Unpacking the iPod Shuffle
posted January 12th 2005 12:05PM
So immediately after the keynote finished, fellow
Engadgeteer Lenn Pryor and I decided we had to have iPod
Shuffles RIGHT NOW! It just made sense for the kind of iPod users we are to snap them up. I have too much music on
my iPod (25 Gigs, actually) to pick what I want to play, but with so much music on there, shuffle never comes out quite
right. Plus the iPod is too big, and too susceptible to crashing from being shook up for my active lifestyle, and so I
mainly only use it only trips these days. I figured the Shuffle was the answer to all my prayers — and if it
wasn't the 99 bucks wouldn't kill me.
But getting one was like the tasks of Hercules. First we had to fight our way out of the Moscone Center since we
watched the keynote downstairs in the press room, we had to wait for the throngs to make the mad dash down to the show
floor before we could get up to the exit, and we were worried they would be sold out by the time we could make it up
the stairs and down the street. Then we had to persevere a long line out the door of the Apple Store and around the
corner. Our patience paid off the minute we hit the door, when the black clad employees were walking down the line with
crates full of the precious green boxes. We had nothing to worry about, Apple had planned for the high demand. Not that
therell be any left by tomorrow or anything, because while we just bought two each (one for ourselves, one for a
special someone), others were buying six to 10 of them obviously expecting to eBay them for fun and profit.
When we got to the register, our new main man Jesse hooked us up, and seconds later we were out the door, Shuffles in
hand.
We patiently kept our mitts off the box, biting our nails instead until we could get back to a good camera to bring
you these pictures.
Yes, you can turn the shuffle off with the flick of a switch if your playlist is in perfect order.
Some things never change, Apple still reminds us Dont steal music.
The new Autofill dialog. We love this feature.
Now that its all charged up and weve had a chance to use it, heres a few initial impressions:
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We love Autofill. It makes the shuffle even more random since you never even know what will wind up on your Shuffle. Sure, you can narrow it down to music from a playlist, or do it all manually, but wheres the fun in that?
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Were spoiled by Firewire. The USB 2.0 moved the songs onto the iPod Shuffle pretty quickly, but its not the song per second speed of the regular iPod over Firewire.
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Apple claims 120 songs probably fit on the 512 MB version. We managed to fit 110, but we have lots of 160 and 192 kbps mp3 files.
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This thing is tiny and light. Youll never feel it around your neck or in your pocket. Its like a stick of gum, not a pack. Just be sure not to leave it in your jeans when you wash them.
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The controls take a second or two to get used to, then you never think about them again.
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The sound is great. Its easily as loud and seems to be more clear with better bass response than our 3G iPod.
Ok...For all the people who keep arguing about USB2/firewire speeds...Here is the info you are looking for that for some reason the authors didn't cover...
The shuffle is a FLASH based player. Therefore transfers are INHERENTLY slower than on the Hard drive based ipod (or other HD-based players).
It has NOTHING to do with what type of USB/Firewire connection it uses...it is simply the speed limitation of writing to flash memory. This is why digital cameras take a few seconds to write a large photo to their cards, etc....
It isn't that slow though.
And until I bought one, I was thinking the same; how annoying is this going to be to use with no screen? As a 30GB iPod Photo owner (previously 4G 20GB iPod and before that a 3G 15GB iPod touchwheel)...I was curious. My thoughts? i love this device. It is so small and lightweight I still can barely believe that it is actually playing through 220 of my songs...it has fast response when changing tracks, and some neat functions for the buttons (Holding play for 3 seconds turns hold on/off. Hitting the Play button 3 times quickly takes you to the beginning of the playlist. And I believe I read somewhere that pressing play and back at the same time reshuffles the songs. Im having trouble finding where I read that, though.). Taking out the headphones from the jack automatically pauses the shuffle. If you turn it off, it not only remembers what song you were at, but where in the song as well. The LEDs that show through the white plastic is a suprisingly neat way of informing the user w/o marring the beautiful white face. And the 3rd party accessories??? I mean, what other mp3 players do you know of that have that many accessories from the manufacturer AND third party companies?????? Theres already at least 30 different cases just for the shuffle...don't get me started on the options for Regular iPod accessories...Cases, transmitters, chargers....other cases....even more cases....its a thing of beauty to have so many choices. And as for subscription based music services....yeh I really wanna pay $whatever a month for 2 years, cancel my service, and end up having rights to NO MUISIC WHATSOEVER. Plus ipods play all of your illegal mp3's, of course. And i doubt that apple will drop support for that, whereas other companies I see leaning towards DRM'd .wma files and such...f### that. Plus we still have DVD Jon constantly hacking and reverse engineering apples iTunes music Store DRMS...the whole hymn project, Psymusic...Thats a lot of 3rd party support for the ipod. The saturation of the market makes it easy to find support on forums, from vendors, you name it. Now go see how many accessories you can find specifically designed for your SanDisk flash player...or any other player for that matter. I rest my case.
