Apple's 3G iPod shuffle reviewed: a step too far? - Page 3

Exactly. How is it that everyone is missing that?

There is plenty of room for the Shuffle to evolve. Screenless, multi-touch, gesture controls on that empty flat side. With A2DP they could put the controls back on the iPod and have even more convenience.

Personally I hope they make all those "complicated" inline controls work with the next version of the iPhone/iPod Touch (actually the whole iPod line); including VoiceOver.

Only the tech-heads (small minority of the customer base) miss that. It's the same group that's always been up in arms over copy and paste, etc. LOL, like anyone else gives a damn.

The average user this is targeted toward will snap up these Shuffles like they were candy. And happily, I consider myself an average user, too.

You just contradicted yourself here - you want to change styles of music, but not songs? I don't think this is possible for the most part.

That being said, when I work out or run, I tend to have a short attention span. I appreciate the fact that the 2G Shuffle allows for easy changing of songs. I do agree that I don't care as much about earphone quality, but then again I also could care less about voiceover or switching between playlists (or a display for that matter). Just let me upload 100+ songs and I'll listen to what I want and skip what I don't.


Not for all of us. When I run, I have my shuffle clipped to the bottom of my shirt, with the headphone cables run up the inside of my shirt. Unless the controls on the new earphones are rather high up, they won't be accessible to me. On top of that, when I run or work out my hands are closer to my waist then my neck, so it makes the headphone controls more pointless.

I'd rather have to use my player controls than have my headphone cable out. It flaps around, your hand/arm can get caught in it while running, same with weights.

I think the amount of outrage over the new iPod is that for a lot of us, the 2G model was the perfect iPod for working out, or just for listening to news podcasts on the way to work. Sometimes, when you add features, you're just tacking stuff on for the sake of taking it on. As for the controls, the iPod, regardless of the model, has ALWAYS been about ease of use. The whole experience, from iTunes to the unit itself, is about simplicity. The "morse code" of controls makes a mockery of this.

Yes, you can control different playlists, and you have voiceover to tell you what is playing (instead of a screen), but like most Shuffle users, I have a larger iPod with all of this stuff, so what do I care about more features on the shuffle? My whole take on the Shuffle is "keep it simple, stupid" - the 2G was great, and I didn't think that they could do much with it. maybe more storage, or a lower price.

The 3G is, as mentioned before, the fat Nano of the shuffle line. I fully expect the 4th generation to be different, either incorporating more of the 2G look or features, or just making serious revisions to the 3G. After all, use that blank face on the 3G for the same controls on the headphones - that would be a start. That, and lower the price. AFter all, the Shuffle is rarely a person's primary and only iPod - its an accessory for us iPod users.

ALl of that being said, I do like the USB sync cable. It could be a little longer for some users, but I like it a lot more than the 2G dock.

When do you ever change songs when running?

You may want some soft music for yoga, but rock for running. How hard is that to understand?

I'd also like to smack down this assumption, which I think is based mostly on "teckstud's" comments (need I say more about the source?)

I actually have used these things and the Apple in-ear headphones of similar design and the idea that they jiggle around to the point that they are unusable is simply wrong.

The control is about 2.5 inches at most from the bottom of your ear, it's always there and can be easily found "by feel" with no problem at all. There just isn't enough cord to swing at that short distance from your ear. I always find the control with my hand, I never have to look, jogging or no.

This is just not a factor at all except in the minds of trolls like "teckstud" who supposes more than he knows of, a whole variety of "flaws" that don't really exist. It's one thing to put out a statement like "it seems to me that the cable might swing," but another to post as he has that this is a serious problem when he hasn't even tried it.

Please go to Apple Store and take a look first before making a comment. The controls are very high, higher than where the wires split.

Yes, the position of the hards is a good point, but still, I will bet it is easier and faster to find the location of the G3 controls, than to find G2 and trying to figure out which button is which. [Edit] Actually, when you run, your hands are chest high. It is about the same distance to the bottom of your shirt and to your neck level.

Your comments shows that you like the G2 very much that you won't even consider a newer way. I am not saying G2 is bad. However, I have the G1 only so I can compare the G2 and G3 more fairly.

When Apple is trying to get rid of left over stock they put it on the their refurb or clearance site? It's not their practice to still offer the previous generation product in their main store, much less advertise on the main page that the previous generation in every colour, including Product Red, is still available. That doesn't sound like they are trying to a quick buck on old stock to me.

When Apple does eventually stop selling the 2G Shuffle in their main store and in their discount section what is stopping you from buying it from other sources. It'll be cheaper, too boot.

PS: Why is that with every Apple product release we get people crying that Apple is no longer supporting their needs? Does this happen with other vendors, too?

