Review: Apple's iPod Updates

Despite the ascendancy of the iPhone and the iPad, Apple continues to tinker with the iconic iPod music-player family

By Arik Hesseldahl

It was nine years ago next month that Apple's (AAPL) first iPod music player took its first bow before an initially skeptical world. In that time its rank as first among the must-have gadgets in Apple's steadily growing family of digital wonders has fallen sharply in favor of the iPhone and, this year, the iPad.

Apple has sold 275 million iPods in various forms over the years, and you might reasonably think the product line's best days are behind it. You'd be wrong. At the end of a busy year in which Apple has significantly redesigned the iPhone, and launched the entirely new iPad, the iPod has been thoroughly redesigned, improved, and, in at least one case, stripped down for the better.

I spent the better part of my Labor Day weekend testing Apple's three newest iPods—the latest versions of the Touch, the Nano, and the Shuffle—and found myself generally impressed with Apple's changes.

Of the three new models, the Nano ($149 for 8GB; $179 for 16GB) has changed the most from prior versions. Once about the size of a stack of three or four business cards, the latest iPod Nano is, at less than 2.5 square inches, now about the size of a matchbook. Its marquee feature is a touch-sensitive display similar to, if significantly smaller than, that found on the iPhone.

At first it seems ridiculous to select and control the music playing with the diminutive on-screen buttons, until you try it. Tapping the "playlists" button brings up a selection of iTunes playlists, while swiping your finger across the display from left to right will take you to different options, such as the FM radio, the photo viewer, and a pedometer to help you track your daily run or walk. Album art looks surprisingly clear on the tiny display, though the text on the images can be hard to read. One clever feature: With two fingers you can rotate the display image to suit the player's position. Two metal buttons control the volume while a third serves as a wake/sleep button for when the screen goes dark. (Silly me, I kept tapping the screen to activate the display. It didn't work.)

While the last three iterations of the Nano, dating back to 2007, have played video, this one does not. It's the first time I can remember that Apple has reduced capabilities from one generation of the iPod to the next, and frankly it's a smart move that speaks to its new emphasis on audio. With video available on so many other Apple devices, the older Nano's screen size made it less than optimal for watching iTunes TV shows and movies, and most owners ignored video in the first place. Also gone? The video camera that appeared in the previous-generation Nano.

Touch's Improved Hardware

There's plenty of video, however, on the latest iPod Touch ($229, 8GB; $299, 32GB; $399, 64GB). Apple has added significantly to the hardware, bringing it more closely in line with the recently released iPhone 4. It has the same 326-pixels-per-inch Retina display, the same muscular A4 processor, and like the iPhone it sports front- and rear-facing cameras. It also supports the FaceTime videoconferencing feature that is the star of so many iPhone ads.

Business Exchange

Track and share business topics across the Web.