In less than 15 minutes (10 a.m., San Francisco time), Apple Inc. will begin hosting a special media event that has “Let’s Rock” as its tagline. The “Let’s Rock” event has been heavily hyped since its announcement exactly one week ago. The tagline and the familiar silhouette that accompanies the invitation suggest an iPod related event. A refresh of the current lines of Shuffle, Nano, Classic and Touch had been expected and is inevitable since they have already shown their age. Except for Shuffle, I have had owned either previous or current models of all the other iPod lines. I currently own the following iPods:

I never saw the need of a Shuffle because even cell phones made couple of years ago could do a much better job than any Shuffles had been able to do. So I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple drops the Shuffle line completely.

I have owned 2 previous generations of the iPod Classic when they were still known as just the iPods.

I still own a 5th generation iPod Classic that I take advantage of its 60GB capacity to store most of my iTunes music library. Its capacity is not big enough to backup my iTunes library of both videos and music though. It is attached to my car stereo most of the time. Until price of flash memory comes down significantly coupled with significant increase in capacity, I think there will still be demand for the iPod Classic. So I hope a new Classic with at least 250GB capacity will be released today.

Pictures purported to be that of a real Nano 4G started popping up all over the Internet last week. Those pictures conveniently confirm the drawings of the unconfirmed Nano 4G that had surfaced since July. The Nano line is the only iPod line that I have owned all the generations.

If those rumours of a vertical Nano with 16GB hold true, the Nano 4G will be the first of the Nano family that I won’t be interested to own. I want a Nano iPhone!

It has also been rumoured that the iPod Touch family will undergo some minor cosmetic changes that come without increased capacity beyond its present 32GB limit. With iPhone 3G availably widely at contract prices that are way below that of the iPod Touch, I doubt if a minor facelift and price cut would be enough to attract buyers.

My videos obviously have not convinced jpowers55 that Nano is a very “watchable” video player, so I took a picture with my iPod Touch placed above my iPod Nano, both paused at the same time frame of The 11th Hour (oops, I only just noticed that they are slightly out of sync with the Nano missing the lower third). Anyway, I figured to make it even more convincing, cause jpowers55 has obviously never seen a Nano playing videos in real, I needed to put the two iPods in context with something that jpowers55 can relate to. So I placed my Nokia N82 next to my iPod as a reference of their actual screen sizes.

I will let the readers to judge whether a Nano can be watched playing videos for hours. In my opinion, if one can stand texting and reading messages on a cellphone, watching movies on a Nano can actually be a treat to one’s eyes.

As to the question of whether it is better to watch movies on a player with bigger screen, the answer is obviously yes. It is always better to watch anything with a bigger screen. But choosing a portable multimedia player almost always involves trading off quality with portability. How much and what to trade off, however, cannot be generalized as it is up to one’s own personal preference to make that call. As for myself, I have settled to own two players of different size to complement each other.

More on my Flickr album

Except for doing a nice job of copying the look of Nano, the build quality of the knockoff is mediocre at best and the software is badly designed. It not only rip off Nano but is itself a real ripoff. The people who made this should really be ashamed of themselves.

Meantime, my Nano is looking very handsome with its new accessories:

When Apple emailed me yesterday late in the afternoon that my Nano was on its way, I was afraid that I won’t be getting it until the end of the long weekend holiday. But I had half expected that it would arrive, which is why I had only left home for a quick lunch today. I didn’t want to miss the delivery.

It is now almost two hours since my Nano had arrived and I am really glad that I hadn’t gone with the iPod Touch. This is my 3rd Nano and my 6th iPod. I did struggle a little bit between the iPod Classic, iPod Touch and the Nano which explains why I had only ordered mine weeks after it became available (I ordered it online this Thursday). I already have a 60GB 5th Gen iPod Video which has been serving me well especially when I am on vacation. I finished the whole first season of Lost on it during a strip to Tokyo last year. One season of TV shows with 22 episodes take up about 10GB of storage space. My current library of TV shows has 228 items totaling 96.32GB of space whilst my music library has 2,600 items totaling 60.70GB of space. With the exception of music I bought from iTunes, my music library is ripped from CDs using Apple Lossless encoding which explains why merely 2,600 songs would take up so much space. And then I have another 10,000 of photos on Aperture that I really want to show them off on my iPods. My TV shows library has been growing very fast lately because of the discounted iTunes coupons that I have been able to buy at eBay. My videos and music are stored on a 250GB NAS that has gigabit ethernet connecting to my home network while my photos are stored on a FireWire 1TB hard drive configured as a 500GB RAID 0 system. Both are approaching their limits. Even though Apple markets the new 160GB iPod Classic as the device to hold everything, I had to pass it once I had done my calculations above. I am better off sticking with my 5th Gen iPod if decisions of what to put on an iPod have to make anyway.

