Hyped: iPod Touch VS Zune HD War Begins

If you haven’t been following tech news then let me quickly bring you up to speed on the ever growing touch screen craze that is taking over the technology world. Ever since Apple’s revolutionary capacitive touch iPhone and iPod Touch was introduced, there have been a slew of companies trying to get a piece of the Apple pie. An all out touch screen arms race has broken out ranging from the unknown upstarts all the way down to the usual suspects such as Microsoft, Sony, and Apple. However, it is hasn’t been easy taking on Apple’s very successful iPod line getting noticed in the portable music player space is becoming more difficult as the days go on. The only company that has a realistic chance of competing with the iPod Touch is Microsoft because of their marketing reach and almost endless cash support. News recently surfaced of Microsoft’s iPod Touch answer, the Zune HD, initiating another all out tech war between the two companies.

Apple has just announced that new iPod Touch models will be available for purchase today. The refreshed non camera having iPod Touch models are basically unchanged on the outside but add a boost of speed and power inside putting them on par with the iPhone 3GS-but without cameras. The 8 GB, 32 GB, and the newly added 64 GB models are priced at $199, $299, & $399 respectively. Although there are no dramatic changes in the the iPod Touch updates, this does even the playing field for a much anticipated Zune HD vs iPod Touch showdown. I personally believe that Apple’s iPod Touch has a huge advantage because their App Store, which contains over 75,000 applications, is very mature and robust. Microsoft’s lack of an App Store contender is an issue that they’re going to have to resolve if they plan on taking on the current PMP kings. It’s going to be very interesting to see how this all plays out, so I ask you will Microsoft be annihilated once again or will this turn into a head to head match up?

Also new iPod Nano models have been announced and they are also available today with an added camera for video recording, a microphone, speaker, pedometer, FM radio support, and Voice Over. The 8 GB Nano is priced at $149 and the 16 GB Nano is marked at $179.

Check out a Video of new Madden NFL 2010 game demoed on the new iPod Touch below

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