Apple today released their portable MP3 player, the iPod. It looks very nice, and very much in line with Apple’s positioning themselves as a “digital hub”: hyper-simple to use, excellent sound quality, new battery technology, super-fast, and doubles as a portable hard drive. Neat.

What I really want it to have, though, is a low-power FM transmitter so that you can easily play it through a nearby car stereo. (Or pull off some interesting pranks, for that matter, if you can figure out what station the guy next to you at the stoplight is listening to.)

At $400, I’m not rushing out to buy one, but I think I know some people who will be. A solid entry into the non-computer market for Apple. If what my Apple friends tell me is true, it won’t be the last either.

(Disclosure: I own Apple stock, which has been the only one in my portfolio that’s been kind to me lately.)