Apple has an uncanny ability to keep on making great products. Every time you think it’s impossible to make improvements to their iPod music players, along comes another revamp that raises the bar yet again.And with the design and desirability of the latest batch, it has excelled itself once again, especially with the new nano. Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past week or so, you’ll know roughly what it looks like. In order to accommodate the bigger screen, it’s both shorter and wider than the previous nano – 52 x 70 x 6.5mm (WxHxD) to be precise.

The newly revamped iPod nano is surprisingly different from its 1st rev ancestor in that it is much more scratch resistant. The anodized (which means ‘coated with a protective oxide layer’) aluminum body is tough – much like the iPod mini – and does not show hairline scratches like the plastic/resin and mirror-like metal of the original nano. Of course, any metal can be scratched if enough force is applied or if the scratching object is sharp enough, but in terms of “normal use”, the new nano is far, far tougher than its predecessor. It also looks like the screen on the new nano is made of a different, more durable material. Well done, Apple!

Apple has also overhauled the Nano’s user interface. The most notable improvement is the addition of the split-screen menu feature, which lists menu items on the left, along with a visual preview of the menu selection on the right half of the display. (If you select “Music” from the top-level menu, for example, floating, rotating album covers from your music collection appear to the right of the menu list.) It’s a nice touch that makes good use of the white space to the right of the menu text and takes advantage of the Nano’s wide display. Apple also added Cover Flow—the ability to “flip through” your library by album cover. While browsing with Cover Flow is a bit slow, it’s a nice option to have, even though the feature is more fun to use on a device with a touch interface, such as the iPhone or the iPod Touch.

On the UI front, Apple added a plethora of new functions that look amazing, thanks to the wonderfully bright display. One such feature is the added video capability. It can play H.264 or MPEG4 in either MOV, MP4 or M4V formats. Although we didn’t expect it to blow us away with its quality, we were surprised yet again. The video quality is amazing, and if the only video device you own is the iPod Nano, you could possibly survive with full scale movie watching on a 2-inch display. But hey, don’t get too excited and think about replacing your dedicated portable video players or notebook computers in lieu of the Nano. It’s excellent, but it’s not a replacement for a dedicated video device. If for nothing else, then think about your eyes and the migraines you will get after hours of squinting on a tiny display. Also, the device is smart enough to skip the unnecessary DVD chapters and start right off with the video, and it also remembers to start the movie at the point you stopped it the last time. How nice is that!

Features:-

Storage Capacity : 4.0 GB

Number of Songs : 1000.0

Family Line : iPod nano

Video Format : MPEG-4, H.264

Video Bit-Rate : 2500.0 kbps

Max Video Resolution : 640 x 480

Audio Format : MP3, WAV, AAC, MP3 VBR, AIFF, Audible

MP3 Bit-Rate : 16 kbps – 320 kbps

Frequency Respone : 20 Hz – 20, 000 Hz

On Screen Display : ID3 Tag Info, Battery Level, USB Connection,

Screen Size : 2.0 inch

Additional Features : Personal Address Book, Games, Sleep Timer,

Interface : USB 2.0

Outputs : Headphone Jack

Power Source : Rechargeable via USB cable, Internal Battery

Battery Type : Rechargeable Lithium Battery

Battery Life : 24.0 hrs.

Width : 2.06 in.

Height : 2.75 in.

Weight : 1.74 oz.



By: Corwin Brown

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The emerging popularity of portable music players gave a new opportunity for Apple to dominate in the digital audio entertainment industry. With their breakthroughs and innovative ideas with their computer and software applications, there is no doubt that their digital audio players are of superb quality. Apple iPod Nano is one of their unbeatable products that gathered severe public interest.

First generation iPod Nano is capable of holding 1GB of data while the successor, the forth generation can hold up to 16GB of data. Is this possible? Definitely! Apple had made it this far with the nano through the use of general purpose integrated circuit. As opposed to other versions of iPod released by Apple, the nano uses flash memory similar to the iPod Shuffle. Older versions of the iPod were built-in with hard drive for data storage and were prone to system failure due to damaged hard drives.

Several features of the nano were taken from its predecessor, the iPod mini, which was discontinued when the nano was first released. Features like the display screen and the famous “click wheel” are among the signatures included with the nano. To enhance these features, hardware components were also miniaturized creating a compact player. The battery, display screen, and other internal components were greatly improved and reduced in sizes.

Uploading data to the player is made more convenient with the use of iTunes on Mac OS X and several Microsoft Windows operating systems. There are also additional third party software applications that allow the transfer of data from the computer to the player. With its support to the USB 2.0 standards transferring data is made faster and reliable. Not only does it store and translate audio data. The player can also store image files and video files with superb resolution display.

The fourth generation nano comes up with high end technology. Aside from its 8GB to 16GB storage capacity, additional software and hardware components can be seen on the player. The addition of the new Genius software allows a user to instantly create a play list of 25 songs of any genre. On the hardware side, a new tilt-sensor similar to that of the iPhone and iPod Touch is gracefully suited on the player. This tilt-sensor provides extra features like setting the player to a shuffle mode once triggered with a vigorous shake. The sensor also detects the current position of the player whether horizontally or vertically and orients the images to the display screen position.

Well known extensions such as Audible 2, Audible 3, Audible 4, MP3 VBR, WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, and Apple Lossless are supported by the player. The 4th generation iPod Nano is totally an explosion. Combine it with compatible accessories and you’ll definitely create an environment of genuine digital entertainment.



By: Roberta Groche

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