Wow Virgil, only 133 posts to go before you can change your tag to "Devoted Apple fanboy", "Drunk on the koolaid", "Infected by the RDF and I like it" or some such. Do you really think Apple can do no wrong at all?
Mr. H, you missed the closing quotes after "Infected by the RDF" and before "I like it"
Nothing bounces or jiggles more than headphone wires. A player snapped to your waistband doesn't move at all and the 2G controls were entirely intuitive unlike this shuffle.
Please pardon the side bar folks. A Quick Language Police Question:
I am familiar with English 'dived' is now 'dove' in US. However, is English 'ever run' really 'ever ran' in US? Or is that just a mistake? I am new US Citizen trying to learn all the verb differences here. Thanks.
Why does everyone want to make the Shuffle a full-featured iPod? I just don't get it. The iPod Shuffle fits a narrow niche - a small, simple and light music player. It's perfect for going to the gym, on a run, working in the yard, walking the dog, etc. That's it. If you want more than that, go buy a Nano or above.
Personally, I use mine for working in the yard where the lack of buttons is actually welcome. It's not something I do for hours on end and a random shuffling of music is fine. Or sometimes I just sync the music I've most recently downloaded.
The biggest downside to me is that with the controls on the earbuds, lose them and the player is rendered almost completely worthless. There will indeed be a plethora of third-party options I'm sure though.
Putting the controls on the headphones is stupid because as someone mentioned, unless you're a woman without a bra on or a fat guy without a corset, the headphone cable jiggles around the most when jogging. The ipod itself is always fastened securely in a known position.
As multiple someones also said that the assumptions that it's harder to navigate while moving are false. In reality it's easier to use controls on the wire than on the device if attached to your person. The only way that the controls would be easier to use on the device would be in the device was in your hand.
Quote:
I think the new Shuffle is a step backwards. Adding more storage doesn't help when it's still difficult to navigate through the music. The bottom line is that you need a visual guide to navigate a lot of music tracks just like you need two physical buttons on a mouse to reliably interact with a computer. Apple's workarounds just don't cut it.
Dude! They added VoiceOver so you could navigate the library better. A voice telling you what track you are on is more useful than a single line telling you the same data. You don't have to stop to look at a really small one line display. Ever try reading a small LCD when moving? And if it's attached to your person it completely defeats the point of this device.
Quote:
Also, having an audible battery indicator would be nice too. One of my relatives has the 2G model and they say it just dies. The light changes color but only after it's dead.
So much misinformation! The Shuffles have always used the indicator light to tell you the charge. Your relative should have spent 8 seconds googling. The new Shuffle also uses VoiceOver to inform you of the battery life.
I am disappointed by the new shuffle. There was no need to update the design of the player. All they needed to do was combine the shuffle, play in order, and off button together as in the new model. I use my 2nd Gen shuffle more than my other iPod's. The new design is ugly and I love minimalism but this iPod has gone to far. They should of made the cord controls optional.
Nothing bounces or jiggles more than headphone wires. A player snapped to your waistband doesn't move at all and the 2G controls were entirely intuitive unlike this shuffle.
A player snapped to your waistband doesn't move at all?.. hahahahahahahahaha
A player snapped to your waistband move with your waist. (i know, this one is tough... it's like sitting in a moving car and thinking you are stationary.. no, you are moving at the same speed as the car)... anyway, if you photographed yourself running with a player snapped to your waistband, you would see that it moves while you are running (up and down that is). I've ran with headphones before... this is not advanced physics.. nothing happened.. i didn't melt, get annonyed or anything. only when apple does not do something that people start claiming it is hard (like apple idiotic explanation for not doing cut and paste in an iphone before)..
We are obviously going to disagree, but how on earth do you control which songs you listen too on the old 2G shuffle containing 400 songs?
What I was saying is that increasing the storage makes this issue worse. The 3G improves some aspects but not enough IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill_F
On the 3G shuffle navigation is easy (and easier when you are on the move than walking in front of cars while gazing at a list on the nano.
You get voiceover on the nano too but it's about speed. If I have even 10 playlists, I don't want to hit a button then wait to hear the description, hit a button, hear the next description. A visual list that you can scan is so much quicker - it's like random access vs linear.
