Other than the size aspect they don't really replicate the UX experience of a tiny device with dedicated media buttons. Specialized devices used for specialized purposes will always perform better than general devices.

They should sell the original iPod Nano with the wheel, it was awesome.

How so? We gave our daughter ours, but the dependence on iTunes sucks.

There are ways around using iTunes (at least for older devices). Google it.

Specifically, foobar2000 works pretty well with the iPod manager plugin. The device support is limited.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't want my children having access to the internet or apps before the age of 10. The iPad Nano was the perfect device for this. The kids can listen to all the music they want without the baggage that comes with the iPod Touch.

I don't agree with the 1st statement really, but if you have seen the movie Baby Driver then I can under the nostalgia you are talking about. There is still a market for old ipods like you are talking about for this reason.

My wife loves them for running. She told me to order 2 immediately before they run out of stock.

No wonder she does, they're fantastic due to the clip and light weight.

Same here. I have a very old Nano for hiking and running. Using a phone is not a replacement for this. Can the Apple Watch be used as player?

Yes, only with bluetooth earphones, 64K stereo only, just a single playlist that's synced with Music on the phone (last time I tried, at least).

Single playlist is not good. Time to buy another Nano 4th gen just in case....

watchOS 4 adds more playlists.

I would never run with my 6S Plus. It's approximately as wide as my bicep and aside from looking ridiculous, would just be too heavy to comfortably run with. The 5S I had was pushing it even with the big strap I had.

I've considered buying a Shuffle now as I don't really care what order the music is in, but I don't know if the Forerunner I have will connect to it (everything I've read in my cursory search specifically says "phone").

The Shuffle supports loading multiple playlists, which you can set in any order you like. You can also choose "shuffle" mode (in other words, you're not stuck with "shuffle" playback on the iPod Shuffle).

Assuming you mean Toyota 4Runner: As long as your 4Runner has an aux port, you should be able to connect the Shuffle with a male-to-male audio extension cable.

Apple Watch is the new portable music player.

Can it play music independent of a phone? I don't want to carry a phone with me when running. No good place to put it. Likewise in the gym - I'm moving around, so any pocket is likely to be a problem for at least some portion of the workout (back pocket - benchpress, side pocket - stretching and yoga, etc).

You can, but only using the Apple Music app. I've asked Google Play music repeatedly to have something similar on the watch, but they don't seem to care. Like you, I wanted to have ONLY my watch while running (I like to minimize any external clothing/devices while doing so).

So what I do now is use an armband as a place to keep my iPhone while running or exercising. The watch DOES let you seek forward/back once you have any music app playing (this works for podcasts as well) so effectively, I use the watch as a convenient "controller" for my iPhone.

Protip if you're oncall/devops: I LOVE the watch when running because I can quickly acknowledge pages from PagerDuty since you can scribble and send text right from the watch itself. Once ack'd, I finish my run and get back to handling the page

Overcast can also play podcasts from the Watch without the phone. It's annoyingly slow to transfer, but it works.

Get it now, though. The developer has said the feature was a mistake to implement and is a pain in the ass to maintain, so it might be going away soon.

It’s going to be removed in Watch OS 4: https://twitter.com/OvercastFM/status/890236178238230533

Urg, that's unfortunate. This is totally baffling, Overcast is literally the only third-party app I use on my Watch, and it seems to be one of the only apps that was serious about Watch support. With watchOS struggling with dev support, you'd think Apple would be tripping over themselves to help out the few devs who actually use it.

I guess, but the watch is still 7 times more expensive than the shuffle. It does do Bluetooth through, so that's nice. A bit extravagant for someone who is just looking for a music player for their workout.

But its more than just a music player. The workout tracker is absolutely amazing. I've used it to accurately track my running and swimming and I just love how easy to use it is.

Yes, you can sync a playlist to the watch so it can play it independently: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204691

Cool. Didn't know that. I was leaning towards picking up a Garmin Fenix, but this makes the Apple Watch a bit more compelling. Still not sure I can deal with the frequent charging. Hmmmm.

Edit - nevermind - looks like only a single playlist can be synced. That's a pretty major flaw in the system.

IIRC the shuffle can only handle a single playlist too -- how would you switch playlists?

BTw in practice I haven't found charging an issue on my 0th gen apple watch and I use it to track both exercise and sleep. It's not "fire and forget" but neither was the iphone for a long time either.

The shuffle does multiple playlists. Hold the voice button (short push reads song name/artist) to access playlists, device reads playlist title, user clicks voice button to select the one they want. Not a great user experience, but it works.

As for battery; my wife just got a Series 2 and she often goes to bed with it at 60%+ charge but I guess depends how heavy a user you are.

Personally I'm waiting for another month or two to see if the next generation has enough to make me take the plunge.

My original handles all day just fine thanks to the not so recent software updates. If you're really worried turn on theater mode so the screen doesn't constantly turn on.

Yeah, daily is the problem. I'm tired of charging devices all the time. Phone, watch (TomTom for running), GPS (for cycling), iPod, iPad(s), laptop.

The Garmin Fenix comes really close to replacing the watch and GPS from above. And it'll run for about a week between charges. If it played music, I'd own one already (even if that meant charging twice a week).

Total 1st world problem.

AFAIK Spotify doesn't have offline play on the Apple Watch

Not...really. You can do some playlist-like stuff, but not really. It isn't there yet but it is definitely on the horizon. Not hard to imagine an Apple Watch talking directly to your AirPods and skipping the phone at a point in the future.

Yes...really. I regularly run with just my Apple Watch and a pair of bluetooth earbuds. Works fine.

Yeah, a tiny and cheap player with GBs of music is ideal for running or leaving in your car.

Does no one make that anymore?