Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On , a column about consumer technology.
For your complete grousing in regards to the minimal changes from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 4S, Apple’s fastest smartphone incorporates sweeping shifts in comparison to what the corporate did with its iPod line. From keeping the waning iPod classic within the lineup to leaving the still-potent iPod touch untouched save for a blanching and value reduction, the venerable digital media player line seemed all but ignored at a time of year when Apple once primed the vacation pump for MP3 players.
Yet, while the iPod touch would possibly not have received the processor boost or Siri-ousness of the iPhone 4S, it at the very least continues to stay vibrant via access to Apple’s app store. That isn’t the case for the nano, once the flagship of the road. While Apple’s smallest touchscreen device gained new software that enlarged the key icons and taken new clock faces, these improvements also are being offered to owners of the last-generation iPod nano via a software update.
Virtually unchallenged in its finances, the nano can surely survive for years untouched much because the iPod classic has. However, will it merely hang on as its feature set– long stripped of video capture and playback capabilities — gets sandwiched between a affordable iPod touch and a slew of commodity music players priced under $100?
With its new time-telling facades, Apple seems to have humored the basis of the nano as an eye; such usage doesn’t delay well today within the real world. However, the iPhone 4S’s support of Bluetooth 4.0 — which includes the low-power specification that began as WiBree — may tip Apple’s hand a bit as to its ultimate intentions for the nano. The nano does not yet support Bluetooth 4.0 (or any version of the specification), but the standard has been seen as a key component in helping reduce power consumption for such a product, There are also lower power display technologies — such as Sharp’s Memory in Pixel LCD on the forthcoming Meta Watch — from which Apple has abstained.
Turning the nano into a glanceable display like the Sony Ericsson LiveView or the more recent MOTOACTV discussed in last week’s Switched On could help Apple considerably in the widget war. As an interactive window for iOS devices, a revamped nano could make the device even more palatable to those who purchased iOS products such as the iPad. In iOS 5, Apple has revisited the idea of iPhone widgets — differentiating them more from other iPhone apps — in the drop-down notification center. But the nano could support not only a widget architecture for iPhones, but revitalize widget development for Dashboard, which seems to have languished since its debut in Tiger and have been somewhat sidelined as a Space in Lion.
Those widgets could even be useful as an addition to Apple TV or an element of an Apple-branded television should Apple pursue that oft-rumored path. Finally, with the advent of Siri, an iPhone-connected nano could bring retrieve bits of helpful info that could be formatted for the nano’s 240 X 240 display or, of course, spoken back through the headphones.
When the iPhone was introduced, it had one of the largest touchscreens on a mobile device. These days, it seems compact compared to pocket-packing behemoths one of theses the Samsung Infuse, HTC Titan or Galaxy Nexus. But while the iPhone won’t represent as much of a handful, there’s still times that it — like several phone — isn’t as close as you may want it. A reinvigorated nano could help create a bridge during those times and extra tap the creativity of Apple’s developer base.
Ross Rubin ( @rossrubin ) is executive director and principal analyst of the NPD Connected Intelligence service at The NPD Group . Views expressed in Switched On are his own.
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