The new iPod nano with FM radio

Apple had their now-annual Rock and Roll event yesterday to premier some of the new products and software they’ve been cooking up in California.

Steve Jobs (he’s back!) talked a great deal about the iPod touch. Who can blame him? Apple has sold over 20 million of them! But the little gadget I was the most excited to see was the new iPod nano.

Apple’s added some great new features to it.  Most notably, a video camera.  My first thought was that a video camera would be a little useless when you have a digital camera that takes videos. But when you compare the size of the two, it’s no competition. The nano is much thinner and more portable.

Of course, my personal favorite feature is the new FM radio. I’m so glad to see this included. As someone who uses the radio frequently, I had all but resigned myself to listening only in the car or at home. Portable radios are just hard to come by these days! They are great for finding new music, listening to your favorite shows and, most importantly, are fantastic for listening to the big game if you’re nowhere near a TV.

The radio displays the name of the station and song and comes with an awesome “tagging” feature that lets you mark songs you hear and like, and keeps a running list in a notes section.  As someone who carries around a small notebook so I can write song names down, this is probably the coolest thing I’ve heard of in a while. It’s the one feature that might actually convince me to upgrade my first generation iPod mini…yes, I still have one of those.

Best of all, they’ve paid attention to environmental aspects in the new nano too.  Apple used arsenic-free glass and made it highly recyclable. The new nano will also be BFR, Mercury and PVC-free.

Since this is the first iPod that may have convinced me to retire my old turquoise work horse,  I have to recommend it highly.


Check out the new commercial here: