No one mentioned, not even AI, that this is the first Shuffle that can play Apple Lossless. I guess that means that Lossless isn't as important as people want it to be.
I think that means that Apple has not only changed the exterior, but also beefed up the internal components enough to play the lossless files. Though I suppose more sophisticated codec could account for the change.
Thank you
people suddenly started bitching about the damn buttons and headphones, they missed stuff like that
Playlists help, but don't make up for the horrid controls on this thing. Double and triple-click? No thanks. Complete fail. Sticking with my previous gen shuffle.
Tell that to the people who no longer need to fumble around to figure out what buttons they're pushing while they're jogging, skiing, riding their bike, skateboarding or whatever.
I'm kinda upset because i really really REALLY want to buy this new iPod, just to have it haha, but i cant use the iPod standard headphones. This iPod looks super cool and i'm tempted to buy one with apples in ear headphones to use. I use shuffles every day for my main player, i think they still sound good. I think people should not complain so much, apple made a cool revsion, what more could you expect from an iPod shuffe. they keep getting better, not worse, its bigger, it talks and its super small, and they still sell the old one, everyone wins, and dont worry guys, an adapter will be available soon for all headphones, apples qualitys not slipping, you cant use the iMac chip update against them, the i7 chips just werent ready for the iMac yet, anyways, i want this ipod!
That's great, a plus, provided the player itself outputs a higher quality sound than the previous model. And by that I don't mean audio-file quality. The tests at the iLounge and other iPod sights will determine this most important factor to many of us.
I still don't get the omission of the click wheel which renders it useless to me so far. Will you still be able to get sunglasses for this shuffle?
And why no Apple logo- the horror?!?!
Well see. I hope it is better, but not having to convert my Lossless to AAC for my Shuffle is nice. iTunes does it automatically, but now it will sync faster since it won't have to do the conversion on the fly.
The two previous generation Shuffles didn't have a click wheel. They had controls in a wheel formation but they were typical buttons you find on other players. No Synaptic cleverness. The lack of buttons don't bother me, I couldn't care less about an Apple logo, and have no idea what sunglasses you are talking about.
Tell that to the people who no longer need to fumble around to figure out what buttons they're pushing while they're jogging, skiing, riding their bike, skateboarding or whatever.
Right- I can just see all the lawsuits from bikers, skiers, etc due to holding, then listening, then listening again for a beep tone, to be followed by another click. WTF- I can't believe Apple would release something as bad as this. This is just not meant for exercising with- those skinny headphones will break very easily- trust me. Anything that is connected (the switch) can very easily get pulled apart while exercising and then you're SOL.
I plan to gobble up a couple more of the old ones once they drop.
...those skinny headphones will break very easily- trust me. Anything that is connected (the switch) can very easily get pulled apart while exercising and then you're SOL.
I plan to gobble up a couple more of the old ones once they drop.
I use mine and they get yanked often. Sometimes with so much force that the rubber grommets of their in-ear phones pull out with a suction that kind of hurts or they pull right from the headphone themselves leaving me to pry the detached grommet from my ear. Also, I've noticed that the new headphones with switches on them are much more rubbery than the old Apple headphones making them less likely to crack, break, or even get tangled in your pocket.
Average teens are the target buyers for the Shuffle due to relatively low cost, small size, and durability. How many 12 year-olds you've meet put sound quality over price? You will be surprised how many people don't know the difference between 128 bit and 256 bit or mp3 and AAC. Many don't even notice the difference. Not everyone is music and tech savvy.
It's true that some people buy the Shuffle as a secondary iPod but they already know the limitations and compromise and they accept it.
Then does it make since to buy a $1200 HiDef LCD TV to use it with a $10 DVD player to watch SD content?!
I feel left out. I got no email or anything alerting me to the fact that you speak for all people who buy shuffles. Sounds to me like you are pulling statistics out of your bum. You are entitled to your opinion, but you seem to want me to think of it as fact. Data, please.
