Redesigned iPod nano Coming in September

Apple is working on a redesigned iPod nano, said to be scheduled for release sometime in September, AppleInsider reports.

The fact that Apple was preparing a new flash based portable music player became widely known when PortalPlayer announced that it had not been selected to supply its chips for new flash-based iPods due in the second half of the year.

Since chips from PortalPlayer will not be used, Apple has to find a replacement supplier. There have been talks of Apple and Intel working on things other than Macintoshes but Deborah Conrad, head of Intel's "Apple Group," recently implied that an Intel chip is unlikely to turn up in an iPod any time soon. On the other hand, Wall Street analyst Shaw Wu last August noted that Apple was exploring the use of Intel's XScale embedded processors for future mobile devices like the iPod, along with SoCs from Broadcom and Sharp.

Last year Apple faced a bit of a shortage on nanos during the holiday season, something that it is very set on avoiding this year it seems. As for the new nanos themselves, little is currently known. AppleInsider contacts say that "early engineering plans from the iPod maker signal a 'significant internal redesign,'" however, on the outer design or the features that the new version would be bringing to the table, there is no information.