tinyurl.com/dr7sr -> www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/super-first-look-apple-computer-ipod-nano
Thats just what Apple did with the iPod mini today, touting the product - for the first time on the day of its discontinuation - as the industry s top-selling music device. Then, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained, since everyone was trying to copy the iPod mini, the company replaced it. The result is the brand new iPod nano, available today in two colors and tw o capacities. White and black 2GB versions are available for a price of $199 each, while identically colored 4GB versions are available for $249 . Except in a few arguably irrelevant ways, the iPod nano is so beautifully executed that it cannot help but be a huge success for Apple. It is the thinnest iPod ever released, yet preserves virtually all of the feature s of a full-sized, color iPod save storage capacity. Similarly, it scale s down the classic, iconic acrylic and chrome enclosure design we have l oved since the first days of the iPod, rather than further shrinking the anodized aluminum body of the iPod mini. When you look at it, you see a n iPod - not an iPod-minus, like the shuffle, or something different, li ke the iPod mini. As we said in its review, we thought Griffin had just the right smaller iPod idea when it created its iFM accessory for the iPod: shrink the iP od mini into a baby version and call it the iPod micro. Or nano, a nam e first pioneered by an iLounge contest entrant last year. When word lea ked out that Apple planned to use this name for its device, people repri nted the concept art with claims it would be the new iPod. Other than th e name, they couldnt have been more wrong. There was no anodized alumin um, new shape, or touch-screen controller. image The real iPod nano is a design hybrid of four different iPods. It has the front acrylic face and polished metal back of early (1G/2G) iPods, with thick clear plastic front edges rather than the softer curves pioneered in 3G iPods. It uses a Click Wheel and color screen like todays color iPods, only with modifications to both to accommodate the nanos size. I ts second body color - black - comes from the U2 iPod, and looks even be tter thanks to a dark gray Click Wheel (instead of the U2 iPods red one ). And because it mixes the guts of an iPod shuffle (tiny battery, memor y chips) with color iPod-like processors, its tiny. The pictures tell almost the entire story as to how small the iPod nano i s by comparison with all earlier iPods. It dropped the hard dri ve, which is the most power-hungry and failure-prone component in any iP od. iPod nano now uses tiny, non-removable flash memory chips instead, a nd can also afford to use a smaller battery pack and enclosure as a cons equence, while preserving the key face features (screen and Click Wheel) people love. Apple also pulled some interesting and unexpected tricks. Nanos headphon e port is now on its bottom alongside a standard Dock Connector port, wh ile its top has only one feature - a tiny Hold switch. And the headphone port isnt what you might expect - gone is the extended part with four metallic pins. That means iPod nano cant work with iTrip, iTalk, or any of the other top-connecting accessories that draw power from the iPod. Intentionally or inadvertantly, Apple has segmented the iPod market into three categories: complete iPod accessory compatibility (iPod), half iP od accessory compatibility (iPod nano), and no iPod accessory compatibil ity (iPod shuffle). At first glance, youll have every reason to believe its virtually ide ntical - it displays six lines of large text plus the top menu bar, has full-color icons, and the same general Mac OS X Aqua-inspired interface. But if you look carefully, youll see that the screen in the full-sized i Pod is better. It has more pixels (220x176) and a pure white backlight, which give it a superior ability to clearly display both photographs and thumbnails. Nanos backlight is described as blue-white, which is ano ther way of saying less expensive. As with the transition from the 3G iPods pure white light to the purplish one on original 4G iPods, there s a difference, but most people wont mind. The only real consequences a re in how much you can fit on screen, and even thats not a big issue. Instead of 25 thumbnails per page, you now get 12 that are easy to identi fy, even with the smaller screen. Landscape-orientation (wide) photos st ill display in full-screen mode, while portrait-orientation (tall) photo s appear with significant black bars on their sides. The only semi-bumme r is that iPod nano isnt designed to display any of this on a televisio n screen - theres no TV Out feature. iPod nanos battery is rated for 14 hours, down from the iPod minis prom ised 18 (which delivered 26 in our testing). Well let you know the resu lts of our own battery tests when theyre done, but the Wall Street Jour nals Walt Mossberg has reported that nano delivers only a hint over 14 hours of continuous play time. Its unclear whether Apple is becoming le ss conservative with its estimates, or whether successive tests will yie ld different results, but its clear that iPod nano is not the better-th an-color iPod music performer that its predecessor was. In our initial and admittedly limited testing of the iPod nano using high -end Ultimate Ears UE-10 Pro earphones, it did not appear that Apple had made significant improvements to the bass response of the new iPod over that of the color-screened iPod. Stated differently, this iPod is not l ikely to represent an improvement over its predecessors from an audio st andpoint. However, were going to want to spend more time testing before we render any final opinions on this issue. As with iPod minis, the iPod na no includes a standard set of white earbuds, a USB-to-iPod cable, an iPo d, an iTunes (PC/Mac) software disc, and the manuals youd expect. But A pples also included a new addition: the Universal Dock Adapter (UDA), a plastic plate that fits the iPod nano and has no utility directly out o f the box. UDA is a gift to both iPod accessory manufacturers and consumers - a deli berate attempt to guarantee iPod nano docking compatibility with any fut ure dockable iPod accessory, without forcing you (or companies) to wait for a new iPod plastic adapter to be manufactured and available. Nearly 20 companies are already planning products around the UDA design, which is similar to any one of the plastic plates included with speaker access ories from Altec Lansing, Bose, iHome and JBL. iPod nanos new features are all nice, but none is earthshattering. First up is the new and improved Clock, which has world clock functionality and an analog display capability. The first thing youll notice is a clock pre-set to Cupertino, California time. You can bring up a menu by clicking on it that lets you choose an alarm clock, your preferred city, whether daylight saving time is on or off, and whether youd like a sleep timer. You can also add more than o ne clock to the display by choosing New Clock from the main Clock scre en, then selecting a city from many around the world. Once thats done, youll have two (or more) clocks at once running on the iPod, and can scroll through them with ease. Note also that the Pause i con in the upper left of the screen has been updated with a slightly fla shier, non-black graphic. With a iTunes brushed metal-inspired interface, S topwatch gives you the ability to keep time for your runs, and easily ac cess a lap timer as well. Also built around a metallic interface, Screen Lock lets you prevent your iPods contents from being accessed by anyone but you - or the person w ho guesses the 4-digit code. You use the Click Wheel to enter the code, make sure you havent forgotten it, and then lock your iPod. Just dock the nano with your computer, and its unlocked. Amazingly, virtually all of the full-sized iPods applications have made their way onto the iPod nanos smaller screen. Calendar, Contacts, and N otes are all represented - viewable, with a little less free space on ea ch screen, of course. Apple has finally added instant iTunes synchroniza tion for PC users of Calendar and Contacts into version 50 of the softw are, so Microsoft Outlook users no longer need to use other sof...
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