And yeah, if you don't like it, no one is making you buy it, use it...or even review it. Feel free to be as miserably jealous as u want ;)
When your music library is on a remotely mounted drive, iTunes does not display an error message if there is a problem, it just restricts AutoFill to any local music. So if AutoFill suddenly isn't filling your iPod, check if your music is on a network share...
I don't know if this was asked before but how do you charge the battery of your ipod shuffle. I'm planning to buy one next week and I'm not sure about the batteries... can someone answer me?
you charge it via usb2.0 on your computer acr.
Has anyone tried an iPod shirt yet? It has a special pocket designed to hold the shuffle. I am thinking about getting one but I want to hear what others think. You can see the shirt at http://www.ipodt.com
Wow, you guys are really crazy about it. I'm a gadget lovr and I think the Shuffle (no matter the lack of the screen)is a trend setter not only for youngster. Jobs is doing great due to the marketing but the shuffle is neat and an easy-to-use device for everybody. I'm going to buy one and get rid of my old Mp3 Player.
wow what a nice unit this is
to bad the sofware didnt work and neither did tech support- i taked to 3 other ppl that had a pc and they all had problems with getting the software to load- i think mac should invest in some programmers to write better software-
I meet one person that has a mac and still cant get his to work- very interesting comany
I've spent hours -- about 9 -- trying to get the iPod Shuffle to be recognized by iTunes in 2 of my Win XP SP2 systems. I called tech support and no help yet. The point is that I'd really like this thing to work, but so far its a time and money pit. I make $75 an hour as a programmer and I could have used the lost $675 for something I'm sure.
This is my first Apple product and I don't think I'll get a another.
I had tried quite a few MP3 players before the iPod shuffle, and none had really met my needs. I found an FM radio feature superfluous; an LCD display was not worth the bother (who can really navigate through sublevels of buttons to get to the right directory of MP3's, while driving a car?). Oh, and the shlep of having to charge little bitty AAA batteries every other day, and having to change exhausted batteries while your favourite songs are coming up...
So, after having ditched my irritating MP3 players, I had to hunt around for something better. Walked into one of my favourite computer shops – and there the shuffle was. I couldn't believe it: an Apple product that, per megabyte of storage space, was as cheap (possibly cheaper) than every other player in my area! Bonus: internal, rechargeable battery. Bonus: super-light. Bonus: great, large, easy to use button. Bonus: no distracting radio feature or power-sucking LCD. Bonus: cool design.
Yes, I bought it immediately. No, I was not greatly impressed with iTunes. I feel that iTunes is too intrusive and dictatorial. It does not make quick uploading of songs to the shuffle and easy task. I'm used to those generic MP3 players that, when you plug them into XP, immediately register as a drive and then one can merrily upload stuff in whatever form or order one wishes. Apple's control over the iPod file structure and drive arrangement is too restrictive for me, so this was a major irritation – until I found this site:
http://shuffle-db.sourceforge.net/
This site belongs to some German fellow who has made an excellent little app available for download. With his app you can uninstall the iPod driver and itunes itself; you can then use any file manager to upload your songs, in directories of your choice. Before removal of the shuffle you just run his little command line app; it recreates the disk structure the shuffle needs; you remove the shuffle through the system tray (safe removal of hardware) – and you're ready to play.
