Apple on Wednesday introduced the next generation iPod shuffle. The shuffle has always been Apple’s smallest iPod, but now it is nearly half the size of the previous model at 1.8 inches tall by 0.3 inches thin.
The new iPod shuffle bumps storage up to 4GB and features VoiceOver, which enables the iPod to speak your song titles, artists, and playlist names. The shuffle can speak 14 languages: including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, told Macworld that the iPod shuffle will automatically recognize what language it should speak. If you have a preference of which language you would like, it can be changed in iTunes.
According to Apple, the third-generation iPod shuffle holds up to 1,000 songs encoded at 128 Kbps.
The next generation will be the size of an RFID chip – and injectable.
I was thinking of buying a 2g shuffle, and will not be buying a 3g. This means you HAVE to use Apple headphones with the remote dongle. NO THANKS, I want to be able to use quality headphones.
The Apple Inc. War on buttons MUST END. We need buttons. We like buttons. He hate almost every mouse you have made SINCE the ADB mouse II
$79? WAY too expensive for a 4gig MP3 player.
Why don’t they incorporate the Shuffle into the headphones? A la 80’s? I’m sure it can be done stylishly in a couple generations?
1,000 songs encoded at 128 Kbps? ipod snicker.
still no bluetooth? wires are for suckers.
it seems that the market that apple is going for are those that want to buy flashy marketing, and not those who are looking for functionality of a product.
I wore-off my first gen’ shuffle until it died. I now have two second gen’ shuffles that are in heavy use. So I do like this spin on the mp3 player.
However, Apple carried every of my gripes with either model and added more. Hence, no use for third gen’ in my place. Issues:
1) First gen’ like on/off/random switch. Caused countless gripes with accidental random mode after which it is painful to find where you have been previously. Removed in second gen’. Baaaack in new one. Why!?
2) Second gen’ like USB interface. Although the size and format are completely suitable for the real USB plug as in first gen’ – no, you must have dongle or adapter. Back in third gen’ I guess just to make me carry more cables and dongles. Why!?
3) And the new twist: no controls on the actual player. 2/3 of the time I listen to my shuffle is by it being plugged in the car stereo. 1/8 of the time it is plugged in some other device like PC. So, less of the third of the time I even use headphones (where controls are now located). Quick survey of friends and family shows very similar trends. Did Apple even try to test this idea on general public? How do they think I can use it most of the time when I do not use headphones? Is the little dial on the unit so expensive?
#5 – I thought that is the market Apple is going for with all of their products…
Yeah putting the buttons on the headphone is a mistake.
My cat got to my original ipod headphones, so I went out and got a set of JVC headphones for about $6 and they sound just as good.
If they are going to be this small, and require special headsets anyways, why not just make an ipod shuffle that fits behind your ear like a typical hearing aid?
Product FAIL.
#8 you have something there!
My wife just got new hearing aid. It is the coolest thing I have ever seen.. totally tiny… and works great.
how about a combination bluetooth handsfree.. ipod? hearing aid?
wow!
Oh, I just remembered you can’t drive with both ears on…
Ok how about a bluetooth ipod?
doesn’t someone make an adaptor?
A talking lapel pin!
http://tinyurl.com/2voorw
#10
why buy both an ipod and a bluetooth adapter when there are many other mp3 players out there that you can get which are superior?
Even for Apple’s over-priced minimalism, this new Shuffle is a joke. Forcing you to use their crappy, uncomfortable earbuds is just one more egregious example of their mothering, take what we give you not what you want arrogance. What a joke.
The first time I got an i-pod I was extremely disappointed with the sound quality. Then I found out that the Apple earbuds were the problem. Now I couldn’t be happier with their product, as long as I can use a quality headset. For all of Apple’s success in music players, I would have thought they had fixed this deficiency by now.
I heard the next version will be as small and works like a pill. You swallow your iPod, and the songs will absorb into our body and you’ll have song playing in your head for hours!
This new Shuffle takes away that simplicity factor. The previous UI control was easy to use. But this earphone controller with 1 click/2 clicks/click & hold/click & hold longer approach is not intuitive at all.
I have the 1st gen shuffle, and that is probably the best Shuffle ever. Good size, good sound.
“The next generation will be the size of an RFID chip – and injectable.”
The only way that moving the controls to the earphones would make sense.
Can’t use my own headphones? I don’t care if it’s the size of a grain of rice if I can’t use my own cans!
I’m an Apple fanboy, and I think this is a failure.
Reminds me of a Sluggy Freelance comic concerning a swallowed iPodling that led to the iSophagus t-shirt
http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=050626
[Please drop the WWW from URLs as WordPress doesn’t display it properly… plus it’s unnecessary. – ed.]
Hey Ed,
Is that photo actual size?
#6
You made me think of an idea: How about a tape adapter that has an insert for the new Ipod shuffle? The shuffle could be turned on whenever the tape knob is spinning, skip using the tape player’s FF button, and repeat using the tape player’s REWIND button.
That would cause me to actually buy one.