The Zune lineup is in danger now knowing that the iPod announcement of their new line is looming out there.  The good news for Microsoft is that its Zunes are priced right in line with Apple’s new iPod Nano and iPod Classic line. From either company, a 120GB hard drive player fetches $249, a 16GB flash model sells for $199, and an 8GB flash model will sell for $149.

The bad news is that once again, Apple has made life harder for Microsoft–adding features like voice recording and “shake to shuffle” to the Nano. Apple’s “Genius” feature, while not as expansive as the Channels feature of the Zune, also gets Apple in on the auto-recommendation game.

Apple is also moving ahead on the video front, whereas the Zune didn’t make any meaningful advance. The new iTunes features TV shows in HD and Apple is bringing back NBC, erasing the only real video advantage the Zune had.

Plus, the iPod Touch’s Wi-Fi-based iTunes store will work in more places than the Zune Marketplace store built into the Zune. The Zune can only download music over Wi-Fi connections that are open and don’t feature any kind of browser hijack–an increasing rarity at public Wi-Fi spots that, even if they don’t require payment, want users to agree to their terms of service.