With only 16GB of flash storage, it would be even harder for me to select what to put on an iPod Touch. Although it is thinner than an iPhone, the iTouch is still as large as the iPhone because of the 3.5 inch screen that they share. That screen, by the way, with multi-touch is perfect for viewing photos and videos. Since it is very likely that I will get an iPhone when it becomes available in Hong Kong, it really doesn’t make any sense for me to get an iTouch now. The iTouch does have double the storage capacity of the iPhone. But I can always make up that difference with a Nano which I can use it just to store music. Remember I have almost 61GB of music? I can fill all my iPods with different combination of songs that don’t duplicate. I would rather carry an iPhone with a Nano rather than two “iPhones”. And who knows, by the time iPhone is ready for Hong Kong it might already have the 16GB option.

Besides my usage pattern above, I do find iTouch’s lack of a speaker and Bluetooth radio rather disappointing. Without a speaker, I can’t really share my videos or music with others unless they like silent movies. Without Bluetooth to connect with my HSDPA phones, it means I am restricted to using the built-in Safari or YouTube or even iTunes Store within the proximity of a WiFi hotspot. Both missing features, however, are available on the current iPhone, although I am not sure if the Bluetooth software that comes with iPhone allows connection with a Bluetooth modem.

Going back to the new Nano, it is just super cool. I have recorded my unboxing of it in both video and photos. I will try to organize and upload them in the coming days. I have always liked the Nanos. It’s true that they don’t offer as much storage capacity as their siblings but their sizes make them perfect for almost every purposes save a long vacation. I can run without my Polar watch but I can’t run without my Nano with Nike+. Nike+ is the single most important motivation for my running. Nano is just great. And just when I thought my 2nd Gen Nano with Nike+ is perfect the 3rd Gen arrives.

Because it has to house a 2 inch screen, the 3rd Gen Nano is necessarily fatter than the 2nd Gen, albeit shorter. This almost square dimension makes the 3rd Gen not as easy to hold inside my palm than the 2nd Gen especially when I run. It doesn’t matter because I have decided to use the 3rd Gen mainly for video and photos while the 2nd Gen for music. The screen of the 3rd Gen is just gorgeous. Because it has the highest pixels per inch among all the current iPods, videos and pictures appear much finer and smoother than the others.

As far as the hardware is concerned, my only complain is its casing. It has the same stainless steel back found on the 1st Gen Nano and the iPod Classic which just makes it prone to scratches. In fact, I have already scratched mine while putting the 2nd Gen next to it for taking the comparison photos. Also, the metal casing makes any engravings that you have inscribed on the Nano difficult to read when the Nano is placed near light sources.

Even just playing with the new Nano for a few minutes I quickly noticed the many improvements that Apple has made upon it. Operation is smooth and responsive. The new user interface is intuitive in usage and elegant in aesthetics. Cover Flow is really cool. I can’t wait to show it off.

In the previous generations, menus will take up the whole screen. Now all menus take up only half of the screen leaving the other half showing either album art in the case of music or graphical representation of the current feature. It is just neat.

Lastly, if you are going to get a new Nano and you don’t mind the colour of red, try to get a red one. It is only available from Apple direct. Apple donates a portion of every Red Nano to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa, which in itself is a worthy cause. By ordering direct from Apple, you can also get free engraving on the back of the Nano. But I must say the red of the 3rd Gen looks more like pink to me.

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I have begun celebrating the coming of this event more than a month ago when I was in Osaka by accessorizing my MacBook with a new wrist rest, a screen protector and a metal cover protector.

The celebration culminated two days ago with my purchase of an AppleCare Protection Plan for my MacBook to extend its warranty for an additional two full years.

The purchase was a no-brainer after Apple had replaced my MacBook’s battery with a new one earlier this week. I am kind of busy now, so I won’t go into the story behind the battery. Suffice to say, my Sony VAIO notebook which is only a few months older than my MacBook (and had cost almost twice that of my MacBook) had suffered a much more serious defect with its battery than that of my MacBook. The Sony VAIO is another long story and the short version is that I was forced to buy a new battery from Sony at half price, the discount was given because my notebook itself was still under warranty but the battery, apparently in the case of Hong Kong, was not guaranteed. I can’t remember clearly the term, which was either no warranty at all or just the first three months. Do yourself a big favour, next time you get a notebook, don’t get a Sony. Its service in Hong Kong is horrible, unfriendly and defensive.

Get a Mac notebook instead. Besides superior design and decent built quality, it offers topnotch service. Even if you are not prepared to dive into Mac OS yet, install Bootcamp and run it as a pure PC notebook. I have done that during my first few weeks with mine. Chances are you will run a lot less into drivers compatibility problems than say a Sony VAIO because Apple makes only a few different models of notebooks and being a real software maker (unlike Sony) they can respond to changes made by Microsoft quickly. And let’s face it, how can they convince anyone to switch from PC and standby the claim that they make the best combination of hardware and operating system, if they can’t prove their machines run Windows better than other hardware makers if not just as good. I have recently removed Bootcamp not only just to save space but because I have migrated most of my daily usage of computers to Mac. I currently have four notebooks and I only carry my MacBook and the newly purchased UMPC out. I use my VAIO and tablet more like desktop computers nowadays and planning to get rid of them soon.

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