It works perfectly. Try it!
The iPod shuffle is truly a marvellous piece of design and excellent value for money.
Am a musician and a serious music listener. Never owned another MP3 player but can't imagine that there is anything to rival the ipod shuffle. This is nothing short of a revelation to me and I marvel at its simplicity and practicality. Has brought me much joy!
well...i just bought my 1gb zen nano plus. it was actually a showdown between shuffle 1gb and this one. i find it interesting that someone listed rechargable battery as a bonus. my previous player was a mp2300 by sensory science. i can't use it because the battery is dead and the company is long gone. other than that i would still use it. 40gb clik (pocketzip) disks hold enough. anyway, i will never have that problem with this unless they stop making aaa batteries. the shuffle is neat. but this was $10 cheaper and was basically what my 2300 was except way smaller and with fm. so pretty much i am happy. i will probably get the 1gb shuffle once the price drops or something. oh yeah...why do people say shuffles are smaller? at least from the box it didn't seem to be the smallest of the gig players that walmart,best buy, or circuit city had.
Hey,
first to all the people who say that people who buy the iPod shuffle are idiots, are IDIOTS. I mean, seriously, what the hell, let people buy whatever the hell the want (sorry, I use HELL excessivly) . Now I mean, ok there's a bunch of cool MP3 players with a display, an FM radio other functions which the iPod shuffle does not have, i.e. http://www.maxfield.de/de/ (sorry its German but I doubt there's an English site... I'm from Germany by the way :) )ANY of these players, I think, but see, they're either too large or just have TOO many functions nobody ever really uses. These are a couple of products very little people may know, but they are definetly some that are concurring with all the iPods. But see, what makes me want an iPod mini for example is the easy management of the menu, the fact you may customize the menu and the unbelievable sound quality,(that ALL iPods have) and I don't wanna hear anything from anaybody who thinks that Creative players or some other crappy players like Rio or iRiver (ESPECIALLY iRiver) have that sound quality. Becuz I mean I'm sorry to burst yur bubble, but thats (plainly said) B/S . And wtf do you need an FM radio for anyway I mean common, all the stuff played on the radio is B/S from the Charts, which I personally really HATE... and OK on the radio there's always news, but I mean do you really, really ever need to have the news with you at any point? Say you're out for a day - shopping - and do you really need to hear "A tsunami has hit southern africa hard"?? I mean first of all, this really isn't making your mood go up like crazy (although you could hear positive things, too) . But besides that, can't you find out about that 10-20 minutes later when you're home? And look, I'm 13 and I'm usually out somewhere with friends so I usually only listen to music on my bike, in the bus, on the train, in the car, or maybe WITH my friends. But when I listen to music for (maximum) 20 minutes a day, that's gonna be, what, 5-6 songs? I gotta admit, I really love music but no need to excessivly push it by listening to music ALL DAY. Ok see, when I listen with my friends, here's one problem. The pick up the tunes of one song and like it and they're like "wait a sec, go back again..." so now I don't know the title of that song, but seriously, can't the guy wait 'till I'm back home find the song on iTunes and tell him over ICQ/MSN or Skype or maybe with the phone? Now see, you probably saw the problem in what I said and you're thinking "Common, now what if you're out longer than a day??" . Well thought, but I'll just take my laptop with me wherever I go, even on a two day trip. See, problem solved, now I can always reload new music onto it, charge it or anything else if I even have to. Now for those people who don't have a laptop for this kind of solution: Get some other player, no need to call people retards who buy the shuffle guys.
Besides look, the iPod shuffle does look pretty cool doesn't it? An another Bonus: there's always support. Any store, any little place has seen an iPod before and if they can't help you, call APPLE. See, apple has got a lot to lose, so they'll help you right away, the best way they can. Now think about all the extras and cases and all the other stuff from SOOOOOO many different manufacturers for iPod accesories. NO other brandname has that many third-party manufacturers to do that for them.
