We love September 9th? Why? Because 2 years in a row Apple has chosen September 9th as the official date for new iPod releases! This year is shaping up to be no exception. Tomorrow at 1pm EST/10am PST Steve Jobs will host the special event for the media. There are plenty of rumors this year to be excited about, so let’s run through the list:

The Beatles coming to iTunes (finally!)

Tonight Yoko Ono leaked news that the entire Beatles catalog would be released to iTunes, possibly as early as tomorrow, to coincide with the international release of The Beatles edition of the popular “Rock Band” video game.

New iPods with cameras and increased storage

The iPod Touch is rumored to be getting an upgrade that includes a camera, similar to the iPhones. Will the iPod Nanos and iPod Classics also receive the upgrade? Our sources tell us they will.

Also, expect the entire iPod line to get a capacity upgrade. 60 GB iPod Touch’s anyone?!

iTunes Pre-cut Ringtones

Do you hate the fact that you have to purchase a song and then pay another 99 cents so you can cut it up into a ringtone? Tomorrow Apple is rumored to be announcing pre-cut ringtones. Will this make the labels as happy as it will users?

iTunes 9

iTunes is due for an upgrade. Why wasn’t it just included with Snow Leopard? Strong chance of this happening.

TechCrunch had a very interesting article tonight, titled “The iPod, As We Know It, Is Dying” which points out some valid points about the iPod, however, we disagree that the iPod is going to be going anywhere in the next 5 years.

During its quarterly earnings call today, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer focused a lot of attention on what the company is now calling its “pocket products.” That is, the iPhone, the iPod touch and the iPod. You’ll notice that Apple has taken to separating out the iPod touch from the rest of the iPod line. And that makes sense, given it shares many more similarities with the iPhone. But it’s also for another reason: The iPod, as we know it, is dying.

Of the three pocket products, two saw huge year-over-year growth this quarter, one did not. While iPhone sales grew a massive 626% year-over-year, iPod touch sales actually grew just about 130% too. And while Apple may consider the iPod touch outside of the iPod line, for financial purposes, it’s still counted with them. So when you hear that overall the iPod family saw a 7% decline year over year, you know that the actual iPod numbers minus the iPod touch, must not be very good at all.

And while Apple wouldn’t specifically give those numbers, Oppenheimer did note that the iPhone and iPod touch are very much “cannibalizing” the stand-alone MP3 iPod market. Apple still has over 70% of the MP3 player market, but it’s probably safe to assume that the overall pie which Apple has 70% of, is going to start shrinking soon (if it hasn’t already), at least in the U.S. The way Oppenheimer spoke today about what he calls the “traditional mp3 players” was almost like a eulogy.

And for good reason. I’d be fairly surprised if Apple updates its hard-drive based iPod classic ever again. It will likely continue to sell it for a while, and may even do something with the price. But the thought of Apple devoting any time to reworking this dinosaur at this point, seems pointless.

We now carry an iPhone for our music, but there are still things that we actually prefer about the iPod Classic, like, the price point, the storage capacity, the durability, and more. Worrying about breaking you $700 32GB iPhone sucks. It makes using an iPhone for potentially dangerous things, like snowboarding or bmxing, extremely risky, no pun intended.

We just don’t see the iPod getting anything but better over the next 10 years, even if it does evolve a little bit!

We spent hours going through Flickr and organizing this post on, what we think, are 100 of the best iPod related photos. We hope this post shows off the real beauty of Flickr – what you can come up with when you share user generated content! Enjoy!

Is it really worth the time and effort to sell a broken iPod? We recently ran across BuyMyBrokeniPod.com, a service that buys broken iPods directly from users, and we we’re surprised by the amounts offered for broken iPods. While older generation iPods go for as little as $3, you can fetch between $44 to $55 for a broken 5th generation video iPod. Not bad for something that most people may consider worthless.

BuyMyBrokeniPod.com wants to buy your broken iPod today! We pay you top dollar for your damaged Apple iPod MP3 Player. We don’t care if the iPod has a cracked screen, the hard drive busted or shows a sad face, buttons don’t work, is acting weird, is old and creepy, has water damage, or if the battery is dead. Click below to get a price quote, and in 3 easy steps turn your broken iPod into CASH!

The service seems to be pretty straightforward – fill out their form detailing your iPod model and issues, ship them the broken iPod, and then get paid through PayPal. This means that your mailing out your iPod before you get paid, but if you get a tracking number to document the shipment, then you should be OK. And if your iPod is otherwise worthless, why not give it a shot?

Will the 6th generation iPods have built in WiFi capabilities similar to the Microsoft Zune mp3 player? Reports are coming in today that this may be the case. Engadget seems to think it’s a strange move putting WiFi in the iPod when its one of the more desired features of the iPhone, something that could hurt or slow iPhone sales.

Will Apple embrace the WiFi sharing feature sooner, rather than later? Looks like we’ll have to wait until Q3 of 2007 to find out.