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iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice
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."
Maybe consumers will draw the line when Apple requires its users to install DRM-equipped electrodes in their own frontal lobes.
Maybe.
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.
Here it is: iSophagus
http://store.sluggy.com/detailed-isoph.html
The inability to use your own headphones is a big problem, in fact this makes the new shuffle unusable for me as I can't use earbuds.
Ganty
I am surprised, with Apple constantly spouting "The first music player that talks to you", that no one has yet mentioned Rockbox's voice capabilities.
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.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I always thought how big and clumsy my Shuffle is, thank god they finally addressed this issue !
839*929
I find it strange that Apple has moved away from a voice-based interface with their "visual voicemail" GUI on the iPhone (for a very good reason!) and now with the new iPod shuffle has moved back to one.
I use my (fake) ipod shuffle for running quite a lot, and its passable. For some time now I have been considering getting a new one, but I really really dislike the apple headphones. So I'm going to have to get a previous generation one ... :-(
just try plug it in and wait 3 seconds.
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.
Life is just a conviction.
I don't know why anyone is impressed by this at all, even though I'm a mac fan, this new shuffle is lame and isn't all that innovative. If you are going to make it that small, it's dumb to have a long cord dangling, why don't you build the ipod right into the headphones, that would be innovative, and illiminate the annoying need for chord tangles.
Does it have a way to attach it to my keyring? I'd lose it otherwise.
Because putting in a screen costs money, and occupies case space. Voice is free - the feature is entirely software.
From the blurb, the voice differs depending on which OS you use, so odds-on the voice synth is done on the computer and the output is stored on the device, so they didn't even need to optimize their voice synth to run on the Shuffle.
As if iTunes wasn't already bloated enough...
I'd be curious to see how accurate that statement actually is. "Apple Mobile Device Support", which as far as I can tell is only needed for iPhone or iPod Touch, is installed automatically with iTunes. Sure enough, I just checked in Apple Software Update, and the new version "Supports syncing with iPod shuffle (3rd generation)." If Apple insists on installing half a dozen other unrelated or semi-related software packages with iTunes, it would be nice if they would provide an interface to only install (or update) the ones that you actually want. At the very least, I'd appreciate it if the iTunes installer would recognize when certain components aren't installed so I wouldn't have to uninstall Bonjour every single time I upgrade. (Why anyone ever thought it would be a good idea for system level network autoconfiguration and application level sharing to be handled by the same program in the first place is beyond me. The only thing I find more baffling is that anyone else in the world thought it would be a good idea to follow their example. avahi, I'm looking at you...)
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Man I love my 25 dollar, 2 gig Sansa with a 4 gig microSD card.
I've had speech functionality since I installed Rockbox in January of '07.
Plus, I can play doom and gameboy ROMs in class.
Did I mention I got it brand new for 25 bucks?
Jus' sayin'...
RUGBYRUGBYRUGBY
You can't play it through normal amplifiers without losing the ability to change tracks.
You can't plug it into a cars MP3 port, you can't plug it into previous iPod docks.
This is useless without its headphones, you're stuck with those crappy Apple ones.
...and already someones pulled it to bits
If you really care about music you'll take your ipod whatever back to the store and smash it to bits on the counter with your shoe.
Apple will probably not mind if you buy as many $79 iPods for $79 and smash them to bits on the counter, as long as you clean up the mess behind you and as long as your credit card is Ok.It's all revenue and therefore profit.
OK, this is an interesting new marketing strategy for a company as a way to remove a product from their line. You don't ever have to stop selling it. You just keep halving its size until no one is sure whether they have bought one or not.
With some good access to the RDF, everyone will continue to hear music, whether or not there was actually a device in the box.
I still own a first generation Shuffle. I think it weighs 50 grams. Really, that's just to much to bear, carrying it in my briefcase. I know that if my briefcase only had a 10.7 gram Shuffle in it, it would be MUCH easier on my walk to work.
Hey it just a matter of time before someone figures out how to hack it and we can intall the Talking Moose on the iPod Shuffle.
"The more you jog over a dead cat, the flatter it gets."
It'll be like 1990 all over again!
The speech output option of Rockbox lets you navigate menus and track names and such, but is does not let you hear the title of the track while the song is playing. That aspect is pretty slick!
I paid the going retail price for a Windows screen reader and got a free Unix computer!
The first ipod shuffle was priced higher than it's competition, was one of the few players without a display at the time, had mediocre sound quality and was locked-in to all hell to itunes.