All that aside, once again the appel to the people who call iShuffle buyers retards, what the f**ck is that about, man? Just let them buy what sutes them best. If you don't like the lack of useless features you want, get another MP3 player. Everybody has there own needs.
Now, I'm off to get myself an iPod shuffle people!! WOHOOO!
can i store any data on the ipod shuffle? or only mp3 format file?
my sister bought a shuffle for her own, and we connected it to my laptop, for downloads, as I had a shuffle and software already. Now, how will she be able to connect it to her desktop? somehow her itunes does not recognize the shuffle? Apple's website say, that only one instance of itues would recog your shuffle? how to over come this handicap. TIA for your answers
I just got an iPod shuffle... pretty cool... f**k the display thing, this shuffle ROCKS! I keep using the shuffle mode cuz I've only got cool music on it, I'm never dissappointed (sometimes MAYBE cuz I need another song to suit my mood) . Filling it with iTunes is easy and uncomplicated! To answer the last entries question: Before you plug in the iPod, you must (again) run the iTunes CD that came with her shuffle and then register hers like you must have with yours... after that it should work perfectly fine. I'm not an official, sorry, just a 13yr old guessing but I'm sure it'll work that way...
Oh yeah an for the post before that one, you can store any type of data an iPod shuffle. There's one step you have to do before you can but check http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/ it should say somewhere on the bottom of the page, I think but otherwise post another post asking me how.
I own an iPod shuffle and an iRiver flash player. The iPod shuffle is way too expensive. I bought mine for $99. Since it doesn't come with a charger I have to buy the power adapter and there goes my $29! Another thing ---it scrathes easily again I have to buy a sport case. Adding up all my expense for this product it costs more than my iRiver IFP 795 ($123 only including all the accessories you need). The sound quality? My iRiver has better sound quality with more useful features too.
I own an iPod shuffle and an iRiver flash player. The iPod shuffle is way too expensive. I bought mine for $99. Since it doesn't come with a charger I have to buy the power adapter and there goes my $29! Another thing ---it scrathes easily again I have to buy a sport case. Adding up all my expense for this product it costs more than my iRiver IFP 795 ($123 only including all the accessories you need). The sound quality? My iRiver has better sound quality with more useful features too.
okay i've basically read/skimed through the whole thing and the people with critical comments is just really annoying... if you dont like it you dont have to express that! i see no reason to like the ipod... i mean at first glance it looked pretty dumb.. no screen, and all it could be useful for was being small.. then i read up on alot of reviews and so i made up a small pros and cons chart off the top of my head... it isn't all the facts but most of the important ones
[PROS]
-very small and light weighted
-convienent
-great idea for people who love to listen to the radio, you'll have ur own personalized "station"!
-turn it on, and leave it playing... no need to fiddle with changing songs and what not
-CHEAP
-sound quality is better than the other iPods
-comes with lanyard
-Itune!
-it's sexy
-you can put in any song from anywhere.. (download, cd, itune, internet)
-acts as a memory stick too...
[cons]
-no dislpay
-every other feature that comes with display
-no wheel
-not alot of maximum Gb (1)
#268 ..I love your point of view and i am acutlly going to buy a 512 Shuffle tonight..hope its as good as everyone is saying
It's just funny how some people acuse Apple users and especially ipod users of being trendy and just having an ipod to bee cool.
But as far as I could read YOU are the ones shouting to everyone how your XPTO mp3 player has some cool led's, tons of buttons, 52 functions and the possibility to have it converted in a coffe machine with just a mega firmware from the lousy manufacturer. So who's cool now?
Yeah it will be very uncool to show the little kids who think you are great gods of technology a stick with... no cool functions....
Man... if I want to have a white stick with 4 buttons in one side and a slider in the other, with no visible led's or fancy scrolling display, BUT that fit's my needs and wishes from a 100$/512Mb player, why tha hell I can't have a Shuffle?
Someone said that he must bend is spine to get the shuffle connected to his Fast and Furious Space Crew PeCe tower...