It's not only selecting a playlist by title but being able to quickly see what is in the playlist. I can select a playlist visually. You also don't gaze at the list constantly, you just select and leave it once you have the selection.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill_F
Once manufacturers have an adaptor so you can plug it into your car it will be much safer than looking at visual playlists
The current nano can be used in a car without an adaptor. Engadget pointed this out but manufacturers pay a license fee to Apple and they'll pass it onto the consumer so shuffle plus adaptor might cost the same or more than a nano, which you can use anywhere without having to remember the adaptor.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipism
The Shuffles have always used the indicator light to tell you the charge.
What my relative probably meant was that she only noticed the light had changed after the ipod stopped playing. An audible warning fixes this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by solipism
In reality it's easier to use controls on the wire than on the device if attached to your person.
Not for people climbing or cycling, playing tennis, golf etc where you might put the wire over your back to keep it from getting in your way. Also in winter time, you can't keep your hands in your pocket and change tracks.
The current nano can be used in a car without an adaptor. Engadget pointed this out but manufacturers pay a license fee to Apple and they'll pass it onto the consumer so shuffle plus adaptor might cost the same or more than a nano, which you can use anywhere without having to remember the adaptor.
You don't need to get your 3.5mm headphone jack attachments certified by Apple to work with any of the new iPod, just don't expect Apple to sell it in their stores or on their website if you don't.
i would say less than 1% of all shuffle owners in the world use different headsets and less than 1% actually use it for more than randomly listen to music.
I just love how people randomly make up their own statistics.
I'm shocked no one has brought this up yet. It seems clear to me apple should have taken this concept one step further and offered voice command. While your busy running or lifting weights just speak into the built in microphone on the ear buds. Move the track forward speak "Next" or move it backwards by speaking "Previous". Additional commands could be "Pause", "Play", "Stop", and "Next Playlist". I think you get the idea. It's simple, clean, and requires absolutely no fumbling with the physical controls. Perfect for those of use for go to the gym. Or for those of us who are working on something dirty like car engine work and don't want to touch our ipod with grease. Or we're skiing down the mountain and have our hands full holding the ski poles.
Well I'm not going to take your comments too seriously, as it seems the world is topsy-turvy today in that you actually agree with "tekstud" below as you mention yourself. Also I won't bother with the usual form which is if a poster mentions the word "fan-boy" in any capacity, they usually aren't worth talking or listening to.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. H
... Super cheap? Er no, this new shuffle costs £59. ...
To this I would only say there is cheap and there is junk. You can find calculators stuck in the end of pens but one shouldn't compare them to a calculator that one might purchase as opposed to something one might receive in a blister pack with a free pair of socks and some mouthwash at the local Tesco's.
Where I live, most people are dead cheap and a large portion of them never buy iPods for that reason alone. What they buy are usually hundred dollar players in the same general price range as shuffles that are tiny little things with a tiny LCD screen or no screen made out of plastic. This is what I see most people using on the train every day and the new shuffle fits right in that category IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. H
... Easier to use? What kind of twisted logic did you use to come to that conclusion? How is clicking a button three times to skip backward (and remembering that it's three times rather than two times, one time, two and half times whilst hopping) easier than clicking once a button marked with a "skip backward" symbol?
Here I said easier because I have used them and to me, they are easier. That was like, an "opinion."
The article itself also goes on about how they are "handier" easier to get at etc. so one could also argue that they are easier in that they are more accessible. The difference between these controls and the previous generation controls is really almost negligible anyway. People making a big hoo-ha over it have likely never used it.
On the old one it's a single click to go back (on one button) and a single click on a second button to go forward. On the new one it's a double click on one button and a triple click on the same button. If you cannot master this, consult any five year old child and they can show you how it works.
In the end all they have done is change a five button control to a three button one and move it to the speaker wires. All of you that are so hot against this move are simply wrong. People already buy the shuffle in large numbers and Apple does tons of research into these things before making changes like this to it's product lines.
The odds that they discovered that moving the controls to the wires would piss people off and then went ahead anyway because of some ideological slant against buttons (which is essentially what most are arguing here), are slim to none. This thing will be really really popular and will prove all of you as wrong as you generally are when you think you know better than a group of award winning designers running one of the most successful companies in recent memory.
