iPod nano - page 5

Like all iPods before it, the new sixth-generation iPod nano comes with a handy diagnostic mode to allow Apple’s constabulary of technicians to dig into the underlying wetware of the device before the flouncy frills of the operating system have been slathered on top.

Unlike past iPods nanos, though, the new nano doesn’t have a clickwheel, which makes accessing its hidden iTerm Diagnostic Mode slightly different than before.

If you want to access the nano 6G’s diagnostic mode, here’s how you do it:

1. Reset your nano by holding down the sleep and volume down buttons until the Apple logo appears.

2. When you see the Apple logo, hold down all three buttons until “iTerm: iPod Display Console” flashes on screen.

3. (Other) You can reset your nano into Disk Mode by simply holding down the volume buttons when you see the Apple logo.

My favorite takeaway from the new nano’s diagnostic mode? The fact that the sixth-generation iPod nano is apparently codenamed “Snowfox” internally. That’s just adorable.

Ever since Apple CEO Steve Jobs casually mentioned the idea that Apple’s new iPod nano could be used as a wristwatch, well, I’ve wanted one. And so have a lot of people. A nano wristwatch aftermarket has quickly emerged to satisfy demand. But what about Apple?

Cnet’s Gordon Haff wrote a blog post this morning called “Why Apple will do a real iWatch” in which he predicts that Apple will get into the wristwatch business.

I say they won’t, and I’ll tell you why. But first let’s look at Haff’s reasoning.

Here’s another way of looking at the design of Apple’s new iPods: they didn’t redesign the Shuffle or Nano at all. They just cut the last Nano in half.

[via Reddit]

The moment Steve Jobs quipped about the new Nano’s perfect suitability as a time piece, we all all recognized the obvious accessory void that would quickly be filled: iPod Nano watch bands.

Here’s the first: a 22mm Maratac Nylon band that will slip through your nano’s clip and comes in matching colors for just $17.

The wisdom of tethering your headphones to your wrist is, of course, debatable, as is the necessity of charging your wristwatch once per day, but if you’re so inclined, it’s now just a Jackson away from being done.

With their usual amalgam of surgical precision, egghead obsessiveness and rock star attitude, the boys at iFixIt have sliced into the last of Apple’s new iPods: the touchscreen iPod nano. And, like we thought, it’s really more of a Shuffle with a screen than a nano with multitouch.

It’s the claims of multitouch that really sticks in the iFixIt boys’ craws: they claim, rightly, that multitouch is officially determined by being able to detect and resolve a minimum of three touch points, where as the nano only employs two… and even then, only for rotating the display, “although how anyone is supposed to comfortably fit more than one finger on the display is a mystery.”

Other interesting facts: the battery is twice the capacity of the Shuffle’s to power the screen, and the display has the most dense packing of pixels this side of the Retina Display on the iPhone 4 or iPod Touch. Additionally, the glass on the touch isn’t quite flush with the case, but sticks out 0.3mm due to the size of the headphone jack. It’s a pretty interesting commentary on how tiny and compact the innards of the new nano are when the headphone jack is one of the thickest components… and perhaps how anal Apple is about device thinness when they’d rather the glass protrude from their device minutely than minutely expand the body.

You can find iFixIt’s full teardown here.

With the new touchscreen iPod nano, Apple successfully managed to shrink their mid-level iPod down to Shuffle-sized dimensions… but not without dropping some notable capability, including video recording and playback. It’s unlikely that Apple is going to suss out the dimensional wormhole technologies required to fit a video camera back into the nano’s postage-stamp-sized casing soon, but video playback might not be out of the question in a future software update.

The revelation comes by way of TUAW’s Erica Sadun, who spotted a lot of video-related details in the new nano’s internal settings property lists, with options for captions, alternative audio, television subtitles and screen aspect all hinting at possible upcoming support.

Interesting, to be sure, but Apple left video support out of the nano for a reason: that screen is just unsuitable to movie watching, and Cupertino knows it. The new nano, despite the touchscreen, is still similar in its innards to the old nano… my guess is that this residual functionality is simply legacy code from the fifth-gen, and Apple’s not about to flip the switch anytime before next year as an incentive to upgrade.

Well, our insightful new columnist Mike Elgan certainly nailed it: mere hours after he received his new touchscreen iPod nano, Flickr user Kei Ogikubo has already added a watchstrap and turned the nano into an iWatch. Crap. I was skeptical before, but now I want one.

Perhaps more than any other device in Apple’s electronics arsenal, the iPod nano has changed dramatically over the years. Birthed as the iPod Mini, the first generation nano rounded off and slightly shrank the design, while adding a color screen.