Well if you had a stylish, trendy and expensive apple sistem you would have a pair of uneccesary usb ports on your keyboard. Because Apple thinks different (remember?) it does things that are pretty and above all that aim to interact with people. Not geeko sicko gray technology...
But again is very cool tho handle user unfriendly software/hardware because... yes.... you are a geek and you don't need help doing anything!
I own a G4 Alu Powerbook with one led hidden under F6 (for caps lock). Do you think I envy the Compac's, Dell's and other crap that have 5 / 6 / 50 leds (even a fart warning led)???
Why? I'll never need them!
Apple makes hardware but also software that can tall you if airport, bluetooth or network are on, you don't need a light on it! So why have it?!
For those who want to control everything.... remember.... life is purely random! You don't control a thing (yes not even your d*ck)
Sorry for the long text in lousy english but im Portuguese.
Best Regards
What can I say about the Ipod Shuffle that hasn't already been said? I'm visually-impaired so a regular ipod with LCD was out of the question.The controls are SO easy to use. Now I have the 1GB model,I use it every day on my way to and from work, so it gets a lot of use! If you get the encoding right, you can get about 260 songs on it (less than four minutes per song and maximum compression).I have also had a lot of help from the staff in the Apple Store in London, particularly after I had installed iTunes for the first time. I used to carry a cd walkman,which was quite heavy. Now this has been confined to long journeys where it is stored in my suitcase. Whatever you want from a music player, just try the shuffle and you won't look back!
Why buy it if you can get this iPod for FREE?
Get a FREE iPod and many more FREE Gifts at this website--->>
http://www.freebiefreebie.com/index.php?r=1071
Nobody's evva gonna read this again... but just for the record... shuffle's gone to the dogs... welcome on stage;
iPod NANO!
Try http://shuffle-db.sf.net
You can put song on your shuffle without iTunes!!! "My friend" has it on errm, "his" shuffle, and "he" legally (of course!) d/ls songs at school. This program will update the iTunes playlist, so goodbye iTunes!!!!!
It's really worth checkin out!!! Or so "my friend" says. ;)
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000177027029/#c204193
Post 262
oops... repeat post. sorry.
I just got a Shuffle, my first Ipod, and I'm lovin it! I primarily listen to podcasts of talk radio shows, and it works perfectly for that. (maybe i'm just going through a 'phase' with all this talk radio stuff, i dunno...)
Anyways, I work a rotating 12 hour shift and have a lot of time on my hands many times an all-nighter, so unlike most people talk radio suits me and keeps me awake. Thanks Apple!
Does anyone knw how to open the ipod shuffle? i have a problem with the ear piece port of my shuffle. i think one of the pins is not properly aligned and my warranty has expired. pls HELP!!!
After using my iPod Nano for a couple weeks, I find that an iPod Shuffle would be a better fit for me. I'm one of those odd people who don't want a calendar or a contact list or a gps enabled nose picker with scratch and sniff orange zest to pick me up around 2 in the afternoon. I'm also rather odd in that I don't actually listen to much music on my Nano. I listen to books on CD. The library is full of 'em and they're great for all the driving, walking, hiking I do. One ear bud in the left ear and I get to 'read' during all that otherwise down time. And the iPod shuffle is perfect. As I rip spoken word tracks at 64K (as opposed to 128K for 'cd quality' mp3s) I can fit almost all three Lord of the Rings audio CDs (unabridged) on the iPod Shuffle. Then, just turn off the shuffle feature and use the pause button like an electronic book mark. I'm getting one for my mother and one for me. I'll still keep the Nano (even though it scratches easily, it's got great sound and 4GB of music is enough for a weekend trip).
So any nay-sayers who decry the lack of screen or 'extras' - go get something else. But don't tear down a great, convenient little niche player like this. After all, it's GREAT at what it does and doesn't pretend to be everything to everyone.
Bravo/Brava, Apple!
I need help. My IPOD shuffle will not charge. It was working fine until it needed charging several days ago. I have tried charging it on and off and it will not take a charge. Any suggestions?
Thank you.
why is it so small
finally got my shuffle active
needed to up grade software
excellent for walking the dog just autofill a list and go!!!