A growing gaggle of gizmos and gadgets is becoming available to enhance the Nano listening experience. Start off with headphones.
The nano, like all iPods, comes with those distinctive, standard white earbuds that are an icon of cool.
But an even cooler add-on is the lanyard headphones (picture at right) that clip around your neck and hold the nano against your chest. It has the same earbuds but a clip for the nano that Apple says conquers the clutter of the long earbud wires in a streamlined look.
You can order it from the Apple site (www.apple.com) for $39, but you better be patient. Delivery time is as long as six weeks.
You’ll have better luck with the $39 iPod in-ear headphones. I prefer these a whole lot more than the earbuds because they stay in better during exercise. Plus, wedged in your ear like they do, they deliver better audio quality. You can get them in 24 hours.
If you really want the ultimate in audio quality, used by true audiophiles, spend $299 and get a pair of Shure’s sound-isolating E4c headphones (www.shure.com). We’re talking high-definition sound. They block out all background noise, so don’t wear these while driving.
If you want to listen to your nano on the road, pick up the $ 69.95 Monster iCarPlay FM Transmitter (www.monstercable.com). It works on the nano and all iPods except the Shuffle by making a wireless connection to your vehicle’s FM radio. A cool feature with this unit is that it also charges the iPod as you drive.
And if the frequency you select starts getting interference as you drive around, it has a instantly progammable switch that can take you to a clear one.
If you just want a charger while you’re driving, Digital Lifestyle Outfitters (www.dlo.com) makes an AutoPod car charger for $ 29.99 that will keep your nano juiced while you’re moving from place to place.
What about going inside when you want to share your iPod’s nano music stash with others?
Because the nano uses the same proprietary 30-pin connector that all iPods but the Shuffle have, almost all of the existing iPod speaker systems that get their audio from the dock connector should work just fine with the nano.
The port on the nano is off-center so it may look a little skewed, but Altec Lansing’s inMotion (www.alteclansing.com), Logitech’s mm50 (www.logitech.com) and Bose’s powerfully crisp $299 SoundDock (www.bose.com) are among the many that can handle the nano just fine.
There are tons of special cases and so-called “skins” that you can slip over the nano to protect it or dress it up. Apple sells a five-pack of multicolored nano “tubes” that fit the device like a glove for $29.
There’s also an Apple armband for the nano, also at $29. Pick your color – blue, green, red, pink or gray.
There are some incompatibilities, though, with some pre-nano iPod accessories. While the nano does display color pictures it gets from syncing up with your computer, you can’t use Apple’s iPod Camera Connector that works with the other iPod models.
And forget about using the nano to show those pictures on a television, as its bigger cousins can do. The nano’s earphone plug is audio only.
Those are just some of the nano accessories out there. More are coming out every day; for like all the iPods, it’s become more than a music player. It’s a fashion statement.
Be cool, nano users, be cool.
—
(c) 2005, Detroit Free Press.
Visit the Freep, the World Wide Web site of the Detroit Free Press, at http://www.freep.com.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-09-28-05 0620EDT
Comments are no longer available on this story