Steve Jobs announced it today at MacWorld. (Minute-by-minute coverage of Jobs's keynote is here at Engadget.) It's a flash MP3 player, available immediately (see Apple's product page) in 512k and 1GB versions. Apple is clearly taking a new pricing tack with these, hitting price points of $99 and $149—market-leading, aggressively undercutting prices! I can hardly believe it. Here's what you get:

• No display. You heard me.

• 12 hours of battery life.

• USB 2.0

• Recharges while connected to the USB port

• Auto-shuffles of playlists with a toggle switch

The unit is fairly small, but Apple is sounding a bit foolish with its emphasis on size ("Do no eat the iPod Shuffle"), as it is larger than competing devices from iRiver, SanDisk, and various thumb drive units that come with memory card expansion slots. To me, the iPod Shuffle looks a little on the large and ungainly side, but I haven't held one in my hand.

The groundbreaking feaure (non-feature?) here is the lack of display. Apple is taking a philosophical position that with a flash-based player, navigating a user interface is irrelevant. Load it up with the day's music and just listen to it, dammit. It's a good point, and one I expect to see imitated quickly. However, the Shuffle's somewhat large size is all the more perplexing when you remove the need for a screen. What is all that space beneath the control wheel used for?

Apple is going to make a lot of money today. And my oft-repeated prediction just took another step toward fruition: a large jukebox and a flash player for everyone. The mini product category (4-6 GB) will get squeezed.