches and sliders on the new iPhone and iPods. Having abandoned curves and adopted more sharp bodies, the iDevices have influenced iTunes too. Everything (apart from being grayer than ever) has sharp edges, and less shadows. Of course, the Store will look different too, and it now has TV show rentals for just 99 cents. That's great too.

I don't remember another time where Apple announced so many things together. What do you think is the best?


Update: There's a problem with the update apparently, and many people are not able to download the latest version. Some sites say that the one on the website is also not the latest. We need to wait until the issues are cleared up.

Presenting, the new iTunes... with a social twist!