It’s that time of year again: when September pops up on the calendar, you know you won’t have to look far to find Steve Jobs on a stage somewhere introducing new iPods. This year was certainly no exception, as everyone’s favorite iconic CEO delivered the keynote at Apple’s “Let’s Rock” special event in San Francisco on Tuesday.

As the name implies, the event focused on Apple’s booming music business, which includes the iTunes music player, its accompanying online store and the ubiquitous iPod, an entity which, according to Jobs, has now sold over 160 million units for a phenomenal 73.4 percent share of the digital music player market.

All in the family: Apple's new iPod lineup. From left to right, the iPod touch, iPod classic, iPod nano, and iPod shuffle.Apple was coming off an incredibly busy summer full of highs and lows. On the plus side, they shipped the iPhone 3G, the successor to last year’s iPhone, which sold 1 million units in the opening weekend. This new iPhone has a faster data connection than the old model and sports a shiny new plastic exterior in black or white. Apple also introduced the MobileMe service, which, as a successor to .Mac (pronounced “dot-mac”), allows subscribers to sync their contacts, calendars and email across a wide range of devices such as the Mac, Windows PC and iPhone, all for a modest $99 annual fee.

Unfortunately, the launches of these great new products were marred by severe technical and economic issues. People who lined up to pick up the iPhone 3G on launch day were greeted by activation server crashes and activation issues, all precipitated by unprecedented demand. Despite the problems, the throng of eager customers continued unabated for several weeks, making it nearly impossible to find the darn thing on (AT&T or Apple) store shelves here in the US. MobileMe similarly buckled under the load of new subscribers, prompting Apple to issue free three-month extensions to all subscribers’ terms.

So, on balance, Apple was really looking for a boost coming out of this week’s event. Without the benefit of review units, let me give you a quick look at what they delivered.

New iPods. The centerpiece of the exposition was undoubtedly a new, elongated iPod nano in “nano-chromatic,” bright, vibrant colors. The new nano is also getting an accelerometer, allowing users to rotate it into landscape mode for easier browsing in Cover Flow mode and for more optimal viewing of videos and photos. Meanwhile, the iPod touch is also getting an update, with a sleek rounded casing that incorporates physical volume controls and an external speaker. Rounding out the rest of the line, the bulkier 160 GB iPod classic is being eliminated, and its smaller counterpart is getting a bump up to 120 GB while the iPod shuffle is getting a color refresh.

New “Genius-”equipped iTunes software. Apple released version 8 of iTunes, the music manager for Mac OS and Windows. The new player features an image-based music browser and a new “Genius” function that is able to scan your library and automatically assemble playlists of songs that “go together.” This function is also on the new iPod nano and touch, as well as current iPod touch users via a software update.

In practice, Genius is pretty cool. You are able to click on any song in your library, and with the press of a button iTunes will find all the songs in your library that match that song. This is similar to the functionality that has been provided for a while now by Pandora Radio and similar web sites, but having it built into iTunes and your iPod is a big plus. The only caveat is that its matching algorithm seems to have a few rough edges; when I asked for a Genius playlist based on a song from Coldplay’s recent album “Viva la Vida,” I was given a few odd matches such as one of Paul McCartney’s performances of “The Long and Winding Road,” and Peter Gabriel’s “Red Rain,” which don’t immediately seem to go together. However, Genius will supposedly continue to analyze the data from all its users, and thus I would expect it to improve over time.

I think the new products bolster Apple’s lineup for the holiday season. Having just bought an iPhone 3G, I won’t personally be in the market for any of the new iPods, but the new nanos should prove attractive to the scores of gift-givers that will begin hitting stores any day now. (Because, you know, shopping for Christmas before Halloween is all the rage nowadays.) If you end up with one, drop by cornellsun.com and let us know how it’s working for you.