The first iPod Shuffle looked way better than the generic boxes the competition was pushing. Most people that want a small mp3-player for use during sports or commutes listen to music with the device in their pockets, so not having a screen isn't all that important. Integration with iTunes just works, for normal people. Yes, for us nerds it might be better to copy files from the commandline. Regular folks just want to plug it in and having it sync all by itself.
It just wasn't really any good.
It was so much better than the competition that it isn't funny anymore.
Stop comparing technical ticklist features. Compare ease-of-use for casual users. You'll see why Apple sells so well.
I appreciate Apple trying to get rid of too many control interfaces. For the most part I am behind them all the way.
However, the one button to control this thing is rediculous. On a shuffle I often end up jumping forward or backwords through a fair amount of songs to find something I am in the mood for. On this one you double click to go forward, triple click(?!) to go back. Fastworward/rewind? double click and hold, triple click and hold (but only if you are more than 6 seconds into the track, or the triple click restarts the track). Say the name of the song? Click once and hold for 1 second. NOT FOR LONGER, if you hold longer, then you go to playlist selection!
This is not a step forward. Apple's approach to a simple design before made them accessible to nondorks. Grandmother friendly. My grandmother would need a cheat sheet to operate this. It honest reminds me of The Onion's coverage of The Wheel.
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.
-- Cheers!
a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names
The copyright holders are not going to like this. Lawyers .. arm!
So if you load the player using a MAC you get one voice... if you load it using anything else you get a completely different voice.
This is a rather interesting thing to do... I mean, what happens if the MAC users like the other voice?
Why would they do such a thing unless the MAC voice was "better" is some way?
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
They shrunk the size by moving UI parts into a second unit.
By that logic I have a full blown PC the size of a USB memory stick. Just ignore the big beige box attached to the stick, that's only the power and reset buttons.
The 4GB Sansa Clip is a similar size, $18 cheaper, similar battery life, has a small screen, and doesn't lock you into the iTunes ecosystem.
SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
The headphones do not contain Digitial Rights Management. device will play just fine with ordinary headphones. in no way does it block access to your music.
the headphones can contain a controller to tell it to advance to a given song or change volume. Were you somehow expecting unmodified headpones to do that? how exactly?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... just check that eff.org link before the last in the summary:
iLounge sums up what this means for consumers:
This is, in short, a nightmare scenario for long-time iPod fans:
are we entering a world in which Apple controls and taxes literally every piece of the iPod purchase from headphones to chargers, jacking up their prices, forcing customers to re-purchase things they already own, while making only marginal improvements in their functionality?
It's a shame, and one that consumers should feel empowered to fight.
I don't know why... but cluelessness of iPhans never seizes to amuse me.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
disclaimer: I have no MP3 player at all actually, I don't listen to music, but I want to say something about the no-buttons interface.
The new Shuffle talks to the user, excellent, but since it has no buttons, why not allow the user to control the damn thing by voice?
I would not buy an MP3 player unless it was also a voice recorder, because that would be my usage of it: record voice, play voice back. So if Shuffle featured a microphone, then I could buy it, BUT BUT. I cannot buy something I cannot control, and shuffle is uncontrollable for my use.
So then the question: if a phone I have can be controlled by voice (dial such and such, or dial a number) then why cannot this device be also voice controlled?
Shuffle Start Record: blah blah blah... Shuffle Stop Record.
Shuffle Play Back Last Record: blah blah blah... Shuffle Delete Record or Shuffle Store Record As $NAME$
Shuffle Play Record $NAME$: blah blah blah... Shuffle Stop Play.
Shuffle Delete Record $NAME$: ARE YOU SURE? Shuffle Yes. Record $NAME$ deleted.
Shuffle List Record Names All: $NAME$ $NAME$
Shuffle List Record Names For Today: $NAME$ $NAME$
Shuffle List Record Names For Yesterday: $NAME$ $NAME$
Shuffle List Record Names For $DATE$: $NAME$ $NAME$
Shuffle List Record Names For Date From $DATE$ To $DATE$: $NAME$ $NAME$
Shuffle Delete All Records Before Date $DATE$: ARE YOU SURE? Shuffle Yes!. ARE YOU FUCKING SURE, CAUSE I AM NOT BRINGING GOING TO TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE LOST DATA AND DON'T YELL AT ME LIKE THE LAST TIME: Shuffle, Fucking Delete the Fucking Records! SIR, YES SIR! ALL RECORDS BEFORE $DATE$ DELETED.
