Official: iPod nano reaches 4G, looks tall for its age
By Thomas Ricker 
posted Sep 9th 2008 12:07PM
posted Sep 9th 2008 12:07PM
Well well. Can't say we're surprised to be telling you about the new 4th generation iPod nano. As we heard, 9 colors, bigger $149 8GB and $199 16GB capacity, and wider 2-inch display under the control of an accelerometer for automatic switching between portrait and landscape modes like those early Canon PowerShots and uh, oh right, the iPod touch and iPhone. Looks just like the spy shots eh? Steve calls it the thinnest iPod ever with new Genius playlist, shake to shuffle feature, and 24-hour battery for music or 4-hours for video. In stores by the weekend, available immediately on-line. A few more pics after the break and the gallery below.
Oh I want a dual touchscreen
To do what, exactly? Play DS?
The spy shots were really right haha
Even Nano's picture itself used in the presentation has glare on the screen. This is not good.
Meh, engadget changed the picture now.
yeah, unfortunately.
I was hoping for something new, not something apple modified in 30 minutes and decided it looked different enough.
@ Arthur
I for one would love i scaled down touch, more screen, smaller to carry.
Yeah and now since skinny Steve announced 'em theyre suddenly not ugly anymore...
it's kind of shaped like jobs... long, gaunt and slightly swollen in the belly.
too tall
Divx, xvid support? Not for you!
Kevin Rose is God to the fanboys from this day forward!....
hahahahahaha and people make fun of M$ because it charges for everything 10$ for a PATCH? HAHAHA.
F this, sticking with Ubuntu desktop and xp ONLY for gaming.
chinese was faster to start selling same looking MP4's - funny:-)
Why so much empty space above and below the click wheel?
Click wheel looks a bit old-tech now =).
Considering how small it is, it makes sense to have space above, so your finger won't smudge the screen, and below, so your finger won't slip off the bottom.
its called ergonomics
Wow. I'm surprised!.
Really.
:)
Me too. I've got a Z80 but damn the new Nano looks taste. Might nab a blur or orange. Reminds me of the days when I was one of the first guys in my city with a Mini.
WoW ....Cool
god they are ugly
Seconded. I'm no Apple fan but for looks I'd choose the older gen Nano.
Good thing Apple don't market on looks eh? Oh, wait...
The capacity bump sounds good though.
Black would have been better, but Apple is saving that so that they can fleece a 32GB model just before the holiday season arrives, thus selling multiple units to fan boyz and fangirlz all across the land....
iPod Nano: gay pride edition
Actually I think the colors are cool. I need to see them in person though. Sometimes pictures are misleading.
Not a fan of the ellipse shape, but I am glad the finally put the screen next to the scroll wheel instead of on top of it. I'd been saying they should do that since the fatty nano came out.
I guess kevin rose was right...
For anyone who cares, it is not an oval. It's an ellipse, although maybe an elongated one at that.
Why do people insist on calling an ellipse an oval!! :-)
I still like my 3rd gen nano better. Bigger Screen.
No, the screen is the same as the 3rd Gen.
Are you sure? I thought they said they just rotated the screen from the third gen 90 degrees.
So when are they going to do something new?
When its not broken, you dont need to fix it.
@ Kain125
"When its not broken, you dont need to fix it. "
Yeah, tell that to US auto makers. This shit is old.
Engadget, how's about you condense all of this Apple crap into one or two posts, k?
Why not just move the wheel to the back and save the front purely for a widescreen/portrait layout?
Because then you'd get people who didn't like having to operate the thing blind. There'd be people stopping in the street so they could keep glancing at the back to see the controls and then the front to see if they've scrolled too far, and back and forth and back and forth...
I love navigating by the touch of my MiniDisc's (Yes, MiniDisc. So I'm out of date) buttons, but not everyone likes that kind of thing.
I think you underestimate people, but I think I might feel the same way if I didn't own an ipod. The click wheel is one the greatest innovations in tech and what makes it great is that it's easy to use, so I don't think that it would slow people down they'd get used to it.
"The click wheel is one the greatest innovations in tech"
It's the same thing as a touch pad, which have existed since the early eighties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchpad
"Touchpads are also the primary control interface for menu navigation on all of the currently produced iPod portable music players (except the iPod shuffle and iPod touch), where they are referred to as “click wheels”."