I actually own this and can comment on it. Yes it is small and that is great, It works fantastic out at the gym or when running. After a few tries, you completely get the hang of using the click response on the remote. I personally think it is getter than the last shuffle. It still was to heave to hang off of a mans tshirt to now bounce around when running or exercising.

Something no one has mentioned so far; robustness.

In my experience, cords/cables are always a weak link. They are usually the first element in a system to break or malfunction. For this reason alone, putting the controls for a devise on a cord is not a good thing for the consumer. Such a design necessitates far greater interaction and manipulation of the weakest link, with the inevitable, tugs and jerks that will cumulatively hasten the time when the cord fails.

My 3rd gen iPod came with a wired in line remote. I have used this in my car audio installation as a convenient way to control the iPod. Quite recently, it failed, where the cord went into the proprietary plug which plugs into the iPod.

I was able to fix it, but most people wouldn't be able to. Now this brings me to an interesting observation.

When I bought my 3rd gen iPod, it was from an Apple I admired and thought highly of. A company that made products of value. In the charming origami like box was:

The ipod
An attractive and functional protective case with belt clip.
A firewire cable of decent length.
A pair of earbuds
A good length cable with wired remote (with clip) and a socket, compatible with ANY headphones.
A dock
A mini USB adapter

These days you count yourself lucky if you find a $5 off voucher towards a $25 USB sync cable

At the very minimum, the shuffle should have come with an adapter cable with controls that would have allowed any headphones or other devices to be used with it.

Even cooler would have been if it had come with the controls on a detachable wireless remote that could be clipped anywhere and yet still operate it. Any headphones or other devices could then have been used with it. This would have made for a more robust device of far greater utility. It would have been a true advance.

Trouble is, it would also have been out of character for Apple of today, the one which probably thinks they were mad in making the 3rd gen iPod such great value and a nice experience for the consumer.

In my case it is because I have no problem envisioning products that could have and should have been better, knowing full well there is little chance any other manufacturer will come even close, any time soon.

The Touch is a good case in point, even now, years after it's first release, this multimedia device remains a tantalising potential acquisition, but is crippled in being limited to only 32gb. I have seen several claims the iPod classics are far and away the best selling iPod model, which means most people have a need for greater capacity than can be provided by solid state memory, which is still way too expensive to substitute for hard drives. The Touch, with it's obvious visual media features, is something which even more than the Classic, should be a device with a large storage capacity.

If Apple made a Touch with a HD and therefore realistic storage capacity, appropriate to it's potential, I would buy one in a flash, as I imagine would many, many others.

Whats wrong with criticising something you perceive as flawed?

If you got a school report back for your child and it said, 'outstandingly intelligent, but could try harder' would you think things were just fine, or would you perhaps consider there might be room for improvement?

Apple is like that child - it's all you have - you can't just ask the stork for a better one, the only course of action is dialogue, in the hope of encouraging future improvement.

I have a a 13" Macbook, and it pisses me off constantly that it does not have a firewire port. Please don't suggest I should have forked out an extra $1k and got a 15" pro, just for a firewire port. I have never believed for a moment that including a firewire port in the existing form factor was impossible. Given that the technical specifications / cost ratio of a Macbook already make it poor value for money compared with other brands - annoying niggles like needlessly missing features are just salt on the wound.

There is no hope of future improvement by keeping silent and not voicing legitimate criticisms.

The squeaky wheel, gets the oil.


Yes, if I am a customer Now about that Panasonic Plasma TV I just bought...

Syncing this shuffle is weird.

In iTunes the Shuffle (under Devices) shows the correct play count, but that information is not mirrored in the iTunes Library.

This means that iTunes does not increment the play count or remove what has been listed to, like podcasts or audio books, which I no longer wish to have on the Shuffle.

It does not recognize anything inside the Audiobooks playlist. It is as if it was not there. I had to create a special playlist for that stuff, to be able to get at it on the Shuffle. Really strange. (Maybe the audio books have to be bought through iTunes to be accepted? Have not tested that)

I wonder if Apple are expecting headphone suppliers to innovate with the headset and controls, while letting Apple focus on the parts they are more interested in. 3rd parties may go well beyond the simple cable earbuds and go on to make single-piece headsets, bike pods, helmet pods, etc into which the iPod unit plugs in. Maybe even a little slot in a car where you push the shuffle in and let the car's controls take over without having dangly cables.

Apple keep control of the software/content integration and let 3rd parties innovate in the area where Apple has no interest. I'd buy a one-piece over-ear headset with easy controls in a flash, for the gym. Come on Bose - you know you want to!

Missed the most important Pro, i.e., right now you have a choice amongst 25 iPods*, re function, size, and color.

