Apple announces TV rentals, new iPods, iTunes-based social network

Jobs also said Apple has sold 275 million iPods, and announced significant upgrades to every version of the portable music players. He said the high-end iPod Touch is now the most popular portable video game device, while unveiling a new version that strongly resembles the iPhone 4 without phone capabilities. He also showed off new versions of the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle.

Finally, Jobs announced an update to Apple’s online media store iTunes, which he said is about to surpass CDs in terms of music sales. Available today, iTunes 10 will include a music-centered social network called Ping that will allow users to track what their friends and favorite musicians are listening to. Users can choose whether or not to share their playlists and will be able to purchase songs directly from the network. It will be available to all 160 million users of iTunes.

Apple’s stock was up more than 3 percent at the time of this posting.