How many 12 year olds do you know who buy their own anything? Have you been sitting in on Apple marketing meetings lately? If you have that kind of access, I worry your gonna lose your job if anyone at Apple catches you posting so openly on a site called, "Apple Insider." I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing you are about as privy to Apple's marketing plans as I am/aren't.
None of their marketing mentions anything that seems even remotely limited to teens as a target market to the exclusion of others ("others" as in adults who actually have money to buy things). The I'm a Mac "kid" in the commercials is 31 years old. I go to a gym in an affluent area with the parking lot full of Beamers, Lexus, Porches, and the occasional riff-raff they let in with Suburas (like mine). The gym is packed with long lines of well healed people, youngest age starts mostly at ~late 20s early thirties. The more predominant age is 40-50-ish. I'm talking week nights, 6:00 to 9:30 pm. Most have sport-type mp3 of some sort, most of them shuffles or nanos. I rarely see a teenager in the joint when I'm there.
Apparently, YOU would be surprised at how many people DO know EXACTLY the difference between 128 bit and 256 bit or mp3 and AAC (especially teenagers). A 900 bit AAC sounds like crap with crappy speakers. 128 bit sounds better with better speakers, than with crappy speakers. If they happen to hurt your ears or keep falling out, than you have yet another variable many people choose to satisfy outside of Apple's one-size-fits all form factor. It's true that some people buy the Shuffle as a secondary iPod but they already know the limitations and compromise and they accept it. When I bought mine the main compromise for me was capacity and admittedly, what seems like lesser sound quality to my ears. That was fine with me because I knew I had excellent earphones that would still feel great in my ears, still sound great, and at least let the sound quality come through at the best it can for that model of iPod. Now Apple is counting on people to accept even more compromise for no real reason, other than Apple's hopes they'll ignore a glaringly limited design shortcoming. That is what many people refer to in technical terms as, "a Sucker." The emperor has no clothes, but look at his cool new (insert Apple device here).
Your counter analogy about the HD monitor makes no sense, it has nothing to do with the one I offered. All Apple CPUS are capable of producing the minimal resolution of the monitor I talked about. Higher end graphs cards are faster and offer more features specific to some things, like games and 3D. However, you will get all the benefits of a better monitor (color fidelity, contrast, pitch, ability to calibrate) if you put it on the mini as you would on a Mac Pro as far as looking at a good monitor vs. a crappy monitor. The anlogy holds, it doesn't matter what machine you hook an output device to. If the output device offers less quality than what the signal being delivered to it represents (or it distorts or colors that signal in a degraded way) you are shortchanging your self. Your opinion re: how much you want to spend addressing that is obviously different from mine, but no more valid.
Well see. I hope it is better, but not having to convert my Lossless to AAC for my Shuffle is nice. iTunes does it automatically, but now it will sync faster since it won't have to do the conversion on the fly.
The two previous generation Shuffles didn't have a click wheel. They had controls in a wheel formation but they were typical buttons you find on other players. No Synaptic cleverness. The lack of buttons don't bother me, I couldn't care less about an Apple logo, and have no idea what sunglasses you are talking about.
Sorry I meant these wireless headphones. If they can make a version for the new iPod then I might buy. I do not like the shuffles headphones with those controls- no way.
Nice job Apple... you've gone so minimal that the thing doesn't even have a play buttons anymore... so I can't plug this shuffle into anything... not into my car stereo... or into any aux input on anything... let alone ANY headphones other than the supplied headphones. The device is completely non-functional without the Apple ear buds. Unbelievable lame.
IMO this product is indefensible. When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was a spoof.
There were a few reasons that I never bought a first generation iPhone. One of the biggies was the headphone jack that could not easily fit a standard headphone plug. If I cannot use my headphones on a player, I'm not interested. I'd guess that goes for a fair percentage of users of portable music players. The idea of sticking on an adapter which contains the controls... Is this windows? Add a dongle to get functionality that should have been there in the first place?