I'm shocked no one has brought this up yet. It seems clear to me apple should have taken this concept one step further and offered voice command. While your busy running or lifting weights just speak into the built in microphone on the ear buds. Move the track forward speak "Next" or move it backwards by speaking "Previous". Additional commands could be "Pause", "Play", "Stop", and "Next Playlist". I think you get the idea. It's simple, clean, and requires absolutely no fumbling with the physical controls. Perfect for those of use for go to the gym. Or for those of us who are working on something dirty like car engine work and don't want to touch our ipod with grease. Or we're skiing down the mountain and have our hands full holding the ski poles.
Relaying a voice of a track and artist and conveying a voice command are very different beasts. The VoiceOver is actually done by your PC prior to copying the files on the Shuffle. It creates a small audio file of the track and artist metadata. I doubt the Shuffle is sophisticated enough to process such information. If this were to come out I would imagine that will happen in the iPhone and Touch first.
For the average user the Shuffle is just fine - in fact, better than fine, since the controls are now much more convenient to get to.
People who post regularly on AI are most certainly not average users. Or course, our opinions count, but we're not exactly representative of the average user.
it's a better product all around but if you don't like it the old one is still available?
Lot's of people do not share that view, including myself. That there is remaining stock of the old model is of little comfort. When that stock is exhausted, there will just be the hugely flawed new one, or other manufacturers products. Now there's an idea.
Shuffle is no longer positioned as "cheap iPod". Instead, it is an "exercise iPod" now.
G1 iPod was the cheap iPod for kids. G2 iPod was already moving toward as the secondary iPod for exercising. G3 is solely focused as exercise iPod. Keep in mind, the G1 iPod Shuffle 1GB costs $149, same as the lowest priced Nano right now.
Everything about the new Shuffle design is about keeping it invisible. You don't change songs when exercising. You don't care about audio/earphone/headphone quality when exercising. Instead, you want it as light as possible. You may want different style of music depending on the type of exercising, so it adds the ability to change playlist.
If you want better audio quality (cheap headphone replacement), better media management etc, get Nano or Touch. Shuffle is not designed for that. Actually, I should say "Shuffled is designed PURPOSELY NOT FOR that".
Edit: why does Apple move the controls to the earphone? Because that's the best place when you exercise. No matter where you put the iPod, the controls are easily accessible no matter what activities you are doing. For people who are exercising, the best placement is to place the iPod in the pants pocket, and run the wires inside the T-shirt. With the old Shuffle, you have to reach inside your pants pocket to change anything. The new controls are much better.
Edit: I will predict the next generation shuffle will have weather proofing.
Comments
Wow Virgil, only 133 posts to go before you can change your tag to "Devoted Apple fanboy", "Drunk on the koolaid", "Infected by the RDF and I like it" or some such. Do you really think Apple can do no wrong at all?
Mr. H, you missed the closing quotes after "Infected by the RDF" and before "I like it"
Constanoon Afterable
Has the reviewer ever actually ran?
Nothing bounces or jiggles more than headphone wires. A player snapped to your waistband doesn't move at all and the 2G controls were entirely intuitive unlike this shuffle.
Please pardon the side bar folks. A Quick Language Police Question:
I am familiar with English 'dived' is now 'dove' in US. However, is English 'ever run' really 'ever ran' in US? Or is that just a mistake? I am new US Citizen trying to learn all the verb differences here. Thanks.
How did you try it at the store- with ear bud headphones that hundreds have used?
When I went they showed it to me from a salesperson's pocket with the ugly USB dangledopper hanging off it.
Yes I used it with the earbuds that hundreds have used and it sounded great.
Personally, I use mine for working in the yard where the lack of buttons is actually welcome. It's not something I do for hours on end and a random shuffling of music is fine. Or sometimes I just sync the music I've most recently downloaded.
The biggest downside to me is that with the controls on the earbuds, lose them and the player is rendered almost completely worthless. There will indeed be a plethora of third-party options I'm sure though.
Putting the controls on the headphones is stupid because as someone mentioned, unless you're a woman without a bra on or a fat guy without a corset, the headphone cable jiggles around the most when jogging. The ipod itself is always fastened securely in a known position.
As multiple someones also said that the assumptions that it's harder to navigate while moving are false. In reality it's easier to use controls on the wire than on the device if attached to your person. The only way that the controls would be easier to use on the device would be in the device was in your hand.
