iPods slashed

As widely suspected, Apple revved the iPod line today but more pleasingly slashed prices across some of the range at the same time.

The iPod Mini's hard drive has been boosted to 6GB from 4GB and battery life upped to 18 hours, while still trimming the price by €30, thus cutting some of the wind from the sails of rivals who had trumpeted their superior storage and longevity. Interestingly, the older iPod Mini will - at least temporarily - still be sold for €210, a drop of €70.

The vastly overpriced iPod Photo, meanwhile, was lopped down to a much more reasonable €470 (from €660) for the 60GB, while a new 30GB version has emerged for €370. This was partly achieved by making the dock and cables optional, thereby effectively turning the iPod Photo into just a regular 'Pod with a colour screen (and leaving only one full-sized iPod (the 20GB) without a colour screen). Expect the latter to be upgraded next time out.

But the new iPods' cabling give a hint that Apple is moving away from FireWire, the high-speed connection it invented but which now has a serious rival in USB2. Apple no longer includes a FireWire cable to hook up the player to a Mac or PC. It's now an optional extra and pride of place in the box goes to the USB2 cord. This might be a problem if your Mac is more than a year old, before Apple started building in the faster USB2 connector as standard. Either put up with slow, old USB1 or buy the pricey €20 FireWire cable.