Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs has unveiled a new version of the company's popular iPod media player that's based on the iPhone, featuring wireless Internet access and a Web browser but not mobile phone capability.
Dubbed iPod Touch, the 8-millimeter-thick device and can store photos, music, videos and other digital data. It features the same 3.5-inch, touch-screen display as the iPhone, on which light finger touches allow the user to scroll through menus and use two fingers to resize pictures.
The iPod Touch also has built-in wireless Internet access and the Safari Web browser, including Google and Yahoo search engines and easy access to YouTube videos. The iPhone, which runs on the AT&T cellular network, also includes Wi-Fi.
An 8-gigabyte version will cost $299. A 16-gigabyte version will cost $399. It will be shipped worldwide starting later this month.
"It's one of the seven wonders of the world, it's just incredible," Jobs told employees and journalists gathered at a special media event near downtown San Francisco.
Jobs also unveiled other new iPod models, including an iPod Nano with a 2.5-inch video monitor for watching movies and playing built-in games. The current version has a 2-inch screen but does not play videos.
"It's incredibly tiny. It's incredibly thin," Jobs said of the new Nano, which features a 320-by-240-pixel screen with 24 hours of audio playback. "We think it's really, really beautiful."
The new Nano, which will be in stores starting this weekend, will come in a 4-gigabyte version for $149, and an 8-gigabyte version for $199.
Apple also announced it will be selling ring tones for the iPhone for 99 cents, plus the 99-cent cost of the song. Ring tones from more than 500,000 songs available on iTunes will go on sale next week.