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iPod Shuffle Released

Has anyone used these headphone ??. R they any good ?. Looks a big big and bulky around the ear, but if it sounds good it might be ok.

I have a Jabra bt headset for my mobile phone and its awesome.

As to the text speech thing, it would be a real drag to have all your sounds announced. I think the random thing is better.

Ive been listening to my itunes with shuffle selected to see how it is without knowing the next song and I like it :). I guess im conditioning myself for when i get my ipod shuffle :).
 
walexx said:
Ive been listening to my itunes with shuffle selected to see how it is without knowing the next song and I like it :). I guess im conditioning myself for when i get my ipod shuffle :).
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Funny. Same here...
I've been using party shuffle and I look at my order from time to time to see if there's any change... :p
 
We are all in ipod shuffle training.

Wow this is soo cool, im hearing stuff I forgot I even had on iTunes :).This shuffle thing is a good idea. Finally I get to hear a good mix of music instead of the stuff i listen to over and over and get sick of. I dont know why I didnt do this a long time ago.
 
Tulse said:
That would take up additional space on the player.

In any event, I would think that a voice announcing every song would get seriously annoying after a while -- "Fleetwood Mac. Rumours. Second Hand News"..."Fleetwood Mac. Rumours. Dreams."..."Fleetwood Mac. Rumours. Never Going Back Again"...gah! It would be like a DJ who always intrudes. I for one would only want it on in certain circumstances, and want to be able to turn it off at will -- which means yet another controller on a tiny gadget for a feature of dubious worth.
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I'll address both of your concerns:

1. Audio of the song title would be a small percentage of the size of the tune audio. Tunes with the same artist could share that data, reducing storage further. And from iTunes you'd control what metadata, if any, is sent to the iPod shuffle, so the feature would be optional anyway.

2. The current five buttons would suffice. You could press a combination of them, such as volume-up-volume-down, or double-pressing one of the buttons, to play the spoken data about the current song.

And now Apple can pay me royalties for my idea.
 
One thing I noticed on apples website is that the shuffle does not seem to supprt apple lossless. at least that what it shows. now i have quite a bit of my music encoded in the lossless format. that would make it less appealing to me as i would have to exclude these tracks from my playlist for the ipod shuffle. am i right here? or is it just a mistake from apple?
 
max4320 said:
One thing I noticed on apples website is that the shuffle does not seem to supprt apple lossless. at least that what it shows. now i have quite a bit of my music encoded in the lossless format. that would make it less appealing to me as i would have to exclude these tracks from my playlist for the ipod shuffle. am i right here? or is it just a mistake from apple?
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You could convert them over to 256Kbps AAC, which is nearly indistinguishable from lossless.
 
thats true but its quite time consuming if each time i change my songs on the shuffle i have to convert it to aac first. is there an option to let itunes convert automatically (without changing the original file). that would at least help a bit...
 
PCMacUser said:
I think the point that most people (who dislike the lack of screen) are trying to make, is that Apple is trying to compete in a market where most of these players DO come with screens... you shouldn't have to spend £179 just to have an MP3 player with a screen...
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The cheaper MP3 players i've seen with screens do not provide much useful information about the song playing other song number, much like your standard portable CD player. Only the more pricey flash based players seem to provide song title information. If the iPod Shuffle did include a screen it would only have enough space to indicate the song number in the the Shuffle's playlist. I not sure how that would be very useful in a 120 or 240 song playlist unless one has a extremely good memory of all the songs and their order in one's playlist. Since the Shuffle is built around the concept of playing random songs, a screen is less important. The forward/back buttons would likely see more use for those who decide they didn't want to hear a particular song on their playlist at that moment and wanted another random song played instead. For those who desired to hear a particular song, they would probably be familiar with how the song began and could simply locate it by sound. If you design your Shuffle playlist with the songs in alphabetical order either song or by artist then song, it wouldn't be that difficult to find the song you wanted.

The lack of screen has some advantages such a lower price, more sturdy construction (no screen to scratch or break), and longer battery life.
 
Maybe I'm missing something but is the actual cost of the 512MB shuffle $129 when you include AC Adapter?? How does one recharge the Shuffle without Adapter?? The other Ipods include the adapter. Sounds like the $99 and $149 price is smoke and mirrors.
 
UWF404 said:
Maybe I'm missing something but is the actual cost of the 512MB shuffle $129 when you include AC Adapter?? How does one recharge the Shuffle without Adapter?? The other Ipods include the adapter. Sounds like the $99 and $149 price is smoke and mirrors.
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If it's anything like its competitors in the market, it will automatically recharge when plugged into the USB port.
Can I get confirmation on this guys?
 
Yes, it will charge through USB. This info can be obtained by simply going to apple.com or watching the keynote QT stream. It is not top-secret.
 
