Every September, Apple holds a special event attended by media and announces new iPods for the end of the year buying season. Yesterday, Apple announced that this year's event will take place on Tuesday, September 1.
Because one of the most popular iPods is the iPod touch — essentially just an iPhone without the phone — these iPod announcements tend to be significant even for iPhone owners. Indeed, sales of iPod touch devices means that there are even more devices running iOS, giving software developers even more of an incentive to develop great apps, meaning more great apps for iPhone owners.
Last year on September 9, 2009, Apple announced iPhone Software 3.1, iTunes 9 and and a new model of the iPod touch. (Click here for my rundown of last year's event.) I expect that we will see similar updates this year. We'll probably see a release (or at least an announcement of an upcoming release) of iOS 4.1, which will hopefully address the bug in iOS 4.0 that can sometimes cause the screen to activate when you are talking on the phone and the iPhone is next to your face. John Gruber expects iOS 4.1 to debut the new Game Center for iOS, which makes sense because the iPod will be the main focus next week and the iPod touch is even more of a game device than the iPhone. Hopefully iOS 4.1 has other great new features for the iPhone.
I'm sure that we will see a new version of the iPod touch which incorporates some of the same features new to the iPhone 4 such as the HD camera, a front camera for FaceTime and retina display.
There are also rumors that Apple will come out with a new version of the Apple TV based on iOS. I love my Apple TV, even though I admit that I don't use it very often, and it would be fun to see a new model, especially if it has interesting new features such as perhaps the ability to run iOS apps and has an attractive price. There are related rumors that Apple will allow you to rent TV shows on an iPhone for only $0.99.
And of course, there is always the possibility that we will see something that nobody is expecting.
Here is the picture (courtesy of Engadget) on the invitation that Apple sent to media outlets for next week's events, an indication that music (the iPod, iTunes, etc.) will be a focus of next week's event:
