Steve Jobs pulled the Nano out of his pocket to show off the new device that I still haven’t seen in any retail store (they must be pretty hot), but he should have gone on to say: “Before you buy this, buy a screen protector.” Madonna should have come on and sang: “Like a virgin, scratched for the very first time!”

Nano owners are starting to complain about how fragile and non-scratch resistant these tiny screens are.

Nano owner Brian Cason posted one of 250-some threads in response to a recent post on Apple’s discussion board about screen scratching. “I don’t really care if the case on my Nano gets scratched but my screen has scratched up so badly that all the images are starting to become distorted,” Cason wrote, echoing the sentiment of many others in the discussion. “I have only carried it in my small pocket in my shorts and nothing is in there to scratch it. I still can’t figure how the screen looks like it has been rubbed with sandpaper when the entire time it has been safe in my pocket (with absolutely no item.

Yowsa, another reason why I don’t want one of these tiny things.

Michael Coates recommends a competitor: “Get with it, Apple. You made a big splash with design and now have thousands of people buying your product for cachet; it’s time to give them something that lasts, like my unit, the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen.”

This is an excellent marketing opportunity for someone to step in with the Nano screen protector pitch.

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