Apple Computer, Inc., has announced several additions or updates to products of interest to musicians this morning during CEO Steve Job's keynote presentation. Among the items announced are:

• GarageBand 2.0. An update to Apple's massively popular music creation application for novice computer musicians. Part of an entire iLife '05 suite. GB 2.0 features up to 8 track simultaneous recording, real-time music notation, pitch and timing fixing, flexible recorded audio loops, vocal transformer, and loop creation tools. iLife '05 will be cost $79 and available a week from Friday.
• Mac Mini. 1.25 or 1.42 Ghz G4, 256 MB RAM, 40 or 80 Gig hard drives, and combo drive. Priced at $499 and $599 and in a small form factor. Will not include display, keyboard, or mouse. Available Jan. 22nd.
• iPod Shuffle. A flash memory based, super small music player with no display. The buttons are play/pause, volume-up/down, and song-previous/next. Featuers LEDs that provide feedback to user. 12 hour battery life. Two models: 512 Megs/20 songs for $99, or 1 Gig/240 songs, for $149. The device will double as a data storage device. Shipping immediately.

MacJams will have expanded coverage of these and other items announced at MacWorld that are of interest to musically minded folks.