iPod No "hold" button on iPod Nano 7th Gen?

I just bought my wife a new 7th gen Nano to replace her old, dog-chewed 4th gen.

She is complaining to me that there is no hold button. The button that it calls a "hold" button is the same as the iPhone's lock button - it turns the unit's screen off. However, all of the buttons are still easy to hit, and pressing the wrong button can start music in her purse and kill her battery, or pause music during her workout, etc.

Is there something I'm missing? Or did Apple decide to ditch the age-old tradition of a hold button on a music player? I say age-old, because in the early 90s my Sony Discman had one... It just seems like common sense!

Zarkizon said:

There should be a sleep/wake button on the top.

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It doesn't lock out the other buttons... Did you even read what I wrote?

mdehoogh said:

On my shuffle (4th gen) you can hold down the play/pause button for a few seconds to lock the device. Can't control it or do anything until you repeat the process to unlock. Perhaps that method will work with the 7th gen nano.

I don't know why apple did away with it...

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On the 7th Gen, holding the "lock" button just turns the unit off - as in, no power, no music. This is the same as holding the play/pause button on older iPods. Unfortunately, it still doesn't perform the same task as a traditional "hold" button.

I'm really surprised that I can't find other people complaining about this issue. It seems like there will be a lot of music players sitting in a lot of purses playing until their batteries die...