More often than not, there’s just so much attention showered on Apple’s iPhone and now the iPad that we tend to forget the company also has other products out in the open vying for the spotlight. Take for instance the various iPods – whether it’s the Touch, Nano or Shuffle, they somehow manage to steal the show only in the form of rumors, or when Apple slips them in unexpectedly. With these audio players, the surrounding hype also tends to fizzle out rather quickly. But we had our eyes set on the Apple iPod Nano ever since it launched last September. Noticeably smaller than its earlier version, we couldn’t wait to review this Apple treat now in its sixth generation.
What we had in the box was a Start Here guide, an Apple sticker, a pair of earphones and the USB dongle cum charger. The iPod Nano seated neatly in the plastic box encasing it, we noticed instantly had gone for a drastic change in terms of design. Apple has done away with the tall and slender frame of the earlier iteration for a stouter and diminutive looking device. Our review unit was dressed in a dapper green suit with many other color options we’re almost familiar with for Apple products available too. There’s a dock connector in the bottom along with a 3.5mm earphone port to its right. The upper rim of the device sports a trio of buttons – volume up, volume down and sleep/awake to be specific. It also gets a clip from the iPod shuffle on its backside. Considering its very tiny packaging, this one only seemed to make sense, but that was only for as long as we hadn’t tried it. There’s much pushing and shoving needed for the device to actually fasten itself via this clip to whatever you think it can be hooked up with. This very side of the audio player also bears the Apple logo.
We started off by syncing the device to iTunes which in line with earlier ‘i’ devices is as simple as ever. A clean interface had the contents of the menu spread over five pages initially. The audio in the iPod Nano is segregated on the basis of Songs, Artists, Albums and Genres. There are also the Radio, Podcasts, Genius Mixes, Photos, Fitness and Clock among other attributes at your disposal. What’s more, there’s much you can do to give the Apple iPod Nano your own personal ‘touch’ and quite literally with the intuitive touchscreen. The near about 2-inch capacitive screen which is bright and responsive, we saw ate up much of the battery life though when we played with it too much. On the upside it’s enabled for multi-touch, and gestures like two finger swipe and double tap are supported too. The fact that we could go up to eight pages and more for customization so that the screen doesn’t end up looking cramped for space kept us happy too. But after practical sense took over, we realized why customize the homescreen in this way when there really aren’t any applications as such for the Nano that will crowd your interface?
Having the audio settings tweaked before we could actually start seemed like a good idea. The list seems never ending for EQ settings. There’s Bass Booster, Bass Reducer, Acoustics, Loudness, Jazz, Hip Hop, Pop, Electronic, Deep, Dance, Latin and Piano in the running to choose from. By entering a passcode, you can also opt to lock the volume limit so that it’s just the right volume every time you play your favorite songs. For seamless transition between audio files, there’s the Audio crossfade feature too which is pretty upfront at doing what it’s assigned. The brighter side has the ‘Shake to Shuffle’ feature too which when we turned on, comfortably helped us move over songs we didn’t like in the playlist. Sound Check ensured the audio being belted out is just that bit softer for listening before it becomes a pain in the ears.
For added audio pleasure, the included Radio regions are Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe and Japan. Moving over to new stations is a breeze and this is one of the handiest inclusions in the Nano. The Live Pause feature makes the incorporated function all the more amiable. Apple does add it’s ingenious too with the Genius Mixes attribute that’s a notch above others in reaching out to content of your preference without any hassles. We downloaded a couple of podcasts, the syncing of which to our Nano wasn’t as much of a cakewalk as we expected it to be. If the device happens to power down while you’re in the midst of a podcast, it can get quite flustering. This is mainly because the player simply feigned ignorance to where we left off.
If must have those memories stored in this tiny tot, you can make the most of the accelerometer that lets you rotate the images all the way with the help of two fingers. There’s however no option to delete photos directly from the device which can make it quite troublesome. Unlike its fifth generation sibling, there’s also no video support at all including both playback and camera recording. The iPod Nano does include VoiceOver though which is pretty loud and clear with all the additional details right in place. It only seems to take that extra minute to register what you’re doing while transcribing it to voice. Make sure you have the manual at hand though if and when you decide to start using VoiceOver. Else, it’s going to be way too confusing and you’ll want to strangle the person who’s dishing out verbal details over the player.
As far as language support is concerned, the Sixth Generation Apple iPod Nano is highly multilingual. French, Romanian, Nederlands, Dutch, Chinese are just some of the languages supported by this device. NTSC and PAL TV signals are in here too. If watching your steps is your idea of hitting the road, the integrated Pedometer should suffice your needs. Like others in its family, it does buttress the Nike+ accessory too. The Nano lasted just enough to cough up about a day’s battery juice with us doing nothing more than shifting between songs and podcasts which makes it quite a downer.
Apple could have well just gone ahead and lowered the price of their fifth generation iPod Nano instead of releasing a new version that just stands out for being compact and nothing more. It obviously has the ‘no video’ support explanations to make too which we’re assuming has the Lilliputian screen on its side for support. The 16GB unit we received costs Rs. 12,700 which many may agree is too much for something that hasn’t really been innovative on any particular front. It’s a chic looking gym buddy to tag along nevertheless. If you do want enough noise to zing up your otherwise boring workout sessions, the iPod Nano is a good ‘Apple’ternative. We mark it at 8 on a scale of 10.