--
Now that would be a product I would probably buy: Something useful and someone to talk to :)
You can't handle the truth.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just came to me that with that technology you may as well add voice recognition and imprint your voice into the device and set security on some chosen records, so that the only person who can listen/delete record is the one, whose voice gave specific commands.
Shuffle Play Record $NAME$: OH NO, YOU DON'T. YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED. Shuffle Play Record $NAME$ Overwrite Security Now: THIS SHUFFLE WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN 5 SECONDS! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BAM!!!
You can't handle the truth.
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 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.
The amplifier in my stereo system doesn't have a volume control. To control the volume, I have to attach a pre-amp. How is this DRM related?
So I'm reading all these heated DRM posts and do something incredibly silly: before posting, I did a little research.
Calling this "DRM" is simply wrong headed. It doesn't meet any definition of "DRM". Not even remotely. And lockin? How can it possibly be lockin if anyone who wants to can manufacturer them?
IANAL, but the way I understand it, monopolies in a specific market within the United States are OK as long as they don't try to leverage another market.
How is this different from Microsoft's monopoly? Microsoft tried to use Windows (where it had a virtual monopoly at the time) to make everyone use Internet Explorer. They were largely successful but they were also sued.
The way I see it, Apple is trying to use Shuffle, which has a virtual monopoly in the tiny screen-less talking music player department to leverage, to Apple's favor, the headphone market.
But it's alright because I'm not getting a shuffle anyways.
The article calls this a "nightmare scenario" - that's a little dramatic, dontcha think? I'm not the target audience for this iPod, but at best this is a minor inconvenience. If limiting your choice of headphones is giving you sleepless nights, I'd like to make a suggestion: There's this thing called a life, you should get one.
Man, I swear, some people on the Internets are fit for a Lifetime drama series...
Tho i'm against DRM in principle this is a good thing, and i hope they get this into enough people hands and piss off thousands of their customers.
If enough 'average people' get angry the insanity might stop.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
And they hurt my ears, so now i have to choose a non apple product ( if they introduce this into the higher end ipod models ) when i upgrade my ipods in a few years.
Of course i predicted this years ago, slowly closing the analog hole for the average joe, and people laughed. I hate being right sometimes.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It already was overpriced, had too little storage, awkward/annoying controls, and played far too few music formats.
So now, instead of remedying any of the above Apple's gone and made it so I can't even use the expensive, good earphones I already have with it? *And* made the controls worse?
You just can't use the remote control built-in to apple's earphones, which is the only method of controlling this iPod shuffle. What they could have done was just included a pass-through cable that had the remote built-in, and the earphones would plug into that.
Twinstiq, game news
Oh.. right. Not made by Apple.
I'm sorry, but this device is terminally stupid. I had the original shuffle, and it did what it needed to do. The last gen was just about the perfect form factor, feeling like the remote all by itself. The current one is just stupid. I don't want two blisters on my cable. That's annoying while running.
Throw in the headphone adapter stupidity, and, well, you have a product that will sell millions to millions...
Of idiots.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
No, A guy did that and posted the video. They definitely escort you out of the store.
The Apple III definitely was the worst product ever released by Apple, it never worked!
In the UK, the new iPod shuffle is £59! The old model could be had for between £30-£35, which put it in the easy gifting bracket. With the price now effectively doubled I think Apple are going to lose a LOT of sales over here.
And yes, I know a lot of it is to do with the fact our currency has tanked and our economy is completely screwed but it still seems like there's a little bit more to it than that.
I only hope that these kinds of percentage price hikes aren't seen across the range. I sorely tempted to buy up all the old models left and hold on to them for a few months to sell them at a profit.
This is Free Market Folks....
Seriously, if you don't like the DRM crap Apple put into their products then don't buy the damn thing!
If more people follow this logic then maybe Apple will get the message.
For me I have a choice of what MP3 player with the features I want unless somebody pointing a gun at my head.
of the spoof named Apple Wheel...
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary
Apple needs to realize when they have reached the pinnacle of usability and keep trying to find a peak which may not exist nor even be needed
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Sadly, this new feature has resulted in a lawsuit by the Professional Screen Navigation Narrators Guild, who are being put out of work by this voice synthesizer technology.
You rock! This is only about the 2nd time a comment on /. has made me truly LOL!
Thanx for making my day.
castrodisticcowboy (6 days ago) +1 Reply 3:20-"my big cock"?