And one other Con, i.e., the audacity to still offer even 5 more†.

Now that means there are 30 iPods to choose from! Damn you Apple! You could at least have made one in brown!

*http://www.apple.com/ipod/whichipod/
†http://store.apple.com/us/browse/hom...mco=MTYzNDU2Mg

97.4% of the time when people make up statistics, they're just making shit up to support whatever their opinion is in the first place, so it's stupid.

Well that's your opinion . . .

Anyway, does this topic even merit 90+ responses??

C'mon people, it's the stupid Shuffle! Like who cares, really? It's Apple's bottom-end iPod.

I'm surprised it's even getting this much attention. There's an assload of other iPods, plus most of us either have an iPod Touch or at least a Classic, or an iPhone anyway . . .

The fact you see that word mentioned so often in relation to you should tell you something.

The majority of your posting history suggests that if Apple did release the fictional "MacTini" or "MacBook Wheel", you would probably defend them to the death as innovative and easy to use when any reasonable impartial observer would realise they were idiotic products.


Sorry, you said the iPod Shuffle is "super cheap"; you are demonstrably wrong. There's a huge number of players from all kinds of manufacturers that are both cheaper and have displays. Whether you consider cheaper alternatives to be junk or not does not change the fact that the iPod Shuffle is premium priced in its category.


You have confused "convenient" and "easy to use". If the remote had individual buttons for play/pause, stop, back and forward instead of its single center button, it would be both more convenient and just as easy to use as previous shuffles.

As it stands, you will never convince me that these controls are easier than previous ones as there is no logical basis for that assertion.


nice try.


A young brain is able to learn simple repetitive tasks like this very easily, especially with limited prior experience to confuse matters. Older brains are different; for example, the vast majority of older people I know intensely dislike predictive text on T9 phones and turn it off - there's something about it which makes it very hard for them to learn or puts them off wanting to learn it ("techno-fear" or something).

Anyway, that's an aside. Just imagine that you've got a person who's never used any music player of any sort before. In terms of basic playback control - play, pause, stop, back, forward, rewind, fast forward - which is going to be easier to teach them: a 2G Shuffle or a 3G Shuffle? I cannot see how anyone could honestly believe it's the 3G Shuffle - hence the 2G is easier to use.



Apple will probably sell billions of these things. That doesn't mean a 5 button remote wouldn't be easier to use.



The possessive of "it" is "its".

Sometimes they do lots of research and sometimes they don't; sometimes once they've done it they ignore it. Steve Jobs is on the record as saying so.



Having the controls on the wires is a good idea. Pursuing a blind devotion to "the fewer buttons the better" is not.

If you follow the minimalist idea to it's ultimate conclusion you end up with a future generation of Shuffle which is nothing more than a headphone wire, losing completely the 'Showing Off Your Personality' aspect of sporting a pretty little coloured 'Expression Of Your Personality' which the previous Shuffle was.

I didn't own one but they sure were pretty.

The current Shuffle looks like something from a hardware store, and I'm surprised at that.

with you virgil. certainly apple will sell their fair share of these, but i bet the new design causes more people to turn away from the shuffle than adopt it. just like the fatty nano, this just strikes me as a wrong heading.

i use my shuffle to exercise/work around the house. i run the headphone wire behind me. i bet a lot of other folks do to. because of this controls on headphone wires are not good for me.

we should keep track of those who approve v. disapprove of this design so when the results are in we can have a friendly 'i told you so'.

Exactly! Headphones similar to the one teckstud showed before could be much better because of the new Shuffle's smaller size (and — possibly — have all the extra controls people here want, like dedicated FF and REW buttons).

Anybody who hasn't realized this yet is seriously short on imagination. The possibilities of this new shuffle are amazing.

The only problem I see with this thing is that none of those accessories exist yet… and that's kind of a big problem.

have you actually ever done any exercise, or just making stuff up?

I'm more than willing to consider new features, I thought I pointed that out. My main issue with the Shuffle is that they've been going through the process of reducing the player, but not always for the better. The original was an all-in-one, controls, battery and even USB port.

Admittedly, I was skeptical about the G2 when it came out, as it scrapped the USB port for the sake of size and gave us yet another accessory which I have to keep in my bag if I want to sync on the fly. That being said, the result of omitting the USB port allowed the iPod to be small enough to clip wherever. That was a benefit that outweighed the loss of the USB port. (and in regards to running and hand position, regardless of where your hands are when running, you can always have the G2 and its controls close by).

With the G3, we have removed the controls from the unit. And like the G2, we have another accessory to worry about - headphones with controls. But, like the G2, do we have a benefit? I am not sure that we do, or at least not one that interests me right now.