I would like to see that too for the next nano - remember Apple filed a patent for a virtual scroll wheel that could appear when you touch the physical one so there would be no need to do it blind, when the scroll wheel detects a finger it could just display a transparent representation of the wheel on the screen
I like your idea of the entire front of the ipod being used for the screen, but not the wheel on the back, instead I'd sugg putting the wheel on a hinge'd extension at the bottom, you know that folds up (to protect and cover the screen) and then folds down below the screen, for use.
Michael X.
@Michael X. That sounds hideous.
calendar and stopwatch integration? do i smell nike and ipod nano union?
More like: "The thinnes Steve Ever"
Haha thank god I'm not the only one who noticed how thin he's become. Next time it's the iPod that will be introducing him "Here's the new Steve, thinner than ever and comes with either a brown a black turtle neck."
@Homeboy
That was by far the funnies comment that I've read on engadget. LOL
"Here's the new Steve, thinner than ever and comes with either a brown a black turtle neck."
OMG too funny!
I totally agree, I think Steve is the thinest iPod ever. lol
I bloody knew it was real! Yet 99% of comments here pointed it was fake, LOL.
Cheers mate.
shake to shuffle is nice. My Sony Ericsson phone does it and it can be handy...if not a little gimmicky.
Apple should be sued by every MP4 player maker in china for stealing the "Shake control" shuffle feature...
Wasn't there a Sansa player that switched songs by shaking that was out last year?
That was the Sony tube player...
(Sony Walkman Sport Series NW S205F 2GB MP3 Player)
I found the Sansa that I was thinking about...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/14/sandisk-sansa-shaker-does-mp3s-for-the-kids/
It was released a little over a year ago.
No, Floydd is right too.
Sandisk brought out that Sansa that's shaped like a Djembe, the one that was designed for kids, called the Sansa Shaker, if I'm not mistaken (at least you get what the name implied).
Sony Ericsson walkman phones do it as well...
...depending on the patent, you've got a point. Unless they're paying a licensing fee, they could be in for some trouble.
I'm not an ipod fan by any means. i think they're vastly inferior to other mp3 players out there. But in their defense, they tend to not break that easily. People said this about the first nano and it was found to be nearly indestructible.
I'm just waiting for all the people who poo-pooed the design to come back here soon with an 'oh we were just j/k its atually beautiful lol'.
Just like every version before now. Stick to your guns people, if you don't like the design, it's up to you to try to get them to change it. I for one don't like the new screen, curved glass would distort the image something horrible.
No actually I like the first and second gen more. I hate the curved screen, what idiot thought of that, I just hope the Idiot also knows about anti-glare surfacing. pretty much I dont like the screen or how tall it looks.
yep i loudly protested against the design. I still do. Its fugly. I HATE black frames around the screen.
This nano just SCREAMS Chinese mp4
ill stick with my 80gb classic for now.
god damn, they come out with a new ipod too damn often, doesn't practically everyone have one already? I personally have only owned one ipod years ago and from personal experience they have a pretty long lifespan. This one looks more like a zune too.
Guess people always want the new top apple products. Just my opinion but it seems like they're exploiting their fanatic fan base a bit.
I was kind of thinking that if they did update the nano's they would just make them mini-touch's. But who would want that.....other than me.....
thats the ugliest ipod i ever seen.
24 hours for audio and 4 for video? Come on Apple you're being bested by players released over a year ago...
Even the Nano 2G was advertised as having 24hrs audio, so no progress there.
And the 4G is just 0.3mm thinner than 2G, thats basically the thickness of a business card.
Compare that to the 40 hours of audio for the new Walkman.
i agree. I prefer my 3g nano.
Oh, and does anybody else think that those headphones controls are going to be annoying.
'I don't like this song, I'll go to the next one (click click), actually, I'll go back (click click) argh, I meant BACK (click click click (one song) click click click (second song) click)... why isn't my song playing? (click) finally.
for the first week, all you'll be doing is thumbing your headphone chord. Most people would think you look an idiot, but they'll be doing exactly the same thing
if you have a problem pressing a button 3 times i really don't think you'll need any help looking like an idioit.. really how simple do you want things to be
Less simple. Having one button control the playback makes the controller small and cool looking, but it kills the usability.
Volume control, yes, I could do that, a lot of headphones have in-line volume. Play/Pause, okay, not a huge step.
But a single, multi-press button would lose it's novelty not long after starting to use it, at least with a dedicated button for each funtion (as with most in-line remotes, including Apple's own Radio Remote) you know what's going to happen when you press it. With this one, if you press it just once too many or not enough times than you have to, you're going to end up confused and having to take out the player to see what's going on anyway.
