I listen to a lot of podcasts, mainly in my car, or while riding my bike. While Instacast HD is awesome, using my iPad mini in either of these locations is not.
After digging out an old HP-branded iPod, I discovered it’s clickwheel had gone to the great parts bin in the sky.
So, after ridiculing the iPod nano on my podcast, this weekend, I bought a black one. (The other models, with their bright backs and white glass look ridiculous to me. At least with the black mode, the glass kinda fades in to the metal when you aren’t staring at it.)
I re-subscribed to the 15 or so shows I keep up with, and am syncing them to my Nano via a cable.
This isn’t a great setup. While I can live with iPod nano’s goofy iOS-like interface, I’ve already forgotten to sync my iPod to my laptop at the end of the day a couple of times. I’ve set a reminder on my computer, so hopefully I won’t have that issue in the future.
Speaking of the iPod nano, I suppose I should share my thoughts on the device.
The hardware is pretty impressive. The glass front is flat, and where it meets the rounded aluminum back is nice and tight. The lightning connector feels great (as it does on other devices), and the giant volume rocker and play/pause button on the side of the device feels good too.
Battery life seems awesome, and I assume the Bluetooth works as advertised.
Unlike the last iPod nano, this generation is easy to use with one hand. While the interface is a little weird, it makes more sense than it did before on the watch-style player.
For my uses the Nano is perfect. It’s small, has enough space for my podcasts and a decent sub-set of music collection. At $149, it was a no brainer after I realized using my iPad mini for podcasts on the go was just plain silly.