So today apple announced a chutzpah of new stuff (as expected) including a new apple tv, a new iPod touch, a new iPod nano, and a new iPod shuffle. I’ll cover those in a later post, but for now I want to talk about the nano.

What apple did with this design really stood out to me, and not in a good way. First of all, they got rid of the buttons and replaced it with this extremely tiny excuse for a touchscreen, and got rid of the camera and curved edges and put a clip on it. So basically, it is an iPod shuffle with a touchscreen. But my big problem is the clip…

So lets say you have it clipped to your shirt like that picture. If you want to change the song you either have to bend your head over to see the screen and look like an idiot or you have to unclip it and attempt to hold the awkwardly shaped thing to change your music. So then why don’t you just put it in your pocket? Why include the clip? The only other function is to show EVERYBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD what music you are listening to at the moment. But to tell you the truth, nobody really cares what you listen to other than you. So that eliminates the clip. And what’s with the form factor of this thing?! It is a square that barely fills the palm of your hand, and it doesn’t look like it would be very fun to try to hold.

Oter than the clip, the other thing is how they tried to make it an iPod touch-like interface with homescreens. But instead of having apps, ou have things like albums, playlists, genres, etc. Why?! This interface might be cool if you wanted to use apps on it, and if you want apps go get yourself an iPod touch. it is 1/3 bigger (and is so much more confortable to hold) and boo hoo, you can’t tell the world what you are listening to. Oh, darn. That’s too bad.

I mean, nobody really cares about your music! It’s nice to know you are currently listening to the black eyed peas (I guess that explains why you, sir microsoft employee, are line dancing in the middle of your stores [traitor using iPods, don’t worry I won’t tell. ;-J ]) but nobody cares at all! It’s just an iPod shuffle with a screen. A smaller, less functional iPod touch. Something along those lines.

If you disagree or have anything more to add, comments are welcome. 🙂