The controls themselves are laughable. One click does one thing. Two clicks does something else. Clicking and holding does yet something else. This from the company that still doesn't think we should use a two-button mouse? Sorry, but these controls definitely don't pass the grandma-test.
I feel left out. I got no email or anything alerting me to the fact that you speak for all people who buy shuffles. Sounds to me like you are pulling statistics out of your bum. You are entitled to your opinion, but you seem to want me to think of it as fact. Data, please.
How many 12 year olds do you know who buy their own anything? Have you been sitting in on Apple marketing meetings lately? If you have that kind of access, I worry your gonna lose your job if anyone at Apple catches you posting so openly on a site called, "Apple Insider." I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing you are about as privy to Apple's marketing plans as I am/aren't.
None of their marketing mentions anything that seems even remotely limited to teens as a target market to the exclusion of others ("others" as in adults who actually have money to buy things). The I'm a Mac "kid" in the commercials is 31 years old. I go to a gym in an affluent area with the parking lot full of Beamers, Lexus, Porches, and the occasional riff-raff they let in with Suburas (like mine). The gym is packed with long lines of well healed people, youngest age starts mostly at ~late 20s early thirties. The more predominant age is 40-50-ish. I'm talking week nights, 6:00 to 9:30 pm. Most have sport-type mp3 of some sort, most of them shuffles or nanos. I rarely see a teenager in the joint when I'm there.
Apparently, YOU would be surprised at how many people DO know EXACTLY the difference between 128 bit and 256 bit or mp3 and AAC (especially teenagers). A 900 bit AAC sounds like crap with crappy speakers. 128 bit sounds better with better speakers, than with crappy speakers. If they happen to hurt your ears or keep falling out, than you have yet another variable many people choose to satisfy outside of Apple's one-size-fits all form factor. It's true that some people buy the Shuffle as a secondary iPod but they already know the limitations and compromise and they accept it. When I bought mine the main compromise for me was capacity and admittedly, what seems like lesser sound quality to my ears. That was fine with me because I knew I had excellent earphones that would still feel great in my ears, still sound great, and at least let the sound quality come through at the best it can for that model of iPod. Now Apple is counting on people to accept even more compromise for no real reason, other than Apple's hopes they'll ignore a glaringly limited design shortcoming. That is what many people refer to in technical terms as, "a Sucker." The emperor has no clothes, but look at his cool new (insert Apple device here).
Your counter analogy about the HD monitor makes no sense, it has nothing to do with the one I offered. All of Apple monitors are capable of producing the minimal resolution of the monitor I talked about. Higher end graphs cards are faster and offer more features specific to some things, like games and 3D. However, you will get all the benefits of a better monitor (color fidelity, contrast, pitch, ability to calibrate) if you put it on the mini as you would on a Mac Pro as far as looking at a good monitor vs. a crappy monitor. The anlogy holds, it doesn't matter what machine you hook an output device to. If the output device offers less quality than what the signal being delivered to it represents (or it distorts or colors that signal in a degraded way) you are shortchanging your self. Your opinion re: how much you want to spend addressing that is obviously different from mine, but no more valid.
Let me simplify:
crap + crap = crap
good enough + good enough = good enough
excellent + excellent = excellent
good enough + excellent = good enough
good enough + crap = crap
excellent + crap = crap
Apple headphones = crap
NasserAE has no idea what the 'el he's talking about. Did he even bother to read his own posts on iPods and his use of them.
The shuffle has always been geared toward the gym goers and athletes amongst others- not primarily tweens.
Tell that to the people who no longer need to fumble around to figure out what buttons they're pushing while they're jogging, skiing, riding their bike, skateboarding or whatever.
