While I was away on holiday Apple released two new products, the iPod Nano, and an iTunes equipped phone in collaboration with Motorola. Apple is currently the biggest innovator in hardware design so it is worth looking at what they come up with.

In the case of the iPod Nano this is one sleek device. It takes the existing iPod design and makes it smaller and sexier. I suspect this product is driven more by improvements in storage technology allowing a smaller device than any plan to evolve the iPod design, but it sure looks nice.

The iTunes phone though disappoints me. iPods have smooth surfaces, with a minimum of visual noise. This phone is a brick, with all sorts of unnecessary fuss such as the two-tone colour scheme and the raised M on the front. It doesn’t look anything like an iPod, and so dilutes, rather than strengthens, the iconic iPod brand. I’d like to know the inside story of the design of the phone; I suspect it has a lot more involvement from Motorola than Apple.