DylanMakesNoise (2 days ago) -3 Reply ......what the fuck did i just watch??
what the FUCK are those things with little ponytails??
god thats DISGUSTING.
obviously not one of God's creations!
hightek669 (2 days ago) +1 Reply Wow, what a heartless thing to say. These "freaks" were real people (real people like me & you)-- just people with deformities. This was a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers-- real people in which had the same feelings as you & I, do what we do on a day-to-day basis (eat, sleep, breathe). I sure as hell would hate to see how you react to mentally-challenged people.
DylanMakesNoise (2 days ago) 0 Reply i knew the rest of em were, just not those ponytailed freaks.. they scare the shit out of me ririmja (1 day ago) +1 Reply i agree with you completely people like you are rare stay cool aufer21 (3 days ago) 0 Reply
My old Zenith space command control does not work with apple's frontrow.
And I'm annoyed it doesn't work with the vinyl and CDs I already bought.
It doesn't fit in the protective case I bought for my iphone.
it does not fit in my itouch dock.
my old memory sticks don't fit in my new imac.
Damn you apple, always making my older gear obsolete. I think I'll blame it on DRM and post it on slashdot.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I remember that tape drive, which tried to emulate a disk device.
I also remember someone trying to defragment the emulated filesystem, and left it shoe-shining for a week.
The article writer mentions that his *non-remote-equipped* headphones cannot control the new shuffle. Well, duh. The article writer mentions that new headphones "need a new chip".
Has this been corroborated by others? Has it been confirmed that existing third-party iPhone headphones won't even allow the click to play/rewind/fast-forward doesn't work? Because this article seems to be drawing a big conclusion from *ONE* set of headphones.
Now, if existing remote-equipped headphones don't work, then yeah, this is pretty lame. But if it's solely because nobody makes third-party headphones with the full remote controls (I have only seen ones for the iPhone, with one clicker and a microphone; not ones that have three clickers to include volume like Apple's,) then it's all speculation.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Nowhere near close. The puck mouse did exactly what it was supposed to do.
If it was supposed to give you intsant RSI then you are certainly right.
-- Cheers!
The first iPod Shuffle looked way better than the generic boxes the competition was pushing. Most people that want a small mp3-player for use during sports or commutes listen to music with the device in their pockets, so not having a screen isn't all that important.
I'm confused. If you're just stashing it in your pocket, why does it matter what it looks like?
The iPhone has had a similar control scheme the whole time, and I think it works pretty well for common operations. Pause is one click, skip is two - the others are nice but really things you don't need much. Honestly even the frequency of asking for a song name seems pretty low in my mind, since it's loaded with music you put on! It seems like you'd know the name, or once in a while want to tell someone the exact artist.
The scheme works well enough that when I bought an adaptor for my car aux in I made sure to buy one that offered the same button so I could easily skip or pause tracks in the car without using the screen controls - in essence making it a shuffle while I drive.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple's abuses would not be tolerated if they came from Microsoft,
Bullshit, what about the custom USB and controller wireless schemes on the 360? Can you easily replace Sync on a Ford?
Not that it makes the approach right, but it's also not fair to single out Apple users for accepting this when lots of companies are doing similar things already and many people don't know enough to complain.
People will accept the headphone thing though because of the extra control functionality. It's pretty easy to understand that you'll need to get special headphones to use the device at full capacity, and since there will eventually be third party earphones (or adaptors) I don't think people will care much.
The DRM chip aspect is pretty annoying for us technical types but when it gets all mingled in with a custom design it's too hard for most people to distinguish.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Find me a TV-out cable for my iphone that costs less than $30.
Ok.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yet another apple product that is overpriced and relies on design to sell rather than innovative technologies. A special chip required to add functionality that should already be there? 10 measly hours of battery life? DRM?
Please, let apple do some more to identify apple users beyond the patent white earbud cables, so that I know well in advance of speaking to someone how pretentious and incapable of individual thought they are.
If their aim was to ensure that people did not take their mouse technology seriously, then I guess I have to agree with you. However, if they were actually trying to build a useful human interface device, they failed.
The CB App. What's your 20?
My old Zenith space command control does not work with apple's frontrow.
And I'm annoyed it doesn't work with the vinyl and CDs I already bought.
It doesn't fit in the protective case I bought for my iphone.
it does not fit in my itouch dock.
my old memory sticks don't fit in my new imac.
Damn you apple, always making my older gear obsolete. I think I'll blame it on DRM and post it on slashdot.