These kind of devices can be judged when you see one and hold it.
You are speculating about something you do not know a thing about.
Clickwheel old fasion? It is still the best input device for a music player.
Touch interface? On a screen like that, you must de fooling yourself.
grow up!
Actually if done properly touch screen interfaces work extremely well and better then a clickwheel as it allows for a bigger screen and maybe a slightly larger battery. Personally I always thought the clickwheel was a pretty bad form of input, because unless you spent a long time getting used to it, it's too easy to overshoot or undershoot what you're aiming for.
I'll believe it doesn't have wifi after someone takes one apart and confirms it.
I want to believe.
What?!?!
You realise that if it had wifi Steve would have mentioned it at least 500 times by this point? Your assumptions were wrong, there is no WiFi on the nano.
iJust added the 4G Nano to my Christmas List:
1. Sony Ericcson Xperia X1
2. iPod Classic 160GB
3. Dr. Dre Headphones
4. 4G Nano
-sent from my iPhone
_____________________
iGet enough exercise just pushin' my luck!
Yes, because what you need is, in fact, TWO iPods, with exactly the same functionality.
What are you going to do, put a set of iBuds under the DR.DRE headphones you also want, so you can listen to two songs at the same time?
Have fun trying to track down that 160gb classic.
@CJ
In addition to the two iPods he wants, he also has his iPhone to keep him company. I suppose it's so he can make his own triple mashups on the go.
(sorry about the double post)
Better buy your 160gb iPod classic while it is still available at the Apple store (clearance section). No waiting until Christmas.
Too bad other people don't realize there's a need to have separate devices for high capacity as well as high mobility.
If storage was the issue, he wouldn't be getting a nano and iphone to go with a 160gb classic. The iPhone is excusable because it's not a high-capacity device, but the nano isn't going to add much to the 160gb. If I wanted more capacity, I would either get another 160 gb or see if its possible to hack this thing in:. http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/toshiba-announces-18-inch-hdd-family/story.aspx?guid={B3E5CCAC-F529-4966-B972-263D9754B666}&dist=hppr
16 GB and the thin design is good - now they just need to release the same size model with a BT 2.1 connection and it will have it all.
Anybody else notice that the new Zune and iPod lineups are totally identical? (not including the touch, of course, as it has no zune counterpart)
iPod Classic / Zune 120 ... 120gb @ $250
iPod Nano 16gb / Zune 16 ... 16gb @ $200
iPod Nano 8gb / Zune 8 ... 8gb @ $150
They even share similar form factors. This can't possibly be a coincidence.
Do you honestly think Microsoft has no intelligence regarding Apple products? I highly doubt Microsoft would've announced their Zune products a day before if they knew that they could not directly compete with Apple.
omg that is ugly. Zune has nothing to worry about :)
Proof that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think these are really dull and awkward looking whereas the Zunes look really interesting and modern.
@ Arthur
I for one would love i scaled down touch, more screen, smaller to carry.
The transition to the vertical screen makes it look like a flash zune, only with rounded edges.
Yeah it reminds me a lot of the zunes. I like the flash zunes better design wise, if they could just get the same size screen as the new nano they would be even better.
There's some big gaps here. What type of dock connector is it? There were a lot of speculations that it's a new style, and there's shots of every angle BUT that one. Will the current Nike+ work with it? How will the shake control screw up those who run/jog with it?
Does Tucan Sam come included as a free toy inside the box with these new nanos?
Shake to shuffle will work great while you're running and it keeps switching songs ... simply genius.
you can turn it off in the settings, do you think Apple is that stupid?
Steve kept saying "glass" when referring to the Nano. Is the screen really made out of glass?
OH! Nice and round... I bet Jubei would love shoving this up his fat ass.
I'd be curious to see how sensitive the shake to shuffle thing is. It sounds cool, but what it if starts shuffling when you go over a bumpy road, or try to fish it out of a backpack while it's playing? :-)
Dude they copied the Zune 8GB design, and they put an accelerometer in it. Big whoop! They didn't do crap. Oh and a capacity bump, that's it. (ooh pretty colors! not why the fuck would anyone ever want a nano in yellow or purple?
And the Zune copied the iPod nano (2G) design! And that copied something else! And this copied that! And that copied... nevermind.
Everything will look similar from now on.
The Zune didn't copy the 2g's design, the screen is vertically oriented. There are only so many ways to design a small box. This one copies it because apple picked that little detail up.