It appears that apple have cleverly planned to redesign the next-gen IPOD, currently the best selling music player in the us. A new patent passed says the following:
A method for initiating floating controls on an electronic device, the method comprising: detecting the presence of an object above and spaced away from a surface of the electronic device; and displaying a particular graphical user interface element on a display of the electronic device when the object is detected above the surface of the electronic device.
An mock-up of the new interface is attached in the comments.