Truth be told, that $100 iMac price hike doesn't really bother us one bit-- in part for the incredibly selfish reason that we weren't planning on buying a new iMac anyway, so the increase doesn't put us out in the least, but also for the equally selfish reason that we're just far more excited about the developments in the iPod realm. As widely predicted, and as first reported by faithful viewer Lawrence Person, Steve indeed took the wraps off of a 10 GB version of that shiny little powerhouse ("2,000 songs in your pocket") during his Tokyo keynote, and it sells for $499. Better still, the original 5 GB model is still available at the same old price of $399, which means we can be happy that we bought our own iPods when we did, because waiting this long wouldn't have saved us a dime. We know, we know... a lot of you were banking on the original iPods coming down to $299 or so. Heck, we expected that to happen ourselves. As it turns out, though, as existing iPod owners who shelled out the 400 clams early on,in a perverse sorta way, we're actually a little glad that the original price stands. Sick, yes, but true. Sorry about that.

But even that's not what we found to be so spine-tinglingly thrilling in iPodville last night. See, according to Apple's official press release, instead of devoting development time to cobbling together Windows-compatible software for the 'Pod (a project that we'd consider to be a dreadful misuse of company resources), Apple has added all sorts of nifty enhancements to the iPod's software. First and foremost, the iPod now supports twenty equalizer settings, thus eliminating what was probably the most frequently-voiced criticism of the device other than its price tag-- and individual EQ settings can even be assigned per song and carried over from iTunes. We can personally attest to the fact that this makes our iPods a lot more listenable in the AtATmobile; there's no preset for "Blown Car Speakers," but for whatever reason, "Treble Reducer" makes for a decent substitute.

Then there's the new "Contacts" feature, which lets you tote up to a thousand contact entries on your 'Pod just by dropping VCard files (such as those dragged out of Palm Desktop 4.0 or Mac OS X's Address Book) into a special folder on the iPod itself. (Some folks over at ProVUE are smacking themselves right about now.) It's no substitute for a full-featured PDA, but if you're not the PDA type but won't leave the house without your tunes, you may well find the iPod's new Contacts feature a useful little bonus. Best of all, these and a host of other handy improvements are available for free to existing iPod owners simply by downloading and installing iPod Software 1.1. Life is good. (By the way, don't panic-- faithful viewer opus_gumbo notes that the Breakout game is now invoked by holding down the center button while in the "Legal" section of "Settings.")

And yet, we still haven't gotten to the real reason we're all agog, iPodically speaking. Larger capacities and a slew of new features are all well and good, but the true innovation to emerge from Apple's iPod department can be summed up in one glorious word: engraving. Yup, for just $49, the Apple Store with laser-engrave up to two 27-character lines of customized text right on the iPod's mirrorlike back. And while that doesn't do a whole lot of good to those of us who already own unpersonalized iPods, we're pretty sure that we can probably duplicate the effect after the fact with a steady hand and the pointy end of a Staedtler compass, so we're willing to be gracious about the new customers getting this spiffy new option.

All told, with a choice between 5 and 10 GB capacities, its new equalizer and Contacts functions, the ability to engrave a dirty couplet on its back, and Apple's apparent plan never to drop the iPod's price until Western civilization comes crashing down around our ears, you're clearly out of excuses; it's time to buy an iPod. Sell the kids if you have to; heck, you can always make more, right?