While not the most striking announcement by any measure, Apple’s newly introduced pink-colored iPod nanos are causing a bit of renewed interest in the obvious markets.

The iTunes Store went down for a couple of hours recently again creating a fierce hornet’s nest of speculation among the Mac faithful worldwide as to why. Ah, here’s the one more thing Steve forgot. The real sub-notebook? The Mac multi-touch tablet? The 3G 16gb iPhone? And then when the site came back, it was a …pink iPod.

The new Pink just comes in 8gb, and is available immediately.

Oh, well. Maybe I’ll get my wife one. Her pink iPod mini is looking a bit old.

Apparently the new Movie Rentals feature is exclusive to newer hardware like the iPod Touch, iPhone, 3G Nano and iPod Classic. Does that mean the 5 and 5.5G iPod videos are out in the cold?

Yep.

I went back and rewatched the keynote and Steve-O did say it was for “current generation iPods”, but just once, and quickly. It’s one of those things that you hear, but is so unbelievable in the back of your mind you go, Nooo, that can’t be true, he must be kidding, so you gloss it over and pretend you didn’t hear it. That must have been Steve’s plan all along.

TUAW speculates that this is being done to prevent easy and casual piracy (as in jack it out via the video cable to a recorder, and boom, there goes the neighborhood), and I see where they’re coming from. But still, man. Millions will be up in arms.

I was about to tell my brother, who’s got a 5G, the good news (though he owns an iPod he’s a die-hard Windows guy and not a rabid Mac fanboy like me - must’ve been adopted - and doesn’t keep up with keynote addresses), but I think I’ll leave off telling him he’s SOL like a lot of other 5/5.5G owners out there. Better he finds out for himself.

The Financial Times reports that a deal has been struck between Apple and 20th Century Fox that will let iTunes users rent the latest Fox DVD releases for a limited time, ready for viewing on an iPod or iPhone, or their computers, and likely on Apple TV.

This marks the first time FairPlay, which is Apple’s version of Digital Rights Management currently used on iTunes-bought tracks, to be used on non-Apple products. Apple is also currently in talks with Sony, Paramount and Warner Bros for a similar deal.

The agreement between Apple and 20th Century Fox is expected to be announced at Macworld on January 14, but it isn’t yet known if the deals with Sony, Paramount and Warner will be closed in time to be announced on the same date.

Apple is apparently losing ground to Microsoft in the digital media player department - well, at least in one category. According to the latest reviews from reputable sources like PC World, PC Mag, CNet, Wired and YahooTech the newly-released Zune 80 trumps the iPod Classic in almost all departments.

Among the comments are that, for the same price and storage capacity, the Zune 80 is smaller, thinner and lighter, has a larger screen, FM radio, wireless peer-to-peer sharing, wifi syncing with your PC, a great interface, an equally good controller, good battery life, great video performance, a design-customizable back panel and more. Even the Zune Marketplace looks better than the iTunes Store, which Dean Takahashi says looks like a spreadsheet.

This proves you can’t be a loser all the time. Go, Bill!

The rumor mill (the more reliable one) is abuzz with talk about iTunes 7.5 coming out anytime within November; it could be out as soon as this week, AppleInsider says.

One of the main problems with the current version deals with iTunes Plus upgrades at the iTunes Store that end up causing iTunes to hang. The new version would address this, and will also provide better management of duplicate audio and video entries, as well as increased stability. It will be available for Windows XP and Vista as well, and would incorporate support for UK and German versions of the iPhone. Otherwise, there won’t be any major overhauls or new features, according to sources.

Which begs an even more important question - would there be an incorporated mess-up targeted at unlocked iPhones as well? Hmm.