TECHBLOGG: You can make things smaller but that’s definitely no guarantee they’ll be better.

ITWire’s Alex Zaharov-Reutt has sounded off today about his desire for an iPhone nano, the rumoured slim-down version of the iPhone that has the dimensions of an iPod nano.

No-one has seen it yet speculation is rife that not only does it exists but that it will debut towards the end of the year.

But the problem with hype is that it has little time for practicalities of design and you can only wonder how an iPhone nano would work.

First up, and the real kicker in all of this, is where is the battery life going to come from?

Apple has managed to claw some eight hours’ talk time out of the original iPhone’s battery. But crunching the iPhone’s original 11.6mm thickness down to the iPod nano’s 6.6mm depth is going to not only need some fancy footwork with the electronics but it’s going to need a smaller battery – a much smaller battery.

Even if you massage the dimensions a bit, you’re looking at a battery with around 60% of the original iPhone’s capacity. Even taking into account whatever improvements in power consumption can be made in the meantime after the iPhone’s original development, you’re still looking at dropping the talk time down to around five hours. Not only that, you’re cutting down the run time for everything else.

Video playback will likely drop from seven hours to four-and-a-half, internet use down from six to four hours and so on.

Zaharov-Reutt mentions he’s already grabbed Gear4’s BlueEye nano phone adapter to allow his nano to make phone calls but neither he nor the company make much of a mention of the nano’s new battery life rating when making calls.

And this is the problem – a smaller battery means doing less. Less music, less video, less internet, less everything.

But not only that, a smaller iPhone means smaller controls – given some complaints have been raised about the virtual keyboard already, a smaller one isn’t going to help.

It all depends on what you want from a phone.

If you want all of the features of the original iPhone in a nano frame, I reckon forget it – it’s not going to happen.

But if you’re after some sort of subset of features, then yes, it might just happen but there’s little chance of you not copping some form of battery life reduction as a result.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the iPhone lived up to the hype – the lack of software development kit or SDK, the built-in battery and $US85 replacement cost, the lack of expandable storage are all drawbacks in my view.

As for the world wanting an iPhone the size and shape of an iPod nano, you’d better make that “the world minus one”, Alex.

Of course, I could be absolutely wrong on this - no-one's perfect - but would you accept an iPhone nano if it meant lower battery life, lower talk time and usage times?

What features would you leave out if you had to get rid of something to keep the battery life up?