From their annual music-themed press conference in San Francisco today, Apple revealed plans to continue their strong relationship with digital music through an entirely new family of iPods and a new social network built into iTunes that will allow customers to follow each other’s music interests as well as their favourite bands and artists.

Ping

The social network is called Ping and is due to launch any minute now through the release of iTunes 10. The new version of Apple’s digital store includes a special profile section where customers can upload their photo, share basic information about where they live, and the kind of music they like. Anyone who joins can mark a band or song with a “Like” button, add a short post or comment for others to read, and send out a notice each time they purchase a song from iTunes.

For those with little interest in Social Networking, Ping will also allow bands and musicians to create their own profiles, offering a list of upcoming concerts, photos and videos from their tours, comments, and list bands and music they themselves have taken an interest in.

Powered by simple privacy settings, users can choose to either follow their friends or limit their involvement just to following their favorite artists. When you open iTunes you can visit the Ping section to see a waterfall feed of updates from all your related connections. Ping is free, and according to Apple, isn’t intended to compete against popular networks like Facebook or Twitter (in fact you can import your friends from Facebook), but simply to use that kind of dynamic to assist in finding new music at the iTunes store.

Ping will only be available to devices running iOS 4 or higher.

New iPod Family (Launching Next Week)

The new shuffle offers a return to the clickwheel and square, clip-on body, but with the added assistance of Voice Over, a synthesized voice that can speak aloud the names of bands and songs and deliver warnings on battery life A dedicated button lets you access this feature directly (instead of needing an earbud with remote) plsu you can now load it with Genius mixes. With 2GB of storage and 15 hours of battery life, it will sell for $59 CAN in five different colours.

Completely redesigned, the new nano includes a touchscreen display with multi-touch controls, FM Radio, and a pedometer for counting steps taken while walking. Although it’s not an iOS device, meaning it can’t download or run apps like the iPod Touch or iPhone, it does present it’s features as if they were apps, allowing you to customize their arrangement, change the screen wallpaper, and move the screen’s orientation around to suit how you have it clipped to your clothes. It will sell in six colours, including the new graphite and silver finishes, at $159 for the 8 GB model, $189 CAN for the 16 GB model.

Touted by Apple as their most popular iPod, the new Touch updates the devices with most of the features from the iPhone, save the phone part. It now includes a Retina Display, forward-facing camera with support for both still and video, HD Video recording and Facetime calling, a 3-axis gyro for advanced video games, and the A4 processor chip for speedy performance. The main difference between the new touch and the iPhone 4 is the lack of GPS, and flash. It will sell for $249 CAN for the 8GB model, $319 for the 32 GB model, and $429 CAN for the 64 GB model.

New Updates To Fix Bugs, Issues

Included as part of next week’s iPod releases will be iOS 4.1, a free software update that will include fixes for those hindered by the proximity sensor problems, issues with Bluetooth connections, and a number of issues some users have been eager to have resolved.

The update will also include new features such as Game Center, a video game network that supports multiplayer games and an achievement system, support for HD video uploading, and an HDR Photo mode that will allow the camera to take two reference photos to create one perfect image.

Second Generation Apple TV

It’s a business Apple has long described as a hobby. Apple TV, a device that manages digital content in an iPod way for your television will be replaced with a new model that is significantly smaller, lighter, and at $119 CAN, significantly less expensive. The focus will now be on rentals and streaming content alone. You simply connect the small, black box to your television using HMDI, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi and access streaming content from iTunes, YouTube, Netflix, and your home PCs.

The iTunes Rental store will offer new release movies in HD at $4.99 CAN and in the United States TV Shows for 99 cents. Apple is currently in talks with television networks to bring TV shows to Canada soon.

The idea is to make it very easy for the average person to watch content without have to connect a computer, fiddle with disks, or worry about storage or connections. This same system can be used for both audio and digital pictures.

Apple’s current video section on the iTunes Store will continue to run as normal for PCs, iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches. At today’s event Apple previewed a feature planned for release later on where users can stream content to the Apple TV from their iPad.

Clarification - Apple Canada sent a correction, noting that HD movie rentals in Canada will be $5.99 CAN each. There will be 6,000 titles available for rent, 2,800 in HD, 300 in French language. Older Apple TV models will still be able to access iTunes Store content as always.

iPad Update

In November the iPad will get an update itself. The release of iOS 4.2 will add wireless printing and AirPlay, a feature that will allow streaming of content between devices. This will also include the latest features add to the iPhone including Folders for organizing apps.