It's safe to say Apple's iPod line has soundly conquered the media player market, so now it's looking for new arenas in which to do battle. Judging by the show Apple put on this week, portable gaming and pocket camcorders top its to-do list. Meanwhile, Sprint made new plans, Toshiba made peace with Blu-ray, and Rhapsody made it into the App Store.
As for the iPods, it looks like Apple is throwing some punches at other device makers in general -- not necessarily other MP3 players. The iPod nano now has a video camera, and Apple made a point of comparing it to a much less compact pocket camcorder from Flip that sells at a similar price.
The iPod touch did not get a camera, but it will now go all the way up to 64 GB of storage if you're willing to pay top dollar. The big theme for the touch, though, was gaming. Top-shelf game makers like Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS)
got some stage time to show off their new stuff. Apple wasn't shy about shoving around its gaming rivals, either: It called out the PlayStation Portable and the Nintendo DS, the two big names in portable systems. Neither of those guys has nearly the same game selection that can be found in the App Store, Apple said. Plus, their games are more expensive -- and you have to actually get off your duff and go to a store in order to buy them.
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