Apple announced details of its brand new iPod line-up today, and also revealed the latest incarnation of its Apple TV set-top box. Also shown-off was a new version of iTunes with a social network element called Ping.

Ping is a new social network based around music – what you’re listening to, who you are going to see, what you’ve bought. It’s accessed through the new iTunes 10 on your Mac or PC, or though the iTunes store app on your iPhone or iPod touch.

Here’s a run-down of the new hardware announced today.

iPod shuffle

First up was the new shuffle, which looks very much like the old shuffle. The last version – tiny, without buttons – did not sell too well, so the buttons are back. The price is an astonishingly low £39, with 2GB of storage.

iPod nano

The nano is all-new, super-small, and features a multi-touch interface to replace the click wheel of old.

But what’s notable is what’s been taken away, too – the new nano doesn’t even play video, let alone capture, as did the model it replaces.

What Apple gives is the new interface, and the incredibly small size – small enough to clip it to your clothes (like you can with the shuffle). Prices start at £129 for an 8GB model. 16GB costs £159.

iPod touch

The touch looks similar to the old version, but is a bit thinner. It couldn’t be more different feature-wise, though. Added are front and back cameras, the super-sharp Retina display, and the A4 chip that powers the iPhone 4 and the iPad.

So, with a new touch, you can capture and share HD video, and place FaceTime calls to other touches or iPhone 4s. An 8GB touch will cost you £189, all the way up to £329 for 64GB. 16GB costs £249.

Apple TV

The new Apple TV is tiny, and has no internal storage to speak of. All the content it can play is streamed over WiFi – either as rentals from iTunes, or from you computer, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad. The new Apple TV sells for a knock-down £99.

I’ll have more on the new Apple TV, and how it squares up to Google TV, in Saturday’s column, either in our Weekend supplement in the paper, or right here.

As promotional stunts go you have to say this is among the most inventive – how does getting a free haircut and meeting glamour model Lucie Self sound?

Pop along to the Trafford Centre on Thursday (September 2), and you can do just that. Why? Well, to celebrate the release if new mobster crime video game Mafia II, of course. Why else?

It’s part of the Mafia II Pop-up Barbershop tour, where “shoppers can turn up on the day to get a free haircut, free T-shirt, meet glamour model Lucie Self, and have some hands-on time with the game”.

FOUR friends taking a break from their love troubles and travel abroad for some sun, surf and spirits.

Sounds like the premise of SATC 2.

But swap your Manhattans for cheap lager, the five-star Abu Dhabi resort for a Cretian holiday camp and sophisticated humour for toilet jokes and you have the anti-SATC if you like, a big screen version of The Inbetweeners.

As a fan of both Channel Four-aired shows, I ‘m looking forward to seeing the hapless, spotty foursome humiliate themselves on the big screen as I have the sense of humour of a 15-year-old boy.

I’ve been thinking about it’s appeal and aside from being very funny in that awfully uncomfortable way that makes you want to shield your eyes at times, it also appeals to the everyman – or at least the everyman who doesn’t get portrayed in hipper shows like Skins.

As someone who’s just turned 30, it also doesn’t make me feel old unlike most Channel Four shows, mostly as it reminds me of how much I really don’t iss school.

Ironically, similar rumours which have dogged SATC seem to be circling about the movie, with reports claiming Will aka briefcase ****** aka Simon Bird was demanding more cash.

Fortunately, it seems the movie is now going ahead without a hitch.

About time really, we really need some more toilet humour on the screen.

Michael Frontzeck might not be the most famous City name from down the ages, but fans might like to know he’s had a decent weekend.

Now coach of Borussia Monchengladbach, Frontzeck watched his side record a remarkable 6-3 win over Bayer Leverkusen.

He said: “We had not even considered a 6-3 win in our wildest dreams. We have delivered a near-perfect away performance.”

People are going on about England’s batting being a touch dodgy, but hold on a minute, give Pakistan’s bowlers due credit.

I mean, what a bowler Mohammad Amir is. At the tender age of 18, he obliterated England’s top order at Lord’s today.

Late swing, jagging bounce, pace and at times simply unplayable. Eoin Morgan got the jaffa of all jaffas, a veritable rip snorter of a delivery that arrowed towards his off-stump before straightening to catch the edge.

England fan or no, you just have to take your hat off to quick bowling of that calibre. Wasim Akram mark 2.

:: Well Mr Woods, something off your mind? Earlier this week divorced, Thursday he shoots the lights out at Ridgewood in the Barclays. And what of the FedEx Four? Find out here from the always impressive PGATour website.

The Incident
iPhone/iPod touch/iPad
(Big Bucket Software, £1.19)

THE Incident is a simple idea brilliantly executed. Its retro graphics and sound recall the halcyon days of gaming, when how a game looked mattered less than how it played. Although the look of this game is impressive, it’s the simple gameplay that hooks.

