iPod nano watchbands — they’re everywhere! Seriously, ever given Steve Jobs said which an unnamed Apple board part of jokingly planned to wear a brand-new nano as a watch, we’ve seen all shapes as well as sizes of wristbands designed to put a diminutive media player on your wrist, trimming from a super-basic to the super-silly to a super-amazing. But reason up — approbation, you suspicion a new nano was a great small media player when we first reviewed it, though why hasn’t anyone talked about what it’s similar to to wear one as your watch? Is replacing your current timepiece with a nano’s 1.5-inch 240 x 240 multitouch arrangement actually the good thought? We took a nerd-bullet for you and wore a single for the week to find out — read on!
iPod nano examination — as a watch

First things initial: you’ve got to get the nano on the rope. That’s essentially flattering easy — not only have been there a million accessory manufacturers out there willing to sell you a nano-specific rope, you can additionally clip it onto pretty most any bigger watchband you can find. Just make certain you can tie things down so the nano doesn’t slide around — the white band you used didn’t have any adjustments so the nano felt a bit unsafe. We didn’t have any problems, yet — a nano’s shave is really strong enough to survive normal make use of. Of course, it’s the bit outrageous — you tend to preference vast watches, so you didn’t think it was the complaint, though if you have dainty wrists it might look the small silly.

Next, head into Settings / Date & Time as well as turn on “Time On Wake,” that pops open the clockface when you strike the wake button instead of dropping you right into a homescreen. Without this environment flipped upon, you’re just the dork with an iPod on your wrist. You also get a preference between white as well as black time face backgrounds, as well as… that’s about it. Turns out you’re starting to be the dork with an iPod on your wrist no matter what, because displaying the time when a arise switch is pulpy is pretty most the only watch-type function you’re going to find here beyond a stopwatch as well as timer. And here’s the greatest problem: you can’t only glance during your wrist as well as check the time! The screen is utterly dark when it’s asleep, so you have to reach over as well as strike the arise symbol with your alternative hand to see the time, as well as misfortune of all, attack a wake button doesn’t light a screen up now — there’s the significant and noticeable check of over half a second before a time is displayed. We’d love to see something similar to the Nokia N8′s AMOLED screen tech that dimly self-illuminates with 0 energy pull to arrangement the time whilst asleep used here — it feels similar to the undiluted solution.

Of course, you can always block in headphones and listen to song, though it turns out having a handle connecting your head to your wrist isn’t as ideal as you might suppose. Not only do you have to have certain your headphone connective tissue is long enough for your height to equivocate yanking the buds right out of your ears, but you also have to be ever-vigilant which you’re not tangling things with every move of your hands. Besides, if you’re the sort of person who’s wearing an iPod nano as a watch, good, we’re starting to go out upon a prong as well as say you have a smartphone, and that’s roughly certainly a improved song playback knowledge than the nano.

None of these issues have been a end of a universe — most regular watches don’t do more than discuss it a time either, as well as a arise symbol delay isn’t frightful — though you really begin to wonder because you have a multitouch LCD on your wrist if all you’re you do with it is seeking during an analog clock face. Do we have ideas upon how improved to make make use of of it? Oh, do we have ideas.At the unclothed minimum, Apple should suggest mixed time themes. Ship with a handful of grand standards — digital, the couple analog styles, maybe an ironic calculator face — and sell the rest for 99 cents in a iTunes store. Instant moneymaker.There’s Nike+ support in this thing, which equates to it’s likely just a firmware refurbish away from full-on Bluetooth, and which creates things really engaging. We’d adore to see a nano connect to the iPhone as well as action as the delegate display for notifications — how cool would it be to check your watch and quickly see who’s calling, indicate your content messages as well as triage email subject lines? You could even supplement in some simple carryout functionality for song and video playback, and we’d kill to be able to switch a phone to mute only by drumming on the watch. Apple’s removing severely knocked about to a punch here by Android — just check out the Sony Ericsson LiveView, which roughly each Engadget editor is dying to own.You’ve got 8 to 16GB of peep storage on your wrist — you should never think about wanting a USB hang ever again. All you need is the ability to assign some of that space to show up as a mass storage device — it’s not like iPod cables have been hard to find anywhere you go.If you’re connected to an iPhone, which means you have entrance to a GPS — that’s present Foursquare / Facebook Places check-ins from your watch right there. Or hey, just daub your watch while you’re out taking cinema to store a log of geotagging interpretation which you can sync up to your photos later on.Why limit connectivity to the iPhone? We’d adore to be able to see brand-new IMs as well as emails from the PC on our watch, as well as the idea of a simple, wearable Apple TV remote carryout seems remarkably intriguing.Trust us — we can go on. Putting the multitouch arrangement on your wrist opens up an entire world of vast wearable computing possibilities, as well as we’re sure you haven’t even scratched a surface of what could be done here. The problem is which none of these things are even close to being — as you pronounced in our general iPod nano examination, the new nano is all about listening to song as well as maybe looking during photos, and that’s about it. That’s a great contrition — while the iPod nano is extremely efficient during the tasks for which it was designed, it’s obvious that it could be even improved as the continuous watch, as well as all of that intensity is completely untapped during the impulse. Here’s hoping Apple’s hard at work at the firmware refurbish that makes all of these nano wristband accessories more than the comical novelties they now are — until then, you’ll find us in line for a LiveView.

Via Engadget