New iPod With Apple Music Said To Launch Wednesday

A new range of iPod upgrades is reported to arrive Wednesday. The iPod nano and shuffle will be receiving new colors, while the touch will see a serious upgrade in performance and features.

According to 9to5Mac, the new iPod touch will support Apple Music out-of-the-box, shipping with iOS 8.4 running on a 64-bit chip. The unspecified processor will run versions "beyond iOS 9." The current iPod touch will support iOS 9 when it arrives, but the four-year-old Apple A5 chip used is starting to show its age and may lose support soon.

The new touch will also feature a motion co-processor in the "M" range of chips that ship in iPhones. Introduced with the iPhone 5s, these chips keep track of how many steps the user has taken and provide motion data to apps. The original report states that the chip will support elevation tracking, which suggests it may use a barometer like the iPhone 6.

The camera is also receiving an update. While the current touch has a 5-megapixel camera, the new model bumps this up to 8 megapixels, bringing it in line with the iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6 megapixel count.

The report notes three models of touch will launch: a 16GB version for $199, a 64GB version for $299, and a 128GB version for $399. Apple has received criticism before for maintaining the 16GB model of iPhone, and if the rumors are true it suggests Apple is not yet ready to throw in the towel on its smallest device size.

Update: The new iPods are now available on Apple's online store. The "64-bit chip" in the touch has been revealed as an Apple A8, the same chip in the iPhone 6, while a 32GB model is also available for $249 alongside the 16GB, 64GB and 128GB models.