iPod Reloaded The tiny Video iPod plays music, videos and photos and has barrels of memory OUR TECHNOLOGY EDITOR 13th October 2005: Wonderful things often come in little packages. Apple's Steve Jobs yet again proved the stork right on Wednesday, October 12, unveiling the Video iPod, which has been as anticipated as a newborn. The Video iPod joins the family of iPods including the iPod Nano, iPod Photo and iPod Shuffle. Priced at $299 and $399, the two variants of the video iPod have oodles of memory at 30 GB and 60 GB. In the higher version, it is enough to hold 150 hours of video, 25,000 photos and 15000 songs, Apple claimed. The new video iPods will be available in white and black. Though the new video iPod is of the same height and width, it is about 30% thinner than its elder brothers. The video iPod comes barely a month after the launch of iPod Nano, Apple's tiniest iPod so far. Unlike the earlier iPods, the Nano uses a flash memory, while earlier iPods used hard drives. The video iPod has upto 20 hours of battery life and comes with the standard iPod clickwheel. The video iPod sports a 2.5-inch color screen which can display album artwork and photos, besides playing video including music videos, video podcasts, home movies and television shows. To give an initial push to the video iPod, Apple unveiled a deal with Wal Disney Co's ABC network to make episodes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" available for downloads on iPods immediately after their first broadcast. Apple is also starting sale of about 2000 music videos on its iTunes online music store with videos costing $1.99 each in the US. Announcing the launch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said that his company has sold 28 million iPods since it was first introduced in mid-2001. Currently, the iPod is the world's largest selling music player and is Apple's fastest-moving product yet. One million iPod nanos were sold in the first 17 days since the little wonder was launched last month. Apple says it is finding it difficult to keep pace with the ever-increasing demand for iPods. The original white iPods had storage capacities of 20 GB and 40 GB each. The new video iPods replace them with higher memory space, but are thinner than their elder siblings. Rumours of a video Ipod have been swirling around for long, but Steve Jobs had earlier denied any such plans, doubting demand for such a product. The Apple manouevre seems to have been an effort to throw the follow-on industry off its trail. Apple's shares have tripled in the last one year. This year too, its stock has been consistently on the rise. However, on the day of the video iPod launch, its shares fell. OUR TECHNOLOGY EDITOR