Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I had assumed from the outset that the Samsung/Apple custom chip was for the Nano and iPod, not the shuffle anyway...

Play Ultimate said:
Probably not until October after the Back to College "Buy a Mac, Get an iPod" promotion. And plenty of time for Christmas.

i wish they'd get it wrong, just for a day, and let everyone buy an ipod and get a mac... 🙄
 
Apple will continue to sell a product that makes them money.

I expect that they will either:

A) Shrink the Shuffle, keep the same battery life
B) Keep it the same size, increase battery life.

The capacities will remain 512MB and 1GB. It will use a lower-power chipset to gain the battery life extension/smaller battery use. It will be offered in white and black - other colours unlikely, maybe red because of those rumours about the AIDS charity thing.

A display is very unlikely in my opinion.
 
muffinman said:
that was unexpected. i thought shuffles weren't gonna be updated for a long time
A report that the shuffle will keep using Sigmatel parts kind of is a report that nothing is really changing 🙂
 
bigandy said:
iPod Mini anyone? 🙄
if you still want the mini's you can grab them on the refurb store for £87 😛 bargain too.

i was thinking they would flattern the shuffle to look more like the nano and bigger ipod range , with a small screen maybe?
 
bigandy said:
iPod Mini anyone? 🙄
Replaced. Not dropped.

Big difference.

Maybe the new Shuffle will be called iPod Pico, it still would only replace the shuffle in that area of the marketplace.
 
iPod Shuffle=an overpriced flash keydrive. Seriously who would want one of these screenless wastes of plastic? Wasn't the nano replacing these? My cell phone has an mp3 player in it that holds just as many songs and it has 2 full color screens and speakers and costs less probably nowadays. I think ill stick with my 6 gig iPod
 
Rychiar said:
iPod Shuffle=an overpriced flash keydrive. Seriously who would want one of these screenless wastes of plastic?

me for one. There are time sI want to hit play and listen to music. Not spend 10 minutes navigating menus. Something I can easily work while wearing garden gloves or winter gloves and not have to worry about working a click wheel through the ipod skin and a set of gloves. Having Mom be able to use a player without having to go and get her glasses to SEE the tiny menu, never mind trying to understand how to navigate it.

Just because you don't have a use for something doesn't make it useless. I have a proper ipod, but the shuffle is a good second player for a particular need. (cheaper would be nice though).
 
johnmcboston said:
me for one. There are time sI want to hit play and listen to music. Not spend 10 minutes navigating menus. Something I can easily work while wearing garden gloves or winter gloves and not have to worry about working a click wheel through the ipod skin and a set of gloves. Having Mom be able to use a player without having to go and get her glasses to SEE the tiny menu, never mind trying to understand how to navigate it.

Just because you don't have a use for something doesn't make it useless. I have a proper ipod, but the shuffle is a good second player for a particular need. (cheaper would be nice though).

A very good point, and I am sure there are a lot of iPod owners who bought a shuffle as a secondary iPod.

I know I did.
 
Playlist selection is really the only Shuffle upgrade necessary IMO. Size, colour, shape, those adjustments would be nice(potentially), but playlist skipping would be the icing on the cake.

DrEasy said:
provide a button or mode or triple-click scheme for this!
 
Waterproof shuffle

What apple should do is to engineer a fully water proof, and dirt proof shuffle, so it can be used in the work environment. Before I lost mine it had been accidentally underwater, without any problem. Just needs a bit of extra engineering. Waiting for the new one 🙄
 
Sigmatel is NOT in iPod 5G

Broadcom provides the chips for the video iPod. iSuppli dissected one at the end of last year to find this out. Not PortalPlayer, not Sigmatel, not Cypress, not Wolfson.
 
swingerofbirch said:
I opine that if the Shuffle gains capacity it should gain a screen. Just something simple with artist and track name, even in the casing itself that glows through..forget what that is called

I agree. The artist and title could just roll by continuously. It would probably only take about 8-12 characters.
 
Di9it8 said:
What apple should do is to engineer a fully water proof, and dirt proof shuffle, so it can be used in the work environment. Before I lost mine it had been accidentally underwater, without any problem. Just needs a bit of extra engineering. Waiting for the new one 🙄

hmmm. That's a good thought. Although I suspect they would asnwer that by saying there are *-proof skins out there you can buy...

- J
 
bizarobot said:
Broadcom provides the chips for the video iPod. iSuppli dissected one at the end of last year to find this out. Not PortalPlayer, not Sigmatel, not Cypress, not Wolfson.

Huh? That iSuppli report notes that there are indeed Wolfson, Portalplayer and Cypress parts in there. link
 
Not that anyone cares, but both of the stories posted on MR's front page today (this one, and the one about future Intel processors) contained misplaced apostrophes. Both "CPUs" and "Nanos" are plural, not possessive, so no apostrophe is needed before the "s."

No need to discuss. Carry on.
 
I would love a shuffle replacement with an OLED display like Sony's overly expensive USB player. I have a Nano but I always seem to be using my shuffle at the gym because I can drop it, bang into it and I don't need to worry about how fragile it is. I also find it easier to skip a song or replay a song if the shuffle is in my jeans pocket. With the Nano its more difficult because if my finger brushed against the click wheel while looking for a button i change the volume. PLUS - no docking cable needed!

The original really was a near flawless design.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Not that anyone cares, but both of the stories posted on MR's front page today contained misplaced apostrophes.
If you'd like to help, please report typos with the Report Bad Post feature (on the first post of the thread) rather than making posts about typos. We can fix typos, and appreciate hearing about them, but when you post in the thread we might not notice your comment and it makes more work if we want to remove the post after the problem is fixed. Bad Post Reports are the efficient way to let the "staff" know about a mistake.
 
so what is the point? who cares what chip they use. isnt that kind of the apple philosophy until recently? just make it work
andreas
 
punish?

punish samsung?

Well that's a good way of "burning your bridges." I highly doubt this was the reason, its like some one else said itd be childish. Its not like samsung is some tiny company that could be bullied.
 
bigandy said:
iPod Mini anyone? 🙄

They didn't discontinue it, they replaced it. They might get rid of the shuffle...but only if they replace it with something similar.

I'd like to see them add higher capacities and simply drop prices on current models. A screen doesn't really interest me on a small player.

Rychiar said:
iPod Shuffle=an overpriced flash keydrive. Seriously who would want one of these screenless wastes of plastic? Wasn't the nano replacing these? My cell phone has an mp3 player in it that holds just as many songs and it has 2 full color screens and speakers and costs less probably nowadays. I think ill stick with my 6 gig iPod

I bought one because it was the best deal for the money when it came out. I still love it, even though there are cheaper (but to me, not necessarily better) alternatives out. If your cell phone is cheaper, that's just because it's subsidized by a service contract, I'd bet if you bought it outright it would be at least a couple hundred bucks.

I agree that just adding an extra button for switching playlists (and obviously holding multiple playlists) would be enough for me.
 
Just found this story now - I guess this isn't that surprising, given that Apple did similar when ATI leaked a story about its graphics cards going into the next model of PowerMac. In that case, it was even more extreme - as the ATI leak was the day before the keynote, and thus Apple made the switch at that late stage!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.