The iPod Revolution continues...

Earlier today, Apple debuted the stunning iPod nano, replacing the iPod mini (the most popular music player in the world) with a smaller, lighter model a third the size with flash memory and a color screen. It weighs a mere ounce and a half, is thinner than a #2 pencil, and plays for up to 14 hours on a full charge. It's priced at $199 for 2GB (500 songs) and $249 for 4GB (1,000 songs) -- and it also comes in black. (FYI, Apple's sold 22 million iPods since the gadget's 2001 launch, and 6 million were sold in the June 2005 quarter alone.)

Oh, and they also announced iTunes 5 (immediately available as a free download), a Harry Potter iPod, and the iTunes phone - aka the Motorola ROKR from Cingular, the first mobile phone with iTunes. (Sadly, Motorola's industrial design skills pale in comparison to Apple's, and the ROKR holds only 100 songs. I'll stick to my Treo.)

UPDATE: Gadget guru and geek godfather Walter Mossberg offers a a rave review of the nano in Thursday's Wall Street Journal, stating "It's not only beautiful and incredibly thin, but I found it exceeds Apple's performance claims. In fact, the nano has the best combination of beauty and functionality of any music player I've tested."