The POINT is... the device doesn't give you the OPTION of having controls on the headphones... it makes them MANDATORY and it makes the device completely DEPENDENT on them. You cannot use it WITHOUT the headphones. That's like building a website who's navigation depends on a plug-in. Bad idea. Having controls on the supplied headphones is all well and good... but it should not be the only way to control the device. I actually never even use headphones with my shuffle. Never. It's always plugged into my car stereo. The shuffle is perfect for the car because there's no screen to distract you and you don't have to fumble with a wheel... you just feel and click play/pause, forward/back. I have it mounted in a convenient location on my dash with some sticky backed velcro. Works like a charm. Love it!!!! Oh well... I guess my current shuffle will be my last. 4GB would have been nice. But anyway.
IMO this product is indefensible. When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was a spoof.
There were a few reasons that I never bought a first generation iPhone. One of the biggies was the headphone jack that could not easily fit a standard headphone plug. If I cannot use my headphones on a player, I'm not interested. I'd guess that goes for a fair percentage of users of portable music players. The idea of sticking on an adapter which contains the controls... Is this windows? Add a dongle to get functionality that should have been there in the first place?
The controls themselves are laughable. One click does one thing. Two clicks does something else. Clicking and holding does yet something else. This from the company that still doesn't think we should use a two-button mouse? Sorry, but these controls definitely don't pass the grandma-test.
Frankly as Apple has grown more popular, they've now got all these trolls on their case. If the ipod earphones are so inferior, why do you see them everywhere. I guess most people who buy the shuffle are going to go out and buy 100 dollar earphones to go along with their 59 dollar shuffles.
Then lets hope they come out with more Headphones with Volume control + Playback control and avoid the adapter option
I need a new set of headphones anyways... I can wait
Yeah but the problem remains for those of us who already have perfectly nice headphones. And knowing Sony and the others who produce short-cord buds, they will not sell these in the US market (not a problem for me) and they will put the volume control only on the long-cord buds, not the short ones (that's where I think I won't find the solution that fits me).
...so I can't plug this shuffle into anything... not into my car stereo... or into any aux input on anything... let alone ANY headphones other than the supplied headphones.
Those are legitimate reasons why the device does not suit your needs. However, you and everyone else who misses the on-device controls are in luck as Apple still sells the 2G shuffle.
Personally, if you were actually considering a new Shuffle prior to this coming out, I'd just go with a Nano. You get "pocket portability" and plenty more bang for your buck.
Comments
No one mentioned, not even AI, that this is the first Shuffle that can play Apple Lossless. I guess that means that Lossless isn't as important as people want it to be.
I think that means that Apple has not only changed the exterior, but also beefed up the internal components enough to play the lossless files. Though I suppose more sophisticated codec could account for the change.
Thank you
people suddenly started bitching about the damn buttons and headphones, they missed stuff like that
And why no Apple logo- the horror?!?!
its on the clip
wish it were on the front... would have helped the overall appearance
(Just kidding, keep up the good work AI!)
Playlists help, but don't make up for the horrid controls on this thing. Double and triple-click? No thanks. Complete fail. Sticking with my previous gen shuffle.
Tell that to the people who no longer need to fumble around to figure out what buttons they're pushing while they're jogging, skiing, riding their bike, skateboarding or whatever.
and is the syncing with itunes new? how else would you have synced?
That's great, a plus, provided the player itself outputs a higher quality sound than the previous model. And by that I don't mean audio-file quality. The tests at the iLounge and other iPod sights will determine this most important factor to many of us.
I still don't get the omission of the click wheel which renders it useless to me so far. Will you still be able to get sunglasses for this shuffle?
And why no Apple logo- the horror?!?!
Well see. I hope it is better, but not having to convert my Lossless to AAC for my Shuffle is nice. iTunes does it automatically, but now it will sync faster since it won't have to do the conversion on the fly.
The two previous generation Shuffles didn't have a click wheel. They had controls in a wheel formation but they were typical buttons you find on other players. No Synaptic cleverness. The lack of buttons don't bother me, I couldn't care less about an Apple logo, and have no idea what sunglasses you are talking about.