I think the new Shuffle is a step backwards. Adding more storage doesn't help when it's still difficult to navigate through the music. The bottom line is that you need a visual guide to navigate a lot of music tracks just like you need two physical buttons on a mouse to reliably interact with a computer. Apple's workarounds just don't cut it.
Dude! They added VoiceOver so you could navigate the library better. A voice telling you what track you are on is more useful than a single line telling you the same data. You don't have to stop to look at a really small one line display. Ever try reading a small LCD when moving? And if it's attached to your person it completely defeats the point of this device.
Also, having an audible battery indicator would be nice too. One of my relatives has the 2G model and they say it just dies. The light changes color but only after it's dead.
So much misinformation! The Shuffles have always used the indicator light to tell you the charge. Your relative should have spent 8 seconds googling. The new Shuffle also uses VoiceOver to inform you of the battery life.
Has the reviewer ever actually ran?
Nothing bounces or jiggles more than headphone wires. A player snapped to your waistband doesn't move at all and the 2G controls were entirely intuitive unlike this shuffle.
A player snapped to your waistband doesn't move at all?.. hahahahahahahahaha
A player snapped to your waistband move with your waist. (i know, this one is tough... it's like sitting in a moving car and thinking you are stationary.. no, you are moving at the same speed as the car)... anyway, if you photographed yourself running with a player snapped to your waistband, you would see that it moves while you are running (up and down that is). I've ran with headphones before... this is not advanced physics.. nothing happened.. i didn't melt, get annonyed or anything. only when apple does not do something that people start claiming it is hard (like apple idiotic explanation for not doing cut and paste in an iphone before)..
We are obviously going to disagree, but how on earth do you control which songs you listen too on the old 2G shuffle containing 400 songs?
What I was saying is that increasing the storage makes this issue worse. The 3G improves some aspects but not enough IMO.
On the 3G shuffle navigation is easy (and easier when you are on the move than walking in front of cars while gazing at a list on the nano.
You get voiceover on the nano too but it's about speed. If I have even 10 playlists, I don't want to hit a button then wait to hear the description, hit a button, hear the next description. A visual list that you can scan is so much quicker - it's like random access vs linear.
It's not only selecting a playlist by title but being able to quickly see what is in the playlist. I can select a playlist visually. You also don't gaze at the list constantly, you just select and leave it once you have the selection.
Once manufacturers have an adaptor so you can plug it into your car it will be much safer than looking at visual playlists
The current nano can be used in a car without an adaptor. Engadget pointed this out but manufacturers pay a license fee to Apple and they'll pass it onto the consumer so shuffle plus adaptor might cost the same or more than a nano, which you can use anywhere without having to remember the adaptor.
The Shuffles have always used the indicator light to tell you the charge.
What my relative probably meant was that she only noticed the light had changed after the ipod stopped playing. An audible warning fixes this.
In reality it's easier to use controls on the wire than on the device if attached to your person.
Not for people climbing or cycling, playing tennis, golf etc where you might put the wire over your back to keep it from getting in your way. Also in winter time, you can't keep your hands in your pocket and change tracks.
The current nano can be used in a car without an adaptor. Engadget pointed this out but manufacturers pay a license fee to Apple and they'll pass it onto the consumer so shuffle plus adaptor might cost the same or more than a nano, which you can use anywhere without having to remember the adaptor.
You don't need to get your 3.5mm headphone jack attachments certified by Apple to work with any of the new iPod, just don't expect Apple to sell it in their stores or on their website if you don't.
It's a Shuffle. Aimed at the exercise crowd. Controls are on the earphone wires.
'nuff said.
i would say less than 1% of all shuffle owners in the world use different headsets and less than 1% actually use it for more than randomly listen to music.
I just love how people randomly make up their own statistics.
I just love how people randomly make up their own statistics.
Oberpongo started his statement with "I would say..." which clearly makes it an opinion.
... Super cheap? Er no, this new shuffle costs £59. ...
To this I would only say there is cheap and there is junk. You can find calculators stuck in the end of pens but one shouldn't compare them to a calculator that one might purchase as opposed to something one might receive in a blister pack with a free pair of socks and some mouthwash at the local Tesco's.
