My iPod Nano has served me well over the last few years (though I could live without its habit of freezing on me after syncing), but it seems to be reaching the end of its life span. The menu button had been slightly iffy for a while, but not enough to be a real annoyance; over the last few weeks, however, the center button has stopped working reliably, and that’s much more of a pain. So I think it’s time to look for a replacement; I’ve spent enough money this month that I’ll hold off for now, but I see a visit to the Apple store in my future next month.
Which raises the question: which model do I want? There are a lot of things I like about the Nano, but I’m getting more drawn to the Touch. Twitter is a big draw here—it’s very unfortunate that, for example, when I’m playing a game and Liesl or Miranda is using the laptop, I can’t tweet my brilliant insights. And it seems to be exploding as a game platform: the latest First Wall Rebate episode was devoted to the game Ruben & Lullaby for the platform, for example, and while I’m not sure whether or not I want to play that specific game, I definitely want to have access to a platform where games like that exist.
Given that, the only reason for me to get a Nano over a Touch would be if the Touch were difficult to carry everywhere with me: it has to live in my pocket, or in my hand if I’m out jogging. I tried on a colleague’s iPhone for size, though, and I’m pretty confident that the iPod Touch will be sufficiently portable for my needs.
Storage is another question. My last Nano was 8GB, which was fine; then again, storage usage always increases over time, and I’ll need to leave room for applications. So I’ll certainly want at least 16GB; at first, I was thinking that 32GB would be an even better idea, but, browsing through the app store, I was unable to find any apps that took up more than 100MB of space, and most of them were a tenth or even a hundredth that size. Given that, a 16GB model should have room to spare even if I throw in a hundred apps on top o my current music/podcast collection (which is very unlikely), and I don’t envision myself watching movies on it, so there doesn’t seem to be much reason to go with 32GB.
Anything else I should worry about? I’m still not sure what to do about cases, or indeed whether to get one at all: I’m not too worried about it getting scratched, since it wouldn’t live in the same pocket as my keys or anything else metal, but a colleague pointed out that I might need to worry about dropping it. So maybe I’ll get a case; I haven’t made up my mind one way or another, and am open to recommendations on the subject.
Anything else I’m missing? I’ll post again asking for application recommendations once I actually have it, but feel free to stick in suggestions for that here, too.
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I’ve had a launch-model iPhone for a couple of years now and it’s only 8GB, plenty of room for all my contacts, podcasts and a few screens of apps. The glass they make the touchscreen with on the phone and iPod Touch is remarkably scratch-resistant, so much so that I’ve burned through three cases already and the phone looks as good as new in that department.
It’s funny you’re debating between a Nano and the Touch, David, because I keep flirting with getting a Nano to supplement the phone. But every time I get close to talking myself into it, I think back to when I had a different phone and 1st gen Nano, and thus always carried those two devices, and I very distinctly remember loathing having to do so. I’ve come to rely on the iPhone so much that it’s already displaced my laptop for IM and Twitter, and I almost always will check email on the phone before I sit down in front of a computer to answer it. I don’t think it can be understated how having the more powerful portable media player has eliminated—at least for me—any reason to carry an extra device (or two or three…).
2/21/2009 @ 5:11 pm
Huh, interesting. I will miss having a Nano – I love the size, and the new ones look great. But I’m sure that I wouldn’t enjoy carrying around the extra device any more than you did.
Sounds like 16GB should be more than enough for me, based on your experience. Any cases you actively like?
2/21/2009 @ 5:24 pm
I’m happy with a low-end dumb-as-rocks cell phone (all I do is make calls and get text messages from Google Calendar), a very low end MP3 player (cost me about $30), and no portable Intenet at all. But then I’m fairly gadget-averse and very unhappy with spending money on frills. That’s why we have horse races.
2/21/2009 @ 6:47 pm