NikePlus, Zune better be a platform!

There are two reasons why you will have to pry my iPod Nano out of my warm clutching hands (I am not that big of a geek to be buried with an Apple product). The first, is that it is so easy to control while I am running. The second is the new NikePlus device that plugs into the bottom of my Nano and keeps track of how far I run. Training for a ½ marathon, you have to know the distances and pace times you run so that you can improve your endurance, and I was resigned to running on a few paths that have mile markers. With the Nike device, I can run anywhere and Nike whispers in my ear how far I have gone and how fast. Hey, even John Mayer thinks it is cool, and John try velcroing it to a wristband on your arm, I bet you burn a hell of a lot more calories playing guitar than tapping your foot.

Not to say that the union of Nike and iPod is perfect, in fact I have quite a few gripes, here are a few:

· It only works on the Nano

· Nike’s smart marketing team didn’t allow a way to attach to shoes other than Nike (a little industrial strength Velcro works well). The problem with this is that Nike shoes won’t work for most runners I know because they are built for “neutral” stride. Most runners like me pronate, or have strides that won’t work with Nike shoes.

· The Nike software makes the music function of the Nano almost useless. The Nano’s first and core function is a music player, but the Nike software limits you to playlists, shuffle and power songs. Once you start the Nike software, you can no longer choose songs, albums, artists or genres. Isn’t this like having a cell phone, that does other stuff like email, instant messenger, plays games but then fails to make a call (err, never mind I don’t know any mobile phones that have this problem).

· Because of the limitation above, I have to stop the Nike program and select music or audiobooks that I want to listen too. This cuts up my run and posts poorly on NikePlus.com as you can’t group runs together, even though it records times. It would be great if NikePlus saw that your times were near each other and asked if you would like to combine the runs together. As you can see by the picture, I have had at least 3 runs recently that would be great to combine together.

· At least twice, my Nano has freaked out and the Nike voice plays loud but all the music volume is so low it can’t be heard. I took it to the Genius’ at the Apple store and their solution is to reformat it. I thought only PC’s did that.

Apple has a big head start (too big?) in recruiting partners to add value to the iPod such as Nike, FM Transmitters, remote controls, stereo system, and biggest of all: car stereos. I hope that J Allard and team have taken our “software is key” approach so that our partners can quickly add cool new hardware options to Zune.