Does Apple dream an iPhone future for iPod nano?

By Jonny Evans

"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" (Douglas Adams, Hitchiker's Guide)

With all the rigidly defined doubt and uncertainty surrounding Apple's iPhone plans this September, it's easy to forget the iPod range. Once the stalwart of the Apple [AAPL] halo-driven return to tech industry glory, iPod sales seem slowly sliding, so how can the company doctor those iPod hearts to get them beating again? What would happen if a little iPhone was popped inside an iPod nano?

[ABOVE: Your iPod nano: your iWatch.]

Who can have failed to notice the attention given last year's iPod nano, which almost immediately spawned a series of add-on devices that turned the music player into a watch. Now imagine Apple took this idea, popped an A4 processor inside it, along with a miniature touch screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and an EDGE or 3G data connection. What does it do?

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It's a phone

Voice-activated dialing, perhaps, conducted using the wireless headset and Apple's iCloud server. You'd also benefit from on-screen navigation through your Address Book app, and a virtual dialpad. You'd speak using your headset, which would also alert you when you receive a call. You also get iChat and Skype support.

It's Facetime anywhere

If you're in the mood for a video chat, you get your wish. Video of the person you're chatting with would appear on the device, and the small camera inside the device would enable you to be seen.

It's a camera

It's not a very good camera: I can't imagine it would offer much in the way of megapixels, it would lack a flash, there would be an extremely limited capacity for images. Fine for Facetime conversation.

It's an iPod

Of course it is. That 8MB of flash memory isn't much, but you can carry some of your favorite music around with you, watch your favorite movies. It would sync wirelessly over Wi-Fi.

It's an iMessage center

Also SMS text messages, and spoken emails in which you speak what you want to write and audio clips of up to 30-seconds long would be transcribed into text using Nuance voice recognition technology and Apple's iCloud server farm. Oh, and you pick your messages up as you go.

It's a keep-fit machine

Equipped with Nike+, a pedometer, and the ability to figure out some location data you'd use this to keep tabs on your jogging sessions. Don't expect much if any movement-activated controls on this device -- it lives on your wrist, but that doesn't mean it can't help you with your exercise routine.

A widget wonderer

The nano already offers playlist support, Genius mixes, an FM radio, shake to shuffle. This new model adds a Clock, a calculator, calendar, the Remote app, and limited location-based mapping services. You'd be able to install additional apps from the Nano widget store -- Reminders, Voice Memos and the like.

Personal assistant

Perhaps you can download local maps, city guides and the like? Perhaps those travel apps could be repurposed for this device, or perhaps you'd find a Siri app (Apple purchased that company last year) offering up spoken responses to queries such as "where's a good place to eat near me?", "where is the nearest cab office", and so on.

It's your wallet

There's no reason this device can't be equipped with limited support for payment systems using secure Bluetooth-based technologies. Apple's recent move to join the Bluetooth standards association may reflect the company's future plans for its 'Transaction' payment system.

Given lack of text input, the best security I can imagine for this would potentially require a specific spoken password (voice pattern recognition on the server) and that the device security system also recognizes that a person's pulse matches that of the approved owner.

Text input

Forget the alphanumeric keyboard, pop out physical keyboard or Apple virtual keyboard. Voice recognition would be the primary way to input text. The best way I can imagine to input text on a 1.5-inch or smaller screen would be a quadrant-based system.

(This is fiddly. In this the alphabet is split into four quarters of eight characters each (alphabet plus common symbols). Choose one quadrant you get another in which those eight characters are divided into four groups of two, then select the one you want. This is overly-complex, so most would opt for the voice recog system. Perhaps there's another way, please suggest your own idea.)

This limited support for data entry is why this device will lack support for email, document creation or editing....

iCloud

Of course there's some support for iCloud: all your contacts and calendar data is kept in sync. You get access to Photostream, just flick through your recent images; you get synced iTunes, you can even look at but not edit documents you have stored in the iCloud, along with list access to manage or share the contents of your iCloud folders.

Gaming

Does anyone still remember iPod games? They were nowhere near as sophisticated as the iOS games we play today, but their existence proved that you can get some casual fun even using a tiny screen. That iPod Scroll control system remains of course, as a transparent overlay on the iPod nano screen, now activated by touch, you could anticipate some very simple games may be supported by such a device.

What you don't get

No Safari browser; no email client; no wide support for apps; no word processor; no full-strength Facebook client. You want those things, then get an iPhone.

All this speculation was sparked by reading this review of the SE Live View device.

This wristwatch-sized gizmo works with an Android device. The idea is that instead of pulling your phone out of your pocket, incoming emails, texts and notifications are beamed to the small screen on your wrist. Of course, the iPod nano could be a slave device like the SE Live, but what if it had its own intelligence? That's where I started.

Doubt and uncertainty

iPhone nano claims aren't new. They go back many years, I've been reporting them since 2008. Apple's history adds a little credibility to the idea: It introduced the iPod mini (Jan, 2004) just over two years after it launched the iPod classic (Oct, 2001). The company knows how to widen and diversify a market in order to protect market share.

Will it happen? Just glance around the Web today and there's an analyst for every possible outcome, Apple will, or won't, offer an iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, smaller cheaper iPhone, whatever -- it all depends who you happen to choose to believe.

My take? Apple will inevitably diversify and widen its market offering, with a particular view to focusing on emerging economies. It makes sense to diversify, and doing so would extend Apple's reach into the low-end of the smartphone sector, while also delivering best-in-class solutions competitors will find it hard to match. Introduced in 2007, the iPhone is four years old. If the diversification doesn't happen now, it is only a question of when.

Your thoughts? If you were Apple, what would you do to diversify your range? Does the company even need to diversify its range? Is offering the last-generation model at a lower price all the company needs to do? Let us know. Otherwise, please follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when new reports get published here first on Computerworld.