Tell that to the people who no longer need to fumble around to figure out what buttons they're pushing while they're jogging, skiing, riding their bike, skateboarding or whatever.
Right- I can just see all the lawsuits from bikers, skiers, etc due to holding, then listening, then listening again for a beep tone, to be followed by another click. WTF- I can't believe Apple would release something as bad as this. This is just not meant for exercising with- those skinny headphones will break very easily- trust me. Anything that is connected (the switch) can very easily get pulled apart while exercising and then you're SOL.
I plan to gobble up a couple more of the old ones once they drop.
Thank you
people suddenly started bitching about the damn buttons and headphones, they missed stuff like that
Yep. Just show you how some people just whine for the sake of whining
...those skinny headphones will break very easily- trust me. Anything that is connected (the switch) can very easily get pulled apart while exercising and then you're SOL.
I plan to gobble up a couple more of the old ones once they drop.
I use mine and they get yanked often. Sometimes with so much force that the rubber grommets of their in-ear phones pull out with a suction that kind of hurts or they pull right from the headphone themselves leaving me to pry the detached grommet from my ear. Also, I've noticed that the new headphones with switches on them are much more rubbery than the old Apple headphones making them less likely to crack, break, or even get tangled in your pocket.
Average teens are the target buyers for the Shuffle due to relatively low cost, small size, and durability. How many 12 year-olds you've meet put sound quality over price? You will be surprised how many people don't know the difference between 128 bit and 256 bit or mp3 and AAC. Many don't even notice the difference. Not everyone is music and tech savvy.
It's true that some people buy the Shuffle as a secondary iPod but they already know the limitations and compromise and they accept it.
Then does it make since to buy a $1200 HiDef LCD TV to use it with a $10 DVD player to watch SD content?!
I feel left out. I got no email or anything alerting me to the fact that you speak for all people who buy shuffles. Sounds to me like you are pulling statistics out of your bum. You are entitled to your opinion, but you seem to want me to think of it as fact. Data, please.
How many 12 year olds do you know who buy their own anything? Have you been sitting in on Apple marketing meetings lately? If you have that kind of access, I worry your gonna lose your job if anyone at Apple catches you posting so openly on a site called, "Apple Insider." I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing you are about as privy to Apple's marketing plans as I am/aren't.
None of their marketing mentions anything that seems even remotely limited to teens as a target market to the exclusion of others ("others" as in adults who actually have money to buy things). The I'm a Mac "kid" in the commercials is 31 years old. I go to a gym in an affluent area with the parking lot full of Beamers, Lexus, Porches, and the occasional riff-raff they let in with Suburas (like mine). The gym is packed with long lines of well healed people, youngest age starts mostly at ~late 20s early thirties. The more predominant age is 40-50-ish. I'm talking week nights, 6:00 to 9:30 pm. Most have sport-type mp3 of some sort, most of them shuffles or nanos. I rarely see a teenager in the joint when I'm there.
Apparently, YOU would be surprised at how many people DO know EXACTLY the difference between 128 bit and 256 bit or mp3 and AAC (especially teenagers). A 900 bit AAC sounds like crap with crappy speakers. 128 bit sounds better with better speakers, than with crappy speakers. If they happen to hurt your ears or keep falling out, than you have yet another variable many people choose to satisfy outside of Apple's one-size-fits all form factor. It's true that some people buy the Shuffle as a secondary iPod but they already know the limitations and compromise and they accept it. When I bought mine the main compromise for me was capacity and admittedly, what seems like lesser sound quality to my ears. That was fine with me because I knew I had excellent earphones that would still feel great in my ears, still sound great, and at least let the sound quality come through at the best it can for that model of iPod. Now Apple is counting on people to accept even more compromise for no real reason, other than Apple's hopes they'll ignore a glaringly limited design shortcoming. That is what many people refer to in technical terms as, "a Sucker." The emperor has no clothes, but look at his cool new (insert Apple device here).
