Apple Ships Tiny iPod nano

Apple kills off its the iPod mini in favor of the new flash-based iPod nano: thinner than a #2 pencil, weighing just 1.5 ounces, featuring a color screen, and starting at $199.

Apple Computer today took the wraps off the iPod nano, the latest entry in its market-leading line of portable music players. And the iPod nano lives up to its tiny name: the unit measures just 3.5 inches (88.9 mm) tall by 1.6 inches (40.6 mm) wide by a scant 0.27 inches (6.9 mm) deep (that’s thinner than a #2 pencil) and weighs just 1.5 ounces (43 g). The iPod nano also features a 1.5-inch color LCD screen with backlight, the famed iPod clickwheel interface, a purported 14-hour battery life with a 3-hour charge time, and either a 2 GB ($199) or 4 GB ($249) capacity. The iPod nano is available in Apple’s trademark white as well as a new black-with-grey design.

In terms of audio support, the iPod nano is every inch an Apple product, supporting audio, podcasts, and audiobooks in AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF. Like all iPods before, the iPod nano does not support audio in Real Networks’ or Windows Media formats. Users load music and playlists from the iTunes application (available for free for Mac OS X and Windows 2000 and XP) onto the iPod nano via USB, connecting via the iPod nano’s 30-pin dock connector.

The iPod nano’s color screen (which can display album art imported over from iTunes while playing music) supports images in JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, and PNG formats, as well as Mac Photoshop documents.

Apple says the iPod nano works with most iPod accessories which use the standard iPod docking port. Like other iPods, the iPod nano also acts as a standalone storage device for documents and data; in the iPod nano’s case, it shows up as a USB flash drive.

The iPod nano ships with earbuds, a USB cable, and Dock adapter, but Apple is also selling several iPod nano accessories