Earlier this week was Apple’s iPod event and we got exactly what we expected. Our gift from Apple included the 4G iPod Nano, 2G iPod Classic, 2G iPod Touch, iTunes 8, and the iPhone 2.1 firmware update for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The new 4th generation iPod nanos come in nine vibrant colors, and sport a new curved aluminum and glass design - sure to please a lot of skeptics of the previous iPod nano update last year. The new nano features an accelerometer for landscape viewing of movies and the new Genius feature — but more on that later. These start at $149 and are available in 8GB and 16GB varieties.

The 2G iPod Touch brings the design language of the iPhone 3G. While it doesn’t sport many real hardware changes, it also has the new Genius feature and a reciever not dissimilar to Bluetooth for the Nike + iPod extension. These are available in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB (!) varieties starting at $229.

It’s quite obvious that Apple is trying to phase out it’s best-selling iPod, the iPod classic. The 2G iPod classic is more like a downgrade: the only addition is the Genius feature. On the contrary, the available varieties went from 80GB and 160GB to only 120GB. As Apple puts it, “One size fits all.”

iTunes 8 is probably one of the bigger updates of this year’s event. iTunes 8 brings a new “Grid mode”, a real treat for users who keep up with their album art. On top of that is that Genius feature, which creates playlists based on the songs you like. We also got a new Magnetosphere-like visualizer, but it comes nowhere near the quality of the real thing, which is quite disappointing. This isn’t to say it’s not good, it’s just not satisfying.

It was a pretty nice event. Now let’s hope that soon we get some new MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Those are really overdue for an update.