Everybody Wants To Screw The nano

I've been bitten by Moore's Law more times than I care to count.

Right now, I'm working on an aging (by technology's standards) Mac desktop that I should have replaced two years ago. My Powerbook G3, longer in the tooth, bit the silicon dust after my trip to Los Angeles, and I've now been told it would cost more to replace the logic board than Superfly is worth. The fine, upstanding folks at Rawlings replaced my 2nd gen iPod (after it was violated in my absence) with a 4th gen click wheel job.

Now, even that's horribly out of date with the damned sexy iPod nano. Holding this wee beastie between my thumb and forefinger makes my inner geek wires hum. Who wouldn't want one of these bad boys?

Try the CEO of Motorola, Ed Zander.

"Screw the nano. What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs?"

Zander goes on to crib notes from my Flying Car manifesto from five years ago. He's right, of course -- the world's mobile users are more savvy than users in North America.

However, when it comes to the iPod, it's the reverse of the Flying Car Theory. Sure, I would LIKE for my music to stay on board with my communication, but if the result of the marriage is the ROKR phone, I'd prefer to keep it separate, thanks all the same. The ROKR's interface is fine enough, but the phone is clunky, the sync with iTunes is kludgy at best, and it's too bloody expensive.

I was hoping Sony Ericsson would release an iTunes phone, and perhaps they will. Or, better yet, Apple will... nah, that's just crazy talk.