The second generation nano contented itself with a mere material shift to an aluminum case, while the third generation was crunched down to a a squat while gaining Coverflow and video playback.

That squat design was reversed in the fourth generation and the display lengthened while the nano gained an accelerometer and shake-to-shuffle capabilties.

The fifth put the nano’s display on the rack and stretched it out so long it was capable of displaying 16:9 movies when held horizontally, as well as adding a video camera, voice recording, an FM radio and a pedometer to the mix.

And now here we are in the sixth generation, which shrinks the nano down to the size of a Shuffle, ditching the 16:9 display, video camera and voice recording of the previous generation in favor of a smaller form factor and a 240×240 pixel multitouch screen.

As the above infographic by DVICE shows, the nano’s been a polymorph. Who knows what other forms the nano’s shapeshifting design will take over the next half decade?

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlkPaHc_5kM&feature=channel

If Apple’s livestream broke down for you last night during the world premiere of Apple’s new iPod nano and iPod Touch commercials, Apple has just shot both of them up online via their official YouTube channels.

The new iPod nano ad is backed by the track “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake from the album Comfort Eagle, and largely focuses on the new nano’s built-in touchscreen and the ability to flick the display around to any orientation depending upon where it’s clipped, as the nano itself is traded between the usual headless iPod models, morphing between the nano’s new colors as it is handed off.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t_IobxOsVc

On the other hand, the new iPod Touch ad is heavily focused on gaming and the touch’s new camera abilities, backed by the song “Come Home” off of Chappo’s Plastique Universe.

The end of the spot is a bit surreal, though, as a pair of white male hands each uses its gripped iPod Touch to take part in a FaceTime call with its partner. The faces on the display, though, usually don’t match the hands… giving me, at least, the impression that FaceTime on the iPod Touch was being demonstrated by some sort of pieced-together Frankenstein of spare body parts, or being silently observed by two spectating device hackers who had somehow managed to hack into the FaceTime protocol.

Steve Jobs launched an insta-meme today by suggesting in his keynote that Apple’s new multi-touch iPod nano could be worn as a wristwatch.

The meme becomes a fad next week when the nano arrives in stores and people start actually wearing them on wrists. It’s going to happen, especially when third-party companies begin offering special-purpose wristwatch straps for it. I know it’s going to happen because I’m going to do it.

Talk is cheap, but a Huffington Post poll at post time was running over 67% in favor of wearing the iPod nano as a wristwatch.

But serving as Apple’s first-ever foray into the wristwatch racket isn’t what’s ground-breaking about the device.

Too busy to read our liveblog coverage of Apple’s September iPod Event? Everything you need to know about Apple’s new products is below the fold, including details about the new iPod Shuffle, Nano, iPod Touch, AppleTV, iTunes and iOS update.

Apple’s sexily diminutive new iPod Nano, replete with 1.13-inch touchscreen, certainly looks like iOS. It might even — held close enough to the nostrils — smell like iOS. But it’s nothing of the sort.

Backstage at today’s iPod Event, an Apple spokesman confirmed that the new iPod Nano is not running iOS.

That makes sense, given Jobs’ own failure to identify the Nano as a new iOS-driven device, or his failure to brag about a wide range of apps to run on the device. It also makes sense from the engineering perspective of trying to shove a chip powerful enough to run a current version of iOS into a Shuffle-sized footprint.

Rather, what we see in the new Nano is a skin layered most probably over the traditional iPod Nano operating system, with some of iOS multitouch software scraped out and grafted onto it.

The move makes sense for Apple. The new Nano is too small to really avail itself of multitouch, but iOS is Apple’s sexiest operating system, as well as one synonymous with touch. Apple couldn’t well make a touchscreen iPod at this point without making it at least look like iOS.

We wonder, though, if confusion will ultimately set in. If it looks like iOS, but doesn’t run apps, isn’t that going to confuse customers? We imagine that in the brainpan of one Apple Store Genius is throbbing with premonitory headache right now.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the long-term future of the iPod line. Long the key driver of Apple’s revenue growth, since the launch of the iPhone, it has slipped into the background. Now, the conventional wisdom goes, Apple is going to run out the life of the scrollwheeled wonder until the entire line goes touch with the introduction of a nano-sized iOS device. The iPhone, in three short years, will have eaten the iPod entirely. For all the talk of Dell or Microsoft or Samsung or Sony developing an iPod-killer, Apple did the job better than anyone else could. 

But here’s the thing: since the release of the iPhone 4, I’m convinced that Apple sees a lot more life in at least part of the iPod line. It’s simple, really. The new iPhone was made of fragile-seeming glass in order that the all-brushed-aluminum iPod line would look that much more durable. Where does this matter? With sports and with kids.