Perhaps after letting the G3 grow on me, I might find something with it, but at first and second glance, nothing. Again, from my means of use, the voice ID doesn't do anything for me - if I got one it would be the first thing I turned off. As for the larger size, as I said, most shuffle users have a second, larger iPod, so I don't know if its a big deal. All the talk of removing the controls is being hailed as a positive, but I just see it.

It sounds like they have much room for improvement on this new design as listed in the cons of the review.

Personally I believe the voiceover will be refined and be able to allow Shuffle users to use Nike+ components. There's no reason why Apple couldn't do that in the shuffle and have the iPod give voice updates or one's progress on a run or walk.

The Shuffle could also gain a GPS chip and give one's location. Voice directions should be just as good as visual.

does iPod (Shuffle, God bless its designers) have to do with 3G

Here, 3G means third generation. This is the third generation of iPod Shuffle.

Ah. Thanks. Somewhat misleading.

Well said Mr. H

The clickwheel of the 2G shuffle is very idiot proof. The new shuffle isn't. Apple needs a video to explain the new Shuffle. It won't appeal to new entrants that are not too familiar with technology. Hence the tragedy.

The new shuffle will appeal to the high end (iPhone/iPod touch) user however.

Confusing, sure, but I wouldn't call it misleading. The cell carriers and cell vendors have pushed '3G' as a marketing term so much to refer to cell radios that we've forgotten that it just means 3rd generation. We use GPRS and EDGE but then didn't use UMTS, HSDPA, HSUPA or HSPA. Granted that is a whole lot of confusing acronyms and those are just for 3G on GSM-based networks.



There is no click wheel on the 2G Shuffle. It's just buttons in a circular arrangement. I don't think having a video means it's difficult to use, only that it's different. I've been using the in-line remote on my iPhones for nearly two years now without issue. I even bought Apple's $79 in-ear phones with in-line remote and mic because I find the controls so useful (and because I just hate Apple's ear buds with a passion). I could have bought other vendor's in-ear phones but I would have lost functionality without gaining much, if any, improvement in sound for the price over Apple's premium offering.

The first iPod with a synaptic clickwheel was unusual but natural enough that it was quickly understood. This remote with click once to play/pause, click twice to FF, click thrice to RW, and the plus sign for volume up, minus sign for volume down should not be difficult to understand.


Why exactly will appeal to them but not others?

Isn't it ®egistered?

UPD: Can't state that for sure. Yet ITU employs 3G as a synonym to IMT-2000 with no hesitation.

It doesn't matter if it is or not, since it was commonly used prior to any 3rd generation network being created. I think being a trademark also means that the use of 3G would have to be written a certain way AND be used in a used way to be in any violation. Referring to the 3rd generation iPod Shuffle as simple 3G in plain text should not be in violation.

(I'll need my large iced coffee from McDonalds® before all my cylinders are firing)

OK, OK, you convinced me. Afaik, I could easily get it as new iPod was gonna cost 3G's, too

Brilliant insight.

Yeah, you can tell some people are really "confused" when they ask the difference between a 2G iPhone and a 3G iPhone...

Just wait until we start talking about the 3rd generation iPhone in a simplified form on these forums.

They're asking that? They should have got some reasons... Wait... Both batteries are crap. You can still watch youtube over EDGE... No, some people got the right to be confused...

Great article, I totally agree with it. This really looks like a redesign for its own sake - they took something that wasn't broke and tried to "fix" it.

One quibble - I disagree that apple was "forced" to redesign to keep buyers interested. I'd argue that a price drop and capacity boost would have been a good start. If they really wanted to do more, they could have added playlists and/or voice to the old form factor (I think it would be better to have the option to have the voice ONLY for changing playlists). Or even include the remote in addition to the controls on the unit.

Apple got it right with the second generation (and I'd even argue that even the first gen had advantages, I always liked the USB port on the unit itself so no adapter or cable was needed). This really seems like a step back, and I really think it's likely that we'll see the controls come back in the next redesign (sure they'll sell some of these, but I wouldn't be surprised if there ends up being more demand for the 2nd generation, which apple is still selling).

Both batteries?
Serious? You know what differences there are between a 2G iPhone and a 3G iPhone (think about your original post)?

Because there are people who use shuffles and actually DO use the controls? How are you missing that?


I agree that there seems to be complaining with every apple product release. But that doesn't mean that the complaining is right in some cases.

There are people demanding esoteric features that nobody really wants. But in this case they are selling a music player with no controls on the device. And the controls on the remote are less intuitive than the last version.

Absolutely.


I do, I do... My original post wasn't about iPhone. What's the point to think of it?