You control a man on a platform with simple taps and tilts. His job is to avoid the myriad items dropping out of the sky, then climb on them to make his way upwards to discover their source. It sounds easy, but its not. And that’s what keeps you coming back for more.
It gets extra points for being a universal app, too – buy it once and play it on your iPad, and your iPhone or iPod touch.

5/5

There are various ways of disposing of radioactive waste.

If it is deemed an intermediate risk, it can be encased in a concrete cask, placed inside a concrete trench, and then covered with concrete and clay slabs. If the stuff is really potent, it can be deposited deep into the earth, where it hopefully doesn’t do damage to the environment.

But seeing as this is a sports blog and we like to keep things light-hearted, I think the deep geological repositories might be going a bit far.

And getting (slowly) to the point, while I was watching City against Liverpool, I was sensing the Blues’ deeply unstable past being buried.

For so long City have been the great unpredictables, the great self destructors, the Typical City.

The line up against Liverpool smacked of a club determined to encase and bury that past.

Gareth Barry, Nigel de Jong, Yaya Toure, James Milner – concrete and clay slabs of Premier League football if ever I saw them.

As much as Liverpool tried to break through, they were met by yet more barriers – Vincent Kompany and his Go Go Gadget legs, a reinvigorated Kolo Toure and finally, the irrepressible Joe Hart.

If any historical perspective were needed – the last time City did that to Liverpool was 1937.

There is no way City can get away from their past – and I’m sure they don’t even want to. Their randomness has long been their USP. But what they can do is seal the negatives underground – and boy do they have the budget to do that.

Will it work? Who knows, it is early days and three games into the season is no reliable time to judge. One thing is for sure, Typical City’s half-life is not spent yet.

:: The true depth of City’s squad is exposed by who didn’t play last night: Emmanuel Adebayor, Mario Balotelli, David Silva, Shay Given, Aleksandar Kolarov, Jerome Boateng. Crikey.

:: Well I knew it all along, the great Zinedine Zidane must be an avid reader of this blog. What other explanation can there be for his weekend salute of United’s Paul Scholes? Zidane said: “He’s almost untouchable in what he does. I never tire of watching him play. You rarely come across the complete footballer, but Scholes is as close to it as you can get.” And here was me getting laughed out of town for even comparing the two last week. The whole episode has given me an idea for another blog – was David Brightwell as good as Franco Baresi…

:: Just what is going on with Europe’s Ryder Cup team? We’re supposed to be the united ones, not the Americans. But with the likes of Paul Casey, Luke Donald and Padraig Harrington all choosing to swerve the Gleneagles tournament and play in the FedEx Cup play-off series, you have to question priorities.

WE had to do a double take when we first spied Manchester United star Nani out on the town with his gorgeous WAG Daniela Martins.

Daniela is pictured here on the left as she headed on a night out to Italian restaurant San Carlo with Nani.

But we couldn’t believe how much Portuguese Daniela resembles the newest WAG in town – Blues star Mario Balotelli’s missus, Italian beauty queen Melissa Castagnoli, pictured here on the right

Both girls share long glossy blonde tresses, similar features and stunning figures.

And they even wore almost identical outfits for both of their recent trips to celebhaunt San Carlo – skinny jeans, wedge sandals and fitted jackets.

Do we sense a WAG blueprint emerging here?

MANCHESTER Pride always means one thing for glamorous actresses Suranne Jones and Vicky Binns – party time.

For both girls share the same birthday, August 27, which always tends to coincide with Pride’s Big Weekend of events over the bank holiday.

And Vicky and Suranne, whose portraits both feature in the Pride Exhibition at Selfridges, tell me they will, again, be holding their birthday bashes down at Pride.

Former Coronation Street star Suranne tells me: “Every year I always celebrate my birthday at Pride.

“This year I’ll be joining Antony Cotton and Sir Ian McKellen for lunch, and then in the afternoon I’ll be meeting up with all my pals to watch the mainstage events.”

The Diary recalls that last year Suranne’s birthday ended up with her and pal Sally Lindsay on the mainstage – with Sally even doing the splits.

“Yes, and Antony ending up serving hamburgers in one of those vans,” she giggled. “But I don’t think we’ll be quite as mad this year though.”

Meanwhile Vicky, Corrie’s Molly Dobbs, tells me as well as partying for her birthday over the big weekend, she will be among the show’s stars taking to a Corrie float for the first time in the big Pride Parade on Saturday.

She said: “I can’t wait, I’ve always loved going to watch the parade because of all the energy and support from everyone. But being on a float in the parade is going to be brilliant.”

THIS is about five years late for a review but I finally got round to seeing Transamerica this week.

I was a bit worried it would be a bit too American arthouse ie. where critics salivate over films where NOTHING happens.

Instead it was an incredibly moving film and truthfully honest film about a disfunctional father/mother and son relationship.

It takes about five minutes to forget that it’s Desperate Housewife Felicity Huffman a woman pretending to be a man about to become a woman and when you do it’s an utterly convincing performance.

For a review of Toy Story 3, log on in another five years.