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New Apple iPod Nano 4G with bigger screen

Not content with a 73.4 percent share in the music player market Steve Jobs has launched yet another iPod. When I first heard that there was to be a new Nano I remember thinking ‘do we really need another iPod???’ Well the answer to that question is now a simple YES!

So what is it that makes the new iPod Nano 4G so special? It’s certainly not one thing alone, although the new wider screen does jump right out at you when you first hold it. You quickly see that Apple have used the launch of the new iPod Nano as a way of displaying what makes them the best at what they do, all in one neat little package.

Seasoned veterines of the MP3 market, Apple have taken the best bits from the iPod family, added a touch of ‘designed in California’ magic along with a few new toys and created one desirable little player.

The 2 inch screen is the first thing that hits you and the fact that it is widescreen instantly makes you want to rotate the device to view it landscape - thus activating the next new addition to the Nano the accelerometer!

Adding the accelerometer seems an obvious choice given the success of the iPod Touch and iPhone so as you would expect you can flip photos and view cover flow in widescreen. But that’s not all, whilst shuffling your music you can give the Nano a little shake and it will skip to another track - clever!

When connected to the new iTunes 8 you can choose to turn on spoken menus. Designed to help people with vision difficulties you can now ‘ask’ for your favorite track.

This leads me nicely to what has to be the best new feature: Genius. Activating the Genius feature finds music in your library that work well together. Those of you who use sites like Pandora will know how cool this is. Genius is managed via weekly updates from Apple as they update the algorithm via iTunes. I tested the feature and found that it works very well. I selected ‘Eyes wide open’ by Snow Patrol and pressed the Genius button and it returned 25 songs from my library by artists including Kean, Coldplay, U2, Jose Gonzalez and Red Hot Chili Peppers (to name a few). Genius also returns songs that you may like but don’t yet own.

All new toys aside, Apple do like to redesign something even perhaps when it worked very well before. The return to this vertical design is testament to that fact. The last Nano did just disappear in your pocket which was handy but the new Nano feels no different and in fact it is very light, weighing in at only 1.3 ounces. When I first heard that Apple were about to launch a new version of the Nano I remember someone saying that it was curved and immediately I began thinking of all my accessories that I would have to replace. However the curve is more a refined rounding of the past design so that it fits more comfortably in your hand.

Lastely, I couldn’t write this post without mentioning all those colours. Apple do like their colours and why not - so do we apparently. Whilst I tend to prefer my gadgets in black or silver I know that Apple are appealing to a wider audiance than the early adopters with the new Nano. My children are just as anxious to get their hands on the latest Apple gadget and the fact that it comes in pink only makes their need greter. God help me!

The new nano comes 8GB and 16GB

Buy the Apple iPod Nano 4G 8GB

Buy the Apple iPod Nano 4G 16GB

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