Nike de-emphasizing Nike+iPod?

Nike is directing shoppers' attention away from iPhones and iPods in new marketing, a report notes. In some ads appearing in stores, the sports gear maker is advertising the Nike+ SportBand as "the freedom of running without music." The SportBand attaches to a wrist, and tracks statistics like distance and speed that can later be transferred via USB.

For years Nike has been more concerned with promoting the Nike+iPod Sport Kit, which uses the combination of a shoe sensor and an iPhone, iPod nano or iPod touch to track the same statistics. Unlike the SportBand, however, which premiered much later, the Nike+iPod kit has always been focused on integrating music into runs. It may have been rendered partly obsolete by the debut of a Nike+ iPhone app, which uses an iPhone's accelerometer and GPS sensors to capture much of the same data.

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