Nike Plus for iPod Nano

I had heard a little bit about the Nike Plus plugin on for the iPod Nano and decided to go ahead and buy one. First you need Nike shoes that have the +, meaning a hole under the inserts in the shoes. Then you have to buy the package for about $30 which includes a little plastic ball and a small plugin for the Nano. Once you have the ball in your shoe and the plugin on your iPod Nano, you are ready to go. A new field on your iPod main screen will appear called, "Nike Plus."

You have a few options with Nike Plus. You can build your own workout, set a "Power Song" to play, and select a man or women's voice among other options. The Nike Plus will keep track of how far you run, pace, and keep track of your record times. I even used it on the tread mill to compare how accurate it is and it really was dead on. I was pretty impressed.

I generally run mile before my workout and occassionally go for 3 mile runs outside. At first the Nike Plus was a lot of fun to use but after a week or two, I kind of lost the desire to even use it on my 1 mile warm-ups. I would definitley recommed this product to anyone who runs 10+ miles per week. Otherwise you probably don't run enough to really need it. Plus if you don't already have shoes that use it, you'll have to buy a pair which can run anywhere between $70-$150. I'm pretty sure you could just put the plastic ball under your laces of other shoes but I'm not sure it would still work the same.

Road Trip for iPod

I drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee and the receiver unfortunately does not have a hookup so I use an FM transmitter. Particularly the Road Trip. It costs around $70 and can be purchased at Best Buy, Circuit City, and I'm sure several other electronic stores. It's definitely better than the Harmon Kardon I had before, but could be better. I know that I'll probably never get super high sound quality out of an fm transmitter, but would like to see some improvements in the future. My signal always gets overpowered by satellite radio users. Why can't a product for iPods be as strong as satellite radio signals?

The Road Trip is also slightly compatible with the new 3g iPhone. The support however is not there. It will play music just fine, but cannot really support it so you'll have to either use some sort of rubber band, or don't take fast turns. I still use my iPod Nano in the car since it fits so well, but would like to be able to use my iPhone. There is supposed to be a product made specifially for the iPhone which is the iTrip Auto by Griffin. I haven't had the chance to pick one up but probably will be doing so in the near future.