iPod Nano Watch Mock Up. Return of Classic iPod Classic Controls

[jozero]

I have a nano 6G, and the current shuffle. I like the touch screen on the 6G, but wish it had the physical controls of the Shuffle.

What if the Nano became circular ? The circle case would work as the classic controls, and the inside would be the touch screen. It would work quite well as a watch as well.

Excuse my mock up skills, the circle controls should be smaller and the screen larger. Main problem with this would be wasted real estate a circular screen brings, for example if it was to show notification from the iPhone.

Or still have it square, then add the buttons to the Nano black square perimeter.

 

[BugBytes]

The square perimeter is possible, but definitely not the circular one. I'm almost certain Apple will do neither. It's moving away from physical controls on all devices and moving toward touch technology. I actually was drawing a few concepts last night and drew one of the top of a Nano, which, instead of the rounded buttons and edges, was square. Looked pretty awesome. Since they updated sliders in iOS5 that may happen for some of their devices.

Thanks for sharing! Honestly I don't think it would work henceforth Apple won't make it, but it was an interesting idea to think about.

 

[jozero]

The square perimeter is possible, but definitely not the circular one. I'm almost certain Apple will do neither. It's moving away from physical controls on all devices and moving toward touch technology.

Rectangular is definitely better, much more usable screen area. Though Apple is moving away from physical controls given the horrible gymnastics it allows with the controls on the ear buds (I dare you to to try to rewind) it recognizes controls are still needed. I believe Apple philosophy is simplify as much as you can, but not too much. Since the iPods are mainly for music they should recognize they are 5 main actions, which was once beautifully handled by the iPod scroll wheel.

- rectangular
- clickable tactile buttons on the four sides
- the center can be double tapped at any time, in any state to play / pause
- uses the older Nano long rectangle screen to show iOS notifications
- can still be used as a watch

My guess is hopefully the Nano is used to show iOS notifications from the phone, so it will be introduced along side the iPhone. Then in October the focus of the iPad Mini will be content consumption, so the new iTunes will be revealed then and shown how easy it is to maintain and look through content through the iTunes website & iCloud integration (desktop app not required to buy stuff).