Comments on: This iPod Shuffle is a disaster

Apple is known for offering products with great designs. But in the case of the new third-generation iPod Shuffle it made some strange--and bad--choices.

[mdavid8]

I think disaster is a bit hyperbolic, but it seems to be the opposite of good progress. The postage stamp size was perfect, the clip was perfect. Really, they only had to add three things. The ability to shuffle between playists, maybe a tiny screen that just displayed the track name, but the ability to shuffle between playlists! Until they do that, I'm fine with my 2nd Gen Shuffle.

[padraper]

As long as you are using the Shuffle as a single-venue player (like running or cycling), and as long as you're happy with the earbuds, it will do fine.

The problem in my mind really is that people use their iPods for their mobile music library. They want to plug them into their car deck, into a home dock with speakers, into a splitter to share songs with friends riding with you on a plane or a car. Every iPod up until this one has supported flexible plug-n-play. This one doesn't.

Now, if you want to say, "OK, so now the iPod is even more a niche product than before, and that's my niche," then you'll be happy. All those outside that niche just had their options reduced.

[watkinsjr2000]

I think that the new iPod shuffle has a stupid design flaw. Who'd want an iPod with the controls all located on those crappy ear buds Apple ships with the iPod. I wouldn't consider buying one of these unless you could use third party headsets with it.

[jhardin2]

Apple is on a miniaturization kick. Unfortunately for them, our fingers aren't getting smaller nor our eyesight better. Smaller buttons and tiny displays are at the point of starting to become unusable. Besides, they take up too much space in the device and and buttons are moving parts that can break. Making the Shuffle all solid state and moving the controls into the earbuds makes sense for them and third party earbud manufacturers. Got a new shuffle? You need new earbuds. Lose your shuffle because it's too small? Apple will sell you another. -- But I agree that the voice announcements are intrusive and likely to prove a failed experiment. I'd also rather have more memory and longer battery life in the old form factor.

[milotheamazing]

I think Apple did this just to be a bit sarcastic.

In a way, they're telling us that with under a hundred bucks, we deserve a piece of junk. And I'm pretty sure, the $79 price tag will invite everybody into the apple store, and they will buy an ipod touch, or nano instead. See, Apple just outsmarted everybody.

That's just how I look at it.

[richard993]

Why would I want to buy an ipod when every device I own can play mp3 songs, some with higher quality than the ipod??? I'll tell you why I bought the previous ipod shuffle... so that I could take it to the gym or while I'm going for a run. I threw out the original headphones because they kept slipping out of my ear. It was easy to replace and the device is totally usable. But with the new ipod, it's totally sucks. Totally agree with you... bad design and the motivation for the design is not usability but for vendor lock-in. If I ever need an upgrade, I'll just get another device for a quarter of the price (and only marginally larger than the new shuffle but with built-in LCD).

[tagbert--2008]

It would have been great if they had put controls on the cord AND left the regular controls on the body. I don't want to have to tap out Morse Code to do more than play/pause. Navigating around with multiple combinations of click and pause is going to get old very quickly.

(Did the blog censor chop out the word "o l d" ? Very offensive to some.)

[NeoTheOne34]

The new iPod shuffle might be one of the dumbest things ever. No one outside of the tech geeks will understand how to use it.

[AlexeiK]

I can't agree more~!!
What's up with new iPod Shuffle?
I get annoyed by digital voices i hear all the time on my cell phone when I check inbox message
Unless if it's Hot actresses introducing your song with sexy voice...i think this feature really sucks
I can know which song it is by listening to the song intro, probably faster than listening to computer telling me which song it is. If apple had time to make this kind of product...they could have spent this time adding more improvements to their new desktop line-ups. I was waiting for iMac for so long...and only few improvements i see is graphic card and 24in monitor for price of 20in....come on Mac...you can do much better than that...why not add something like Digital TV receiver built into the mac...who wants to buy extra device such as Elegato to watch tv on computer? Anyway...new ipod shuffle is such a waste...

[artistjoh]

Some things seem to be too obvious for many people to get. They don't seem to realize what a disadvantage a screen would be on the device. Besides the extra cost, a screen to assist in navigation requires taking the device out of the pocket (off the lapel etc) so that the screen can be looked at in order to navigate the device. It essentially means stopping what you are doing in order to put full attention onto the iPod. Button or click wheel controls on the device are okay but without a built in display can be problematic and using thew controls can be hit and miss as the device is often clipped in odd places and at odd angles making it easy to click the wrong thing.

Enter a device in which the controls are always in the same place and so easy to find. The navigation consists of simple clicks on the one control and there is a voice if wanted to either guide you through the navigation or to tell you what the song is that you are listening to. It means easier navigation when running, driving, or anything else you are doing without having to reach for the device or stop to pay attention to the device.

A simple but elegant and affordable solution, plus the device is a great size and looks amazing. Love it, and lots more will too.

[Plumadona]

Just in case anyone with hearing loss is interested, I found a definite difference in how intelligible the voice-over feature is between the Mac Leopard version and the Windows / Mac Tiger version. I have only moderate hearing loss, and have had no problem using any earphones (just need to crank it up a bit more), but when I listened to the voice-over sample on the Apple site, I found I could barely understand the Windows / Mac Tiger version.
Miniaturization is fine, but this shuffle has too much against it - controls seem awkward, can't use my favorite earphones, and for me, the fancy new feature is useless.

[ironsnakemx]

Oh My God!!!! seriously *** ........ People are actually liking this thing ? ........ oh man ...... well..... Apple is selling you an overpriced mp3 player with very few features and the worst part ?...... you are going to buy it just because is an apple product ...... man ...... 80 bucks for this? no thanks .......

[ironsnakemx]

The Thing here is that Apple is screwing with all of you Zomb..... err.....Fans that will buy anything that comes with an apple logo .....cmon....... this thing does not even compare to a Sansa Clip (better music quality, better battery life, a Screen , radio , flac support ) ...... sure Ipod Touch is great and the macbooks are very good (at least thats what i heard) but this mp3 player is just plain stupid .....