Your counter analogy about the HD monitor makes no sense, it has nothing to do with the one I offered. All Apple CPUS are capable of producing the minimal resolution of the monitor I talked about. Higher end graphs cards are faster and offer more features specific to some things, like games and 3D. However, you will get all the benefits of a better monitor (color fidelity, contrast, pitch, ability to calibrate) if you put it on the mini as you would on a Mac Pro as far as looking at a good monitor vs. a crappy monitor. The anlogy holds, it doesn't matter what machine you hook an output device to. If the output device offers less quality than what the signal being delivered to it represents (or it distorts or colors that signal in a degraded way) you are shortchanging your self. Your opinion re: how much you want to spend addressing that is obviously different from mine, but no more valid.
Let me simplify:
crap + crap = crap
good enough + good enough = good enough
excellent + excellent = excellent
good enough + excellent = good enough
good enough + crap = crap
excellent + crap = crap
Apple headphones = crap
Well see. I hope it is better, but not having to convert my Lossless to AAC for my Shuffle is nice. iTunes does it automatically, but now it will sync faster since it won't have to do the conversion on the fly.
The two previous generation Shuffles didn't have a click wheel. They had controls in a wheel formation but they were typical buttons you find on other players. No Synaptic cleverness. The lack of buttons don't bother me, I couldn't care less about an Apple logo, and have no idea what sunglasses you are talking about.
Sorry I meant these wireless headphones. If they can make a version for the new iPod then I might buy. I do not like the shuffles headphones with those controls- no way.
http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=232618
There were a few reasons that I never bought a first generation iPhone. One of the biggies was the headphone jack that could not easily fit a standard headphone plug. If I cannot use my headphones on a player, I'm not interested. I'd guess that goes for a fair percentage of users of portable music players. The idea of sticking on an adapter which contains the controls... Is this windows? Add a dongle to get functionality that should have been there in the first place?
The controls themselves are laughable. One click does one thing. Two clicks does something else. Clicking and holding does yet something else. This from the company that still doesn't think we should use a two-button mouse? Sorry, but these controls definitely don't pass the grandma-test.
This reminds me of the
revolutionary one-button keyboard.
I feel left out. I got no email or anything alerting me to the fact that you speak for all people who buy shuffles. Sounds to me like you are pulling statistics out of your bum. You are entitled to your opinion, but you seem to want me to think of it as fact. Data, please.
How many 12 year olds do you know who buy their own anything? Have you been sitting in on Apple marketing meetings lately? If you have that kind of access, I worry your gonna lose your job if anyone at Apple catches you posting so openly on a site called, "Apple Insider." I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing you are about as privy to Apple's marketing plans as I am/aren't.
None of their marketing mentions anything that seems even remotely limited to teens as a target market to the exclusion of others ("others" as in adults who actually have money to buy things). The I'm a Mac "kid" in the commercials is 31 years old. I go to a gym in an affluent area with the parking lot full of Beamers, Lexus, Porches, and the occasional riff-raff they let in with Suburas (like mine). The gym is packed with long lines of well healed people, youngest age starts mostly at ~late 20s early thirties. The more predominant age is 40-50-ish. I'm talking week nights, 6:00 to 9:30 pm. Most have sport-type mp3 of some sort, most of them shuffles or nanos. I rarely see a teenager in the joint when I'm there.
Apparently, YOU would be surprised at how many people DO know EXACTLY the difference between 128 bit and 256 bit or mp3 and AAC (especially teenagers). A 900 bit AAC sounds like crap with crappy speakers. 128 bit sounds better with better speakers, than with crappy speakers. If they happen to hurt your ears or keep falling out, than you have yet another variable many people choose to satisfy outside of Apple's one-size-fits all form factor. It's true that some people buy the Shuffle as a secondary iPod but they already know the limitations and compromise and they accept it. When I bought mine the main compromise for me was capacity and admittedly, what seems like lesser sound quality to my ears. That was fine with me because I knew I had excellent earphones that would still feel great in my ears, still sound great, and at least let the sound quality come through at the best it can for that model of iPod. Now Apple is counting on people to accept even more compromise for no real reason, other than Apple's hopes they'll ignore a glaringly limited design shortcoming. That is what many people refer to in technical terms as, "a Sucker." The emperor has no clothes, but look at his cool new (insert Apple device here).
