iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice 379
theodp writes "Steve Jobs wasn't around to convince you that you should be impressed, but on Wednesday Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that's half the size of its predecessor. Holding up to 1,000 songs, the pre-shrunk Shuffle sports a 10-hour battery life and also adds a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names, as well as provide status information. Even without a show from Steve, the new player is generally leaving folks dazzled, although there are some complaints."
Update: 3/14 at 14:10 by SS: Reader Mike points out some disturbing news that the new Shuffle contains DRM which, according to a review at iLounge, prevents it from fully working with any headphones that don't have an Apple "authentication chip."
I Like It (Score:5, Informative)
I suspect I was one of the first few people on Thursday to pick one up. This Shuffle is my first, complementing my 30GB Video, 60GB Video, and iPhone devices. Basically, I've gotten tired of lugging around the bigger devices while I bike.
So far, I'm really pleased with it. Hate the headphone arrangement in principle, but I can live with it for now. It's tiny, as noted, and I've already lost it (and found it again) once. I suspect that's the biggest risk to owning a small, black device like that.
Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. (Score:5, Informative)
And before anyone says the Voice function is innovative, Rockbox has had it for years. Luckily Apple prevented the installation of Rockbox onto iPods with the 6th gen Classic :/
Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. (Score:3, Informative)
What in heaven's name are you talking about?
The headphones have no DRM built into them. You could argue that, maybe, Apple is actually making the Shuffle 'closed-source' by requiring a user to use their headphones with their player (I'll insert the customary car analogy -- they're producing a car and restricting you to putting their wheels on their car!), but frankly Apple has long been in the business of coming up wit new ways of doing things and letting the rest of the market catch up. Unless we hear Apple stopping other people from producing headphones or adapters for this device, I'm going to assume that we'll soon see other vendors coming up with adapters and headphones for it. Oh, look, Scosche has already announced they're working on it.
Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh really? The EFF disagrees: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/03/apple-adds-still-more-drm-ipod-shuffle [eff.org]
Rockbox (Score:5, Informative)
It has existed for some time, and even supports it on some very cheap hardware, by calculating and storing the speech synth on a PC while the player is plugged in.
So, Apple has, in fact, been fighting to keep speech synth off the iPod for years.
Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. (Score:4, Informative)
That's going, as I've noted in another reply, on a single iLounge review. Not exactly a technical analysis of what's going on inside the earphones. It sounds more like a non-standard control chip, as opposed to a DRM chip.
See also my reply with the definition of Digital Rights Management (short version - the music is entirely unaffected and can play through any headphones).
Why not a small screen? (Score:3, Informative)
Though voice is more accessible and helps blind people, for the vast majority of non-blind users it is simply very inconvenient.
Many years back, I got a shuffle when I wanted a tiny MP3 player. It drove me nuts, and I bought a Sansa; same size, but comes with a screen and some useful features.
Just about every tiny MP3 player has a screen these days, but Apple is probably having the NIH syndrome.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rockbox (Score:3, Informative)
It has existed for some time, and even supports it on some very cheap hardware, by calculating and storing the speech synth on a PC while the player is plugged in.
The shuffle also works that way; it sounds different on Windows than on OS X.
The Voice function is innovative (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oh Joy... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why not a small screen? (Score:3, Informative)
The shuffle is your own portable radio station. The typical use is to have it dump a selection of your favorite songs from iTunes into the player every time you sit at your desk, so you have a constantly-changing bunch of music. You can skip tracks if you want to, but the interface is too primitive to want to do more. That's fine; if you want a screen, pay for it and buy a Nano instead of a shuffle, and stop complaining about things that aren't problems. If you want to harsh on Apple, why not harsh on the lengths they will go to in order to attempt to prevent you from installing your own firmware on an iPod.
Re:Shiny and tiny! (Score:5, Informative)
Thus we arrive at what is without a doubt the single worst product that apple has ever released.
No, the puck mouse still has the nr. 1 place. The new iPod shuffle is at least usable, but it definately comes close though.
Nowhere near close. The puck mouse did exactly what it was supposed to do. This Apple product _may_ be their worst ever, but maybe someone knows something worse:
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA45469?viewlocale=en_US [apple.com] This was a tape backup device with 38.5 MB storage capacity. The Macintosh II at the time shipped with a 40 MB hard drive, so the tape was too small. You couldn't backup your hard drive on a single tape. Except if you stored your backup as individual files, in which case the backup time was so bad, it wouldn't be finished in the morning if you started in the evening - it used a tape drive to simulate a direct access device, with seek times in minutes. I bet 99.9% of its users tried it once and gave up.
