Inside Today’s Apple iPhone 4S Launch Were A Some Major Music Announcments

(UPDATE 2) Apple chief Tim Cook began today's press event with a history lesson: Since the iPod launched in 2001 "revolutionizing the industry", Apple has sold 300 million players (45 million so far this year) representing a 70% market share. iTunes, which has sold 16 billion song downloads to date, launched with 200,000 songs now has 100 times as many.  After reminding us all of just how much Apple dominates music, Cook & Company went on to make a few new music announcements:

iCloud

• Launches Oct 12
• 1/3 of the music sold on iTunes store is purchased on an iOS devices, says Apple.
• Songs purchased via iPhone or iPad on iTunes will automatically be downloaded to a users’ Mac for no additional charge.

iTunes Match – Finally some details…

• Launches end of October
• With over 20 million songs, "Apple has the largest music store in the world".
• iTunes Match "scans and matches your library against our 20M songs, we’ll upload. What we don’t find, we’ll stream,” said Apples Eddie Cue. BIG NOTE: He did say "stream".
• $24.99 per year

iOS 5

• Available as a free update on October 12

iPods:

• Apple is still making Nanos, but with a modified touch screen with a new clock face that also walking and running sessions. Price: $129 8GB, $149 16 GB
• New White iPod Touch
• Lower iPod Touch prices: $199 8GB, $299 32GB $399: 4GB
• Shuffle $49
• No word on the future of the traditional iPod.

Siri:

• Sophisticated voice recognition software that answers questions and performs commands like "playing X song".

Apple also announced a new more powerful iPhone 4S with a more versatile camera. It's a world phone: GSM and CDMA.