Photo: redjar / Flickr

Back in September, when Apple first revealed its iPod Nano sixth generation with its ‘wear it anywhere’ design, a collective penny dropped: everybody realised it would make for a brilliant watch for geeks everywhere. Then a graphic design firm thought to take this concept a step further by actually designing two proper wrist holsters, one called the LunaTik and the other called the TikTok, for the Nano to slot into.

They put their concept up on crowd funding service KickStarter with the express goal of making $15,000 to make the project viable. What they got in return was way more than $15,000.

Nearly 1 million dollars raised

The project has just closed for funding, and it raised a total amount of $941,558 from 13,510 backers. That’s over $925,000 more than what the target was, or, to put that into perspective further, sixty times more than the target was, confirming that the designers of the project hugely underestimated how serious people were about their iPod Nano sixth generation wristwatches!

To be fair to the designers, though, it isn’t the concept of the Nano wristwatch alone that got this KickStart off the ground, but likely how brilliant both the TikTok and LunaTik products look and how beautifully the product videos were put together.

The power of the crowd

What the funding of the TikTok and LunaTik proves is that when the right cause is in place, or an appropriate focal point exists, crowdsourcing can be a powerful model for getting things done. KickStarter, which modified sourcing to instead do crowd funding has been an impressive vehicle for seeing technology projects get off the ground.

For those of you who did not participate in the crowd funding, would you purchase a TikTok or a LunaTik watch, remembering, of course, that you have to purchase a £100 plus iPod Nano sixth generation with it?

Photo: Apple

When we first saw the new iPod Nano introduced, and learnt it had a clip on the back of it for adding a strap, we imagined a bunch of ways zany owners – some NSFW – would attach it to themselves. What has emerged as the best unconventional way to wear it is, believe it or not, as a wristwatch. Enter the iPod watch.

It’s all in the size

Given it’s, umm, Nano size, the iPod Nano 6th generation, with its refined square shape, looks cool wrapped around your wrist. All you need to do is buy an appropriate strap, and you’re good to go. With its full screen digital clock function, you can use it as your primary time piece, letting it go to sleep whenever it’s not in use to preserve battery life. And when you bump into other Apple nerds lovers, when showing off your super smart solution you can call it your WWJD timepiece – short for What Would Jobs Do?

It’s impractical, you know?

Though I’m 100 per cent certain nerds everywhere will use the iPod Nano 6^th gen as the most advanced digital watch ever invented, it is worth pointing out that, umm, it isn’t particularly practical.

For one, the miniature iPod Nano 6^th generation doesn’t support Bluetooth or wireless headsets, meaning if you want to use your new iPod watch in the way it was initially intended to be used, you’d need to run earphones up your arm and under your shirt to your ears. You’ll look super silly in a short sleeve shirt, but in a long sleeve shirt, you’ll almost undoubtedly feel like a Scotland Yard badass.

Secondly, iPods aren’t exactly known for the seemingly timeless (chuckle) battery life on regular digital and analogue watches. I’ve never heard of someone’s watch’s battery running flat daily, so if I ask you for the time and you can’t accommodate me, you’ll look like a silly guy wearing a dead watch.

It’s also kinda expensive

Oh, and, consider the iPod Nano 6^th generation one last time before you go buy a touchscreen watch (how bad-ass is that, btw?), remember it isn’t cheap, with a retail price of £139 for the 8GB and £189 for the 16GB. But we may have stealthily uncovered another market Jonathan Ive, Steve Jobs, and the Apple crew want to obliterate – the digital wristwatch space. Those sneaky, sneaky guys!

Go on, buy your iPod watch already. We won’t judge you.

Photo: Apple

Apple has a big, big event happening tonight, as you know. What you may not have known was that Steve Jobs and friends plan a special Apple live stream for the event. This is actually quite remarkable, because it is Apple’s first live stream in a long, long while. But you’re not invited to the party if you’re not an Apple customer.

PC racist (uhm, ‘devicist’?)

You’re out of luck if you want to watch the Apple live stream on any device that is not made by Apple. Apple’s statement regarding the live stream reads: ‘Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad.’ Man, where’s the love? What’s worse is Apple is even punishing those Mac users who are still on Mac OS X version 10.5. Not cool.

New iPod Nano, FaceTime Touch, iTV

Apple’s autumn show has been greeted with tons of speculation, with the obvious being the iPod lineup will see some form of an update. Reports indicate that the iPod Nano will get a brand new interface, minus a click wheel.

In addition, the iPod Touch will reportedly get a rear-facing and front-facing camera, with Apple’s proprietary FaceTime software baked into the OS. FaceTime seems to be Apple’s big thing now – what, with all the iPhone 4 commercials showing it – and it would make sense for the company to spread its tentacles even further out.

Photo: Apple

The big, big deal may be the long-rumoured Apple TV refresh (expected to be renamed iTV). Various agreements with film studios have been discussed in finance publications, with all being curious on whether Apple can change the media centre game the way it did the personal music player, smartphone and tablet computer game.

Alternatives

For those of us who aren’t burning to watch the Apple live stream, you can catch the full video on Apple’s website a few hours after the event, or you can read the many live blogs across the web during the conference.

Surprisingly, I’m not as excited for this event as previous Apple events. How do you feel about it?

Photo: Apple

Since mentioning it in our post on fitness site DailyBurn, we’ve had readers asking us to explain exactly how the Nike iPod sport fitness venture works. Below is a quick rundown for those trying to get running, but who need their favourite electronics to accompany (and motivate) them.

What you need

For Nike Plus to integrate into your digital equipment, you need three things. First, an official Nike+ pair of sneakers. Second an iDevice, whether it is an iPod Touch, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPod Nano. And finally, you need the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit.

How does it work?

The Nike iPod Sport Kit comes with a sensor you pop into your shoe – Nike Plus sneakers were designed with this feature in mind, so there’s a ready-made compartment for this sensor where the inner padding of your shoe is. Once that’s done, you would tether your receiver to your iPod Nano (or use the built-in receiver in the iPod Touch and iPhones) to begin tracking your performance.

Photo: Apple

The base function of the Nike iPod Sport Kit is to track the distant you have run/walked (hence the sensor going into your sneaker). Once it’s able to do that, the software now present on your iDevice will show you what kind of distance you’ve traveled, the time in which you have done so, the calories you have burnt, as well as a host of other features like work out planning and so on.

Essentially, Nike iPod tries to be your personal trainer, by integrating Nike’s lauded running gear with Apple’s can’t-stop-selling-this hardware.

Getting set up

Getting set up is quick and easy, and once you have the necessary gear, integration happens automatically. And, for those pushing themselves to the upper echelons of peak performance, you can upload your performance to nikeplus.com to track your progress, compete with, and compare results with others, much in the same way DailyBurn does.

There have been reported problems with the Nike iPod Sport Kit using the new iOS that ships in the iPhone 4, so while Apple tries to get a fix pushed through, you may want to remain on an older iPhone OS for the time being.t