Your counter analogy about the HD monitor makes no sense, it has nothing to do with the one I offered. All of Apple monitors are capable of producing the minimal resolution of the monitor I talked about. Higher end graphs cards are faster and offer more features specific to some things, like games and 3D. However, you will get all the benefits of a better monitor (color fidelity, contrast, pitch, ability to calibrate) if you put it on the mini as you would on a Mac Pro as far as looking at a good monitor vs. a crappy monitor. The anlogy holds, it doesn't matter what machine you hook an output device to. If the output device offers less quality than what the signal being delivered to it represents (or it distorts or colors that signal in a degraded way) you are shortchanging your self. Your opinion re: how much you want to spend addressing that is obviously different from mine, but no more valid.
Let me simplify:
crap + crap = crap
good enough + good enough = good enough
excellent + excellent = excellent
good enough + excellent = good enough
good enough + crap = crap
excellent + crap = crap
Apple headphones = crap
NasserAE has no idea what the 'el he's talking about. Did he even bother to read his own posts on iPods and his use of them.
The shuffle has always been geared toward the gym goers and athletes amongst others- not primarily tweens.
Tell that to the people who no longer need to fumble around to figure out what buttons they're pushing while they're jogging, skiing, riding their bike, skateboarding or whatever.
The POINT is... the device doesn't give you the OPTION of having controls on the headphones... it makes them MANDATORY and it makes the device completely DEPENDENT on them. You cannot use it WITHOUT the headphones. That's like building a website who's navigation depends on a plug-in. Bad idea. Having controls on the supplied headphones is all well and good... but it should not be the only way to control the device. I actually never even use headphones with my shuffle. Never. It's always plugged into my car stereo. The shuffle is perfect for the car because there's no screen to distract you and you don't have to fumble with a wheel... you just feel and click play/pause, forward/back. I have it mounted in a convenient location on my dash with some sticky backed velcro. Works like a charm. Love it!!!! Oh well... I guess my current shuffle will be my last. 4GB would have been nice. But anyway.
IMO this product is indefensible. When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was a spoof.
There were a few reasons that I never bought a first generation iPhone. One of the biggies was the headphone jack that could not easily fit a standard headphone plug. If I cannot use my headphones on a player, I'm not interested. I'd guess that goes for a fair percentage of users of portable music players. The idea of sticking on an adapter which contains the controls... Is this windows? Add a dongle to get functionality that should have been there in the first place?
The controls themselves are laughable. One click does one thing. Two clicks does something else. Clicking and holding does yet something else. This from the company that still doesn't think we should use a two-button mouse? Sorry, but these controls definitely don't pass the grandma-test.
This reminds me of the
revolutionary one-button keyboard.
Right on.
Then lets hope they come out with more Headphones with Volume control + Playback control and avoid the adapter option
I need a new set of headphones anyways... I can wait
Yeah but the problem remains for those of us who already have perfectly nice headphones. And knowing Sony and the others who produce short-cord buds, they will not sell these in the US market (not a problem for me) and they will put the volume control only on the long-cord buds, not the short ones (that's where I think I won't find the solution that fits me).
...so I can't plug this shuffle into anything... not into my car stereo... or into any aux input on anything... let alone ANY headphones other than the supplied headphones.
Those are legitimate reasons why the device does not suit your needs. However, you and everyone else who misses the on-device controls are in luck as Apple still sells the 2G shuffle.
Personally, if you were actually considering a new Shuffle prior to this coming out, I'd just go with a Nano. You get "pocket portability" and plenty more bang for your buck.