What a pathetic joke. No, that's not an Apple-bash. I love my iPod mini and my iBook and the new Mac mini is in my opinion absolutely fantastic. This must surely be a joke, it's outdated and archaic. Even the cheapest portable CD player has some form of display. I'd be shocked if many people buy these. You can't easily even pick what song you want to listen to. It's completely against iPod and MP3 player in general philosophy and is, IMHO, almost completely worthless without a display.
 
mactropy said:
Yes, it will charge through USB. This info can be obtained by simply going to apple.com or watching the keynote QT stream. It is not top-secret.
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Shhh, don't tell them that, you'll lose your intellectual advantage ;)
 
markie said:
What a pathetic joke. No, that's not an Apple-bash. I love my iPod mini and my iBook and the new Mac mini is in my opinion absolutely fantastic. This must surely be a joke, it's outdated and archaic. Even the cheapest portable CD player has some form of display. I'd be shocked if many people buy these. You can't easily even pick what song you want to listen to. It's completely against iPod and MP3 player in general philosophy and is, IMHO, almost completely worthless without a display.
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While I must admit it is a weak starting point from Apple from a technological viewpoint (let's face it, there are products out there that are considerably better), it IS a starting point. And they've aimed it purely at the market who simply want to shuffle their music, rather than know what's coming up, etc (oh, and the Apple diehards!). Maybe by generation 4, Shuffles we'll have screens, GPS functions and a small microwave oven, all accessable through a touchwheel.
 
markie said:
What a pathetic joke. No, that's not an Apple-bash. I love my iPod mini and my iBook and the new Mac mini is in my opinion absolutely fantastic. This must surely be a joke, it's outdated and archaic. Even the cheapest portable CD player has some form of display. I'd be shocked if many people buy these. You can't easily even pick what song you want to listen to. It's completely against iPod and MP3 player in general philosophy and is, IMHO, almost completely worthless without a display.
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well, i totally buy into steves point: a ipod flash is mainly for sports, running, subway and busrides. in that case i don't need full functionality of an ipod. so i'd rather have a lower price, smaller size. i think the ipod shuffle is what i need.
for the times i'm stuck on an airport, sitting in an hotelroom, traveling for hours by train, or when i'm away for a week i always can use my 40G ipod with the screen. having a screen on the flash ipod would only be redundant to the big ipod.

so for me the ipod shuffle is a good design.

andi
 
jhomayne said:
and mine has just been dispatched.

:D :p
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In which country are you based?, MacNN is running a story to say that UK buyers have started to receive shipping confirmation. Did you order the 512MB or the 1GB ?

I did not order mine until the day after the keynote, so I may be waiting a little longer also I went for the 1GB version.
 
andiwm2003 said:
well, i totally buy into steves point: a ipod flash is mainly for sports, running, subway and busrides. in that case i don't need full functionality of an ipod. so i'd rather have a lower price, smaller size. i think the ipod shuffle is what i need.
for the times i'm stuck on an airport, sitting in an hotelroom, traveling for hours by train, or when i'm away for a week i always can use my 40G ipod with the screen. having a screen on the flash ipod would only be redundant to the big ipod.

so for me the ipod shuffle is a good design.

andi
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exactamundo...
I don't take many long trips anymore, just short jaunts on Metro-north into NYC and the subway. My current 2g 10GB ipod is always too bulky for such trips and I almost never use the screen. Plus there is just no need for me to have all of that music with me at that time, as usually I'm in one particular mood per trip. The flash is perfect for me, especially because of its size and price (I don't care AS much if it gets swiped). I say, good job, steve, I'll be picking one up.
 
If anyone thinks that the shuffle is not going to be a hit:

iPod shuffle: 20,000 sold in first 4 hours

Vendors on the show floor at San Francisco Macworld Expo reported today that Apple's retail store in San Francisco sold 20,000 iPod shuffle units in its first four hours of availability this week, depleting its entire inventory. As iPodlounge notes in its upcoming review of the iPod shuffle, while some individuals purchased four, six, and nine of the 512MB, $99 units, the day's record was apparently set by someone who purchased 24 at once. iPod shuffles are currently shipping to Apple retail stores.

Link www.ipodlounge.com/ipodnews_comments.php?id=6112_0_7_0_C
 
James Craner said:
In which country are you based?, MacNN is running a story to say that UK buyers have started to receive shipping confirmation. Did you order the 512MB or the 1GB ?

I did not order mine until the day after the keynote, so I may be waiting a little longer also I went for the 1GB version.
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512mb, UK. :)

EDIT: and mine was ordered as soon as i could get onto the apple store.
 
James Craner said:
the day's record was apparently set by someone who purchased 24 at once.
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im surprised that they let someone buy that amount.

ok, so on one side there's the fact that apple's aim is to sell them and sell them they will.

but on the other hand, who needs 24 ipods? there's a difference between buying a few for the family/friends and bulk purchases.

i bet at least some of them end up on ebay..
 
jhomayne said:
512mb, UK. :)

EDIT: and mine was ordered as soon as i could get onto the apple store.
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Congratulations, no confirmation for me, but I think the 1Gig's were due to ship later in any case. Guess I will just have to be patient (but it is hard).
 
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