Apple slashes iPhone price, debuts new services

At a San Francisco media event Wednesday, Apple announced that it will drop the price of its 8GB iPhone by $200 while discontinuing the 4GB version of the device. The 8GB model will now retail for $399, down from the $599 price tag attached at its late June commercial debut; the 4GB model previously sold for $499.

The iPhone pricing news was one of a series of announcements Wednesday--Apple CEO Steve Jobs also introduced the new iPod Classic (featuring 80GB or 160GB of storage for $249 and $349, respectively), a video-enabled iPod Nano and the new iPod Touch, which features the multi-touch user interface first introduced via the iPhone.

Apple also unveiled the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, which enables consumers to browse, search, preview, purchase and download music from the iTunes digital storefront directly to their iPod Touch or iPhone devices via Wi-Fi connection. In conjunction with the Wi-Fi Music Store, Apple announced an exclusive partnership with coffee behemoth Starbucks enabling customers to download music onto their iPod Touch, iPhone or PC or Mac running iTunes at participating Starbucks locations.

As anticipated [1], Apple additionally introduced a custom ringtone creation service--users may select 30-second segments from over a million participating tracks, setting personalized fade in and fade out points and syncing the resulting ringer with the iPhone. Still no word on the much-rumored addition of the Beatles [2] digital catalog, however.

For more on the Apple announcements:
- read these releases [3]

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