Where I live, most people are dead cheap and a large portion of them never buy iPods for that reason alone. What they buy are usually hundred dollar players in the same general price range as shuffles that are tiny little things with a tiny LCD screen or no screen made out of plastic. This is what I see most people using on the train every day and the new shuffle fits right in that category IMO.
... Easier to use? What kind of twisted logic did you use to come to that conclusion? How is clicking a button three times to skip backward (and remembering that it's three times rather than two times, one time, two and half times whilst hopping) easier than clicking once a button marked with a "skip backward" symbol?
Here I said easier because I have used them and to me, they are easier. That was like, an "opinion."
The article itself also goes on about how they are "handier" easier to get at etc. so one could also argue that they are easier in that they are more accessible. The difference between these controls and the previous generation controls is really almost negligible anyway. People making a big hoo-ha over it have likely never used it.
On the old one it's a single click to go back (on one button) and a single click on a second button to go forward. On the new one it's a double click on one button and a triple click on the same button. If you cannot master this, consult any five year old child and they can show you how it works.
In the end all they have done is change a five button control to a three button one and move it to the speaker wires. All of you that are so hot against this move are simply wrong. People already buy the shuffle in large numbers and Apple does tons of research into these things before making changes like this to it's product lines.
The odds that they discovered that moving the controls to the wires would piss people off and then went ahead anyway because of some ideological slant against buttons (which is essentially what most are arguing here), are slim to none. This thing will be really really popular and will prove all of you as wrong as you generally are when you think you know better than a group of award winning designers running one of the most successful companies in recent memory.
I'm shocked no one has brought this up yet. It seems clear to me apple should have taken this concept one step further and offered voice command. While your busy running or lifting weights just speak into the built in microphone on the ear buds. Move the track forward speak "Next" or move it backwards by speaking "Previous". Additional commands could be "Pause", "Play", "Stop", and "Next Playlist". I think you get the idea. It's simple, clean, and requires absolutely no fumbling with the physical controls. Perfect for those of use for go to the gym. Or for those of us who are working on something dirty like car engine work and don't want to touch our ipod with grease. Or we're skiing down the mountain and have our hands full holding the ski poles.
Relaying a voice of a track and artist and conveying a voice command are very different beasts. The VoiceOver is actually done by your PC prior to copying the files on the Shuffle. It creates a small audio file of the track and artist metadata. I doubt the Shuffle is sophisticated enough to process such information. If this were to come out I would imagine that will happen in the iPhone and Touch first.
People who post regularly on AI are most certainly not average users. Or course, our opinions count, but we're not exactly representative of the average user.
it's a better product all around but if you don't like it the old one is still available?
Lot's of people do not share that view, including myself. That there is remaining stock of the old model is of little comfort. When that stock is exhausted, there will just be the hugely flawed new one, or other manufacturers products. Now there's an idea.
Shuffle is no longer positioned as "cheap iPod". Instead, it is an "exercise iPod" now.
G1 iPod was the cheap iPod for kids. G2 iPod was already moving toward as the secondary iPod for exercising. G3 is solely focused as exercise iPod. Keep in mind, the G1 iPod Shuffle 1GB costs $149, same as the lowest priced Nano right now.
Everything about the new Shuffle design is about keeping it invisible. You don't change songs when exercising. You don't care about audio/earphone/headphone quality when exercising. Instead, you want it as light as possible. You may want different style of music depending on the type of exercising, so it adds the ability to change playlist.
If you want better audio quality (cheap headphone replacement), better media management etc, get Nano or Touch. Shuffle is not designed for that. Actually, I should say "Shuffled is designed PURPOSELY NOT FOR that".
Edit: why does Apple move the controls to the earphone? Because that's the best place when you exercise. No matter where you put the iPod, the controls are easily accessible no matter what activities you are doing. For people who are exercising, the best placement is to place the iPod in the pants pocket, and run the wires inside the T-shirt. With the old Shuffle, you have to reach inside your pants pocket to change anything. The new controls are much better.
Edit: I will predict the next generation shuffle will have weather proofing.
Talk about over-analysis.
It's a Shuffle. Aimed at the exercise crowd. Controls are on the earphone wires.
'nuff said.
Exactly. How is it that everyone is missing that?