Re:Screen costs money and take up case space. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Screen costs money and take up case space. (Score:3, Informative)
Are you joking? You're comparing a 2.3 cubic inch device with a clunky 1-word "screen" to a 0.3 cubic inch device with a no-eyes-required audio interface.
The Sansa Clip is almost 8 times bigger than the Shuffle. And that screen? That's a "feature"? The Sansa has 7 buttons plus some kind of radial ipod-ripoff pad. You want to be squinting at that screen pressing those buttons while jogging down the sidewalk?
It's certainly a valid question to ask whether the Shuffle's size and interface are worth $20 to you, over having a clunky device with a bad interface. But you're pretending the Sansa Clip is "more features for less dollars". It certainly is not, unless you start with the assumption that size and interface are worthless.
I don't personally have a need for a tiny jogging-targeted music player, but that's no reason to get on a high horse and act all indignant because Apple is making one. You may as well be saying HURRR TRUCKS ARE DUMB CAUSE SEDANS GET BETTER GAS MILEAGE AND ARE CHEAPER. Yeah, if you don't care about the extra features of a truck, don't get one. Duh.
Re:Get a Sansa Clip instead (Score:4, Informative)
The Sansa Clip is 1.35" x 2.7" x .65". 2.36 cubic inches.
The new Shuffle is 0.3" x 1.8" x 0.7". 0.38 cubic inches.
The Clip is bigger than the LAST generation of the shuffle. It's 8 times bigger than this generation of the shuffle. Not really what I would call "similar size".
Re:Get a Sansa Clip instead (Score:4, Informative)
Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't seen a single example of Apple denying the chip to a company who has requested it, so I don't see the big deal.
Find me a TV-out cable for my iphone that costs less than $30.
That's the big deal for me. (No really, find me one, because I'd love to get one, but I refuse to pay $40-50 for what should be a $4-5 purchase)
Re:Rockbox (Score:3, Informative)
You are ignoring the difference between encrypting your firmware and using a bootloader which only loads encrypted code.
They could have easily done the first and not done the second.
Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. (Score:5, Informative)
The EFF, and specifically Fred von Lohmann, is not only taking a shaky position here, but expressing it ignorantly. The group is getting good at going on witch hunts without really knowing what they're talking about.
For starters, comparing Apple against Microsoft, Ford, Toyota is not just stupid, but apeshit retarded. Microsoft isn't a principally hardware maker, but its hardware IS all encrusted with DRM, from the Xbox to Zune. It also promotes WMA/WMV DRM on files and HD-DVD style end to end video output DRM on PCs, so von Lohmanns' comments are ridiculous.
Ford and Toyota all use proprietary parts in their vehicles that can not be swapped out for third party bits from any supplier a user might want to pick from.
But secondly, the guy doesn't even verify the information he's complaining about at full speed. Fred von Lohmann is a shoot first, gather details later kind of guy. He was the same EFF staffer who wrote, "Apple is among the worst offenders when it comes to messing around with stuff you've already paid for. But iTunes 7.2 is likely to be remembered for the especially wicked tricks it plays on iTunes customers."
That's the same whiney moralist language he's using here, but he was wrong about iTunes 7.2 removing the ability to rip tracks to CD. That didn't stop him from prattling on about it.
Von Lohmann thought iTunes could no longer burn and re-rip music after reading about it in a blog. He was wrong, because the blogger he believed was also mistaken. However, von Lohmann did not correct his posting accusing Apple of "removing the feature" from iTunes; he also cited [EFF's Peter] Eckersley's "previous revelations" [erroneous nonsense about metadata spying in iTunes] as proof Apple could not be trusted.
Apple's 'Especially Wicked Tricks.' [roughlydrafted.com]
Re:Shouldn't you look before you post? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:OK, I spent 18 more seconds on Google (Score:1, Informative)
Here you go. [dealextreme.com]
Point still stands, if you're going to complain about price spend a few seconds looking online for a better price first.
From the page you link to: - UPDATE: This cable does not work with the iPhone
Your intelligence seems quite low, so I suspect you'll come back with another link.