Apple has dropped the price today on the 1GB iPod shuffle to a measly $49. The company has also announced a 2GB version to be available later this month for $69.

The iPod shuffle is just half a cubic inch in volume, weighs just half an ounce, features an aluminum design with a built-in clip and comes in five colors—silver, blue, green, purple and a (PRODUCT) RED special edition.

Although not the best of portable music players, at $49 the shuffle is certainly looking like a good deal.
Image courtesy of Apple

Apple has upgraded their iPhone and iPod Touch lines by doubling their storage. The new 16GB iPhone and 32GB iPod Touch are shipping immediately and are expected to be in stores within a few days. Both new models retail for $499.

DVICE also has some interesting predictions on where this trend is headed. They are forecasting a 256GB iPhone by September 2010. Now that’s big!

This upgrade is great news for the media junkies out there. Although great devices, the iPhone and iPod Touch are limited by the amount of storage they offer. Now that these two are coming up to par in storage, they will be much harder to beat.

We all know that Apple products aren’t the cheapest around, but according to a report by research firm Piper Jaffray that could change soon. The best part? The “coolness” factor doesn’t have to go.

In a report to clients, Piper Jaffray claimed that Apple saw the worst year-over-year growth rate in the history of the iPod. To change this, the firm thinks that Apple will have to change its strategy.

“In order to achieve this level of year-over-year iPod growth, we are expecting Apple to introduce cheaper, innovative iPods with Wi-Fi and multi-touch technology,” analyst Gene Munster wrote. “We believe that, despite a slowdown in growth in the MP3 market, Apple’s vision of the iPod line-up becoming a mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform will have two results. First, it will spur growth in the portable media player market, particularly from the replacement cycle. Second, if Apple is able to lower prices on Wi-Fi connected and possibly touch-screen iPods, it will be able to maintain or grow its leading market share position,” Munster concluded.

Apple has yet to respond on the matter, but considering the company’s close ties to Piper Jaffray, these predictions are probably not that far-fetched.