My First Apple Product Ever: iPod Nano

I used to be reticent towards Apple and its products. I still have some reserves about their software, but my wrong thought about their hardware was that it is unnecessarily overpriced and overrated.

But now I know that their hardware is overpriced for a reason: it is better than the rest. And it is not overrated at all, it is simply superior.

Recently I stumbled upon this little device on a store and bought it after an Apple representative showed it to me:

The iPod Nano is a beautifully engineered machine that covers your audio playback needs by far exceeding all your expectations. Being a Winamp lover I would usually despise iTunes and everything related to it but the representative told me that I can load music into the iPod with many different players so I bought it. Later I read that sometimes Apple releases firmware updates and I must use iTunes to install them so I had no other choice.



I will tell you a bit about the iPod in this post:

Features

• Audio and Video playback.
• Music browser and Cover Flow.
• Allows playlists, song rating, displays album arts and lyrics.
• Smart shuffling capabilities.
  
• Some small cool games.
• Alarm, notes, calendars, etc...
  

But hey most media players today come with those features, don't they?
I'll tell you why iPod is different.

Pros

• Audio with iPod is just better, the Apple earphones and the audio decoding capabilities of the iPod make music sound a lot better than on any other device.
• Cover Flow is the easiest way to browse for your music, simply turn the iPod on the side and it will display an art gallery of your music which you can browse with the wheel.
• The battery lasts longer than on any other player, it promises 24hs of non stop playback if you don't mess around with it too much.
• High amount of memory, iPod nano comes in versions of 4, 8 and 16 gbs. That should be more than enough to carry your favorite music around.
• Shuffling with iPod is funny, I don't shuffle too much but iPod comes with a little bot called Genius, that will seek your library for music that matches style and will shuffle in a smarter way than other players.
• Better screen, iPod has a high resolution 2" screen which will display your music covers, video, captions, menus and it has a few nice accessibility perks.
  

Cons

• iTunes dependency: you need iTunes to install firmware updates. Fortunately iTunes improved over the years and now it is not so heavy and invasive as before, but I still prefer my Winamp over it.
  
• Some media formats and album covers not supported. FLAC has been completely overlooked.
  
• It's pricey, but with technology you should know: you get what you pay for.
• It has a nice surface but it scratches easily if you don't keep it in a rubber wrap. And those accessories are expensive too.