The iPhone now has a non-telephonic sibling. As part of a revamp yesterday of its iPod players, Apple unveiled the iPod Touch (see photo on the right. Click to enlarge.), a multimedia player looks like the iPhone and has the same features and capabilities except it lacks a phone, a camera, and the iPhone’s text messaging and e-mail applications. A Touch with 8 gigabytes is $300; one with 16 gigabytes is $400. The players will be available later in September.

The Touch also led Apple to touch up the iPhone, launched just two months ago. Effective now, they have discontinued the 4-GB iPhone and cut the price of the 8-GB model by $200, to $400. (In addition to making the iPhone more affordable, that means those who already own the device have essentially paid a premium of around $3 a day to be among the first iPhone users.)

These images (click to enlarge) show how similar in appearance the new iPod Touch (on the left) is to the two month old iPhone (on the right).

Also, as Apple promised when the iPhone debuted, sometime this month the iPhone will be able to download iTunes content via their Wi-Fi connection. (The Touch will also have this capability.)  iPhones already in circulation will need to download a patch. Among the available downloads for the iPhone will be song-based ringtones. The catch, you’ll have to pay iTunes 99 cents for the privilege, even if you already own the song.

Other iPods have been revamped, with these new models available as of this weekend:

The largest-capacity iPod ever. The hard-drive-based iPod, now called the iPod Classic, is getting a minor facelift and a major boost in storage. There will now be a 160-GB (40,000-song) iPod, the biggest capacity ever for an iPod, at a price of $350, the same as the previous 80-GB model. The new 80-GB model will be $250. The Classic will come in black or white.

A Nano with video. A new Nano (see photo left, click to enlarge) will be able display videos on a screen that’s been expanded to 2 inches in diameter. It has a new squarish shape (2.5 in x 2.06 in. x 0.26 in.). There’s no longer a 2-GB Nano. The new 4-GB version costs $150 and is available in silver. The 8-GB model costs $200 and is available in silver, blue, red, green, and black.

More colors for the Shuffle. The Shuffle is available in more hues, including silver, blue, red, green, and purple.  Otherwise, it's unchanged -- it still lacks a screen, and there’s still only one capacity, 1 GB, and one price: $80.

-- Mike Gikas