Apple on Tuesday unveiled some new models to its popular line of iPod music players at an event in San Francisco.

Attendees look over redesigned iPod Nano at Apple's "Let's Rock" media event in San Francisco, California September 9, 2008. [Xinhua/Reuters]

The upgrades, with more memory, thinner forms and brighter colors, and some new software, are expected to gain some favorable buzz for the pre-Christmas shopping season and make up for a few embarrassing technical glitches over the summer.

Demonstrating the new models to an audience at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said that "we're ready for the holiday season" with what he called "the strongest lineup of iPods we've ever had."

Jobs showed off some new features in what the company is now calling iTunes 8 - notably an online function called "Genius" that creates playlists of songs based on other music an individual user likes to hear. The lists are recommendations based on a formula that compiles data from the individual user and other iTunes customers.

Apple is installing similar software on the new models of the iPod Nano and iPod Touch, creating playlists of compatible songs from a user's own musical library and recommended songs that the user might want to buy from iTunes.

Jobs said an upcoming software update for the iPhone should fix many of the problems people had experienced, including dropped calls and sluggishness syncing to iTunes.

Apple has sold over 160 million iPods since the portable music player was introduced.