THE iPOD NANO is the best-selling media device in the world. In fact, if you took all the other MP3 players on the market and combined their sales, you'd still be shy of the iPod Nano - and that excludes the other devices in Apple's iPod range. Now the Nano has been reinvented with a video camera, FM radio and other new features designed to keep it ahead of the pack.
The new Nano was launched last month by Steve Jobs, who took to the stage for the first time since his liver transplant to show the device off to the world. He used the event to explain how awesome the product is and, having used it for a couple of weeks, I can't argue.
The only fault I could find with the device is something that's been widely reported: the camera lens is positioned so that it's very difficult to shoot video without getting your thumb in the way. But once you get used to positioning your fingers to avoid the lens, the Nano provides excellent quality videos. To remove the videos you must sync the camera with iTunes and then they can be easily shared with friends and family on the web or via email. However, the camera can't take still images, only video.
The Nano's FM receiver is also very good and provides great quality for listening to the radio. It can also record, so you can keep discussions you were listening to or music played to repeat later. There's also a feature to identify music playing on the radio and then buy it from the iTunes Music Store. However, that's mostly useless to South Africans, as none of our radio stations broadcast song information using RDS (the same technology used to send the name of the station you're listening to your radio) and we also don't officially have access to the Music Store.
But that doesn't detract from the value of the device. The Nano is still the best little media player on the market, and the radio and video camera are welcome additions. It's really the perfect Christmas gift for anyone - which is probably what Apple was hoping I'd say. However, it's disappointingly expensive in South Africa: starting at R2 000 for the 8GB version.