Apple has introduced the completely redesigned seventh-generation iPod nano, capturing many of the best features of the prior-generation fifth- and sixth-generation models. Now complete with a 240- by 432-pixel resolution (202ppi) 2.5” touchscreen and Home Button, the new nano has integrated volume and track control buttons, widescreen video capabilities, and a Lightning port at the bottom. Support for photos has been added back, while fitness, pedometer, and FM radio features remain from prior generations. Bluetooth 4.0 has been added as well.
Audio playback of 30 hours is promised, with video playback of up to 3.5 hours. The new device measures 3.01 × 1.56 × 0.21”, with a total weight of 1.1 ounces.
Eight colors of the new nano are available, including silver, blue, green, yellow, black, purple, pink, and red. The new model will be available in October for $149, with a 16GB capacity as the only initial option.
Apple’s previously-released fourth-generation iPod shuffle has also received a number of new colors—black, silver, pink, red, yellow, green, blue, and purple versions will be available for $49, each at 2GB capacity. Notably, the orange iPod shuffle has disappeared from the lineup, and some of the prior pink, blue, and green versions appear to have been replaced with new tones. The silver version appears to be unchanged from the original model.
Although I still think this pseudo iOS touch screen UI they’ve picked for the nano line is butt ugly, the device itself is the most impressive “new” Apple design I’ve seen from them for a while. It’s everything the 6G nano should have been instead of the overgrown shuffle that it was.
Looks like a Zune. What happened, Apple?
All I can say is “FINALLY!!!” Bluetooth is the thing I’ve been waiting for before I would jump back into the iPod world. I absolutely HATE working out with wires dangling from my ears, and therefore have been using my iPhone as my one and only music player for years, paired up to some Bluetooth headphones. It’s small enough, sure, but I’ve really been wanting something smaller and tougher for awhile. The lack of Bluetooth has just been keeping me away. With the iPhone growing in size, this new iPod Nano is the new perfect workout companion.
I Love the new design, the home button, the track select buttons… Couldn’t care less about the color; I’m a basic black kind of guy, but overall I think Apple hit a home run with this.
@#3,
Well, the white outline around the screen and differently colored body is unusual, and reminiscent of the complementary-colored screen borders of the first generation Zune. Other than that, though, this is just another rectangle with rounded edges and a rectangular screen in the middle, just like a billion other handheld devices, including all previous iPods. I think people are looking for any small distinctive traits to tell one device from another these days, and companies are getting a bit desperate to differentiate their designs since they’re all looking so much the same. There’s a similar situation currently with FPS games, which has resulted in increasingly odd space marine helmet designs.
@5: Oh my gosh, how cool! You must be from some parallel universe because the Zunes from any generation in mine look nothing like that 😉
In my universe, the first gen body was all one color except for a thin grey border around the screen and button. The border was more like a hand mirror in its shape, and I guess grey can be said to compliment everything 😀
The second generation ditched the flat grey and hand mirror shape for a thin metallic grey border around the screen, and a separate thin metallic grey border around the “squircle” (again, I guess grey compliments everything)
And the third generation looked a lot more like an HTC phone than anything Apple has ever made.
So, again, very cool to meet some people from a parallel universe where, apparently, the Zune did look like the above 🙂
@2: Really? Did you wake up this morning and think, “self, I really hope I say something completely unsubstantiated and ignorant sounding before I go to bed tonight”. Because if that was your goal, congrats 😉
The external design is practically the “iPad nano” if such a thing existed, and the general UI has been around more or less identically since the sixth generation nano that came out in 2010. And since Microsoft hasn’t made Zunes in years and they looked nothing like the above, again, really?
Apple should have never designed the nano into that clip on style from the previous generation. They seemed to be going the right direction until that thing. Now, it seems like they are going back to a similar style to what it once was. Slim, tall, with a decent sized screen. A hybrid between the touch and nano.
@7,
I mostly agree, though I think a player like the previous nano would have been worth having as a separate product line if redesigned a bit. Given Bluetooth, a lightning connector, and a smaller design with a detachable clip, it could have been a great MP3-playing watch. Instead, Apple seemed to flirt with the idea for a while, then instead of fully developing it, they just dropped it.