Nilay Patel on Wearing an iPod Nano as a Watch

Nilay Patel, back in November:

And here’s the biggest problem: you can’t just glance at your wrist and check the time! The screen is completely dark when it’s asleep, so you have to reach over and hit the wake button with your other hand to see the time, and worst of all, hitting the wake button doesn’t light the screen up instantly — there’s a significant and noticeable delay of over half a second before the clock is displayed. We’d love to see something like the Nokia N8’s AMOLED screen tech that dimly self-illuminates with zero power draw to display a clock while asleep used here — it feels like a perfect solution.

Relevant today because I just got my TikTok band for the Nano, as my reward for backing the wildly-successful Kickstarter project. The TikTok is everything I could have hoped for: the Nano fits perfectly and the wristband is supple and comfortable. But for the reasons outlined by Patel above, the current Nano just isn’t ideal for use as a full-time wristwatch. I can definitely see using this when I run though.

But just playing with the thing makes me realize that wearable computers are inevitable. Imagine a Nano with an always-on display and a Bluetooth connection to your iPhone, allowing the Nano to serve as a status display for live information.

★ Friday, 21 January 2011