Apple announced two spanking new hardware products this week - a replacement for the iPod Mini called the iPod nano and the new Motoola ROKR “iTunes” phone. They also released iTunes 5.0 alongwith the hardware. The nano is Apple’s first flash-based music player and will be available in 2GB ($199) and 4GB ($249) versions. The Mini has now been phased out. The new phone with iTunes, is basically just an upgrade to their E398 phone with a different color, iTunes, and a larger memory card. They have also added support for video recording although the camera is still 0.3MP only.

A small issue I see with the nano already is the price. It replaces the 4GB and 6GB versions of the Mini which means you get lower capacities at the same price. Granted that the nano is much sleeker and uses flash memory which means it’s less prone to damage/frequent crashes/reformats. But this comes a t a premium some might not be willing to pay especially since Creative sells its Zen Micro at lower prices for their 4GB and 6GB versions. And yes, Apple still hasn’t added support for FM radio. Something else that is missing is a flash card slot!! It would’ve been so cool if they had added, say, and SD card slot. Imagine the kind of possiblities that opens up. You could add more room if you ever wanted to store more music. Besides, with prices of flash memory falling and capacities rising, it would’ve been perfect. I would’ve probably bought the nano if only it had the extra slot.

Coming to the ROKR, first of all, it’s currently only available with Cingular Wireless, that too with only a 2-year contract. It still costs $250 which means that an unlocked version would cost upwards of $400. Furthermore, I have my doubts on how well the iTunes integration will work. Being the first non-smartphone to come with a familiar media player, we will have to wait and watch how well it manages to work.

Last of all, iTunes 5.0. The interface is now different - they ditched the superb brush-metal look for a more mercury/glassy look. Also, it doesn’t show up shared music over the network. I presume it’s because people are using older versions of iTunes and the new version does not display those on older versions. I hope this is the case as I can no longer stream music off people on the LAN. The Sharing tab in the options is still there so I’m guessing it will work sometime in the near future. But what they really need to work on is the amount of resources that iTunes needs. I’ve seen it eat up tp 70MB at times which keeps me away from iTunes for most of the time and stick with WMP10. What also ticks me off is that you need to use third party software such as AveTunes to skin the damn program!! I mean come on!! Every other media player is skinnable so why doesn’t Apple let you do that with iTunes?