Those wood-cabinet Zenith sets are pretty robust, but count yourself lucky if your Space Command remote still works at all! I have a soft spot for older gear myself, but those things fall over dead if you so much as look at them funny, let alone bump them on something.
Anyway, that set will probably need a DTV converter box soon, which might further degrade the usefulness of the remote.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
No, it just that people who do not know that "64K is enough" cannot understand. The insensitive clods!
It's the same adaptor as all the other HTC phones use, and have done for the past n years - converters can be had for trivial money if you bother to look...
Further, no DRM is involved as the converters/adapters contain no proprietary logic, and the connector specification is published with no restrictions on it's use.
BTW, perhaps you should not behave like a twat.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
It is disingenuous to measure the "size" of the new shuffle without including the size of the cord up to and including the "remote control" portion of the headphones. In fact, since the device is nigh unusable without the bundled headphones, you should just probably find the total displacement of the whole shebang before you've found the true size of it all.
I wonder if this means that the adaptor in my car would no longer work. Talk about a non-starter.
Not highly publicized, but the old one is still for sale. And this isn't the clearance section - its a small link on the new shuffle's store page to another page in the main store.
have you ever used iTunes? it doesnt lock you into anything. Its no more "locked in" than your Sansa is "unwanted by iTunes, Americas preffered place to listen to music, buy legal downloads and listen to podcasts". sorry, I havnt had any internet access for five days because a technician left a "jumper" out on an exchange :)
---
Here you go.
Point still stands, if you're going to complain about price spend a few seconds looking online for a better price first.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The EFF article just quotes the iLounge article as its source -- it is certainly not independent confirmation of anything. The guys at http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/03/14/we-found-the-chip-in.html have pictures of an actual chip under the switch in the cable, but this also proves nothing about DRM. You presumably need circuitry in the cable to make this thing work: unlike the iPhone or iPod touch, this iPod reuses the earphone connector to sync the iPod!! My guess is that one of the functions of the chip in the cable is to simply identify what has been attached to the connector. I've seen no evidence that there's DRM involved.
This whole DRM story is based on absolutely nothing. See the first post here:
http://blog.philipgbaker.com/my_weblog/2009/03/apple-introduces-2-new-products-a-new-shuffle-for-us-and-a-new-chip-for-headphone-makers.html
where the EFF blogger asks for proof - retrospectively.
Looks do matter for initial purchase. People buy sleek looking shiny things. Not poop colored Zunes, for example.
So what good are the 4 tiny lines while jogging?
There's this thing you can do when you're jogging. It's called stoping. You might be waiting for a set of lights, or you might just really want to know what the name of the track you're listening to is.
You obviously are the sort of viking raver who simply has no time to look at a screen, so the shuffle is obviously the perfect choice for you.
Not everyone is a viking raver however.
Apple has announced its new iPod Shuffle, the smallest yet. The new Shuffle offers more storage, better sound, a talking interface ("the first talking interface on an MP3 player! Except Rockbox, but only freetards use that and they don't count") and superior abilities to pick up chicks.
Controversy has surrounded the new hardware requirements for the Shuffle, including new Apple-branded headphones, Apple-branded music and surgical attachment of the device to one's genital region. "Total quality control," said Steve Jobs. "All competitors are inferior by definition and will be crushed."
Apple fan blogs were unanimous in their praise of the "iButtPlug" installation procedure. The hardware lock-in was a brilliant business move on Apple's part, the best possible thing for the consumer and a moral and ethical requirement to sell MP3 players at all, wrote Daniel Eran Dilger on Roughly Drafted. He also intimated that all negative press on the matter was the work of Microsoft astroturfers.
Microsoft countered with a preannouncement of its new Zune LP player, which works with 9.5" vinyl discs manufactured with the PlaysYouBetcha! process and a cubic zirconia stylus.
"There's no such things as Zunes," laughed Jobs. "They're a fairy tale we invented to get young Apple Store employees to behave."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
There's no reason for this excessive complexity. The shuffle and the control dongle on the earphone wire are bulkier than the previous model, and more complex to control. I ordered one of the discounted previous model as soon as I saw it, and I hope that it doesn't break until after they come to their senses.
jesus fucking christ, a link to microsoft's windows 7 development blog is tagged 'astroturfing', but this disgustingly obvious slashvertisement gets off scot-free? what a joke this place is becoming.
There has been research conducted on the iShuffle, and it looks like mostly women will be buying it:
http://blog.researchadvanced.com/2009/03/13/smartphone-wars-on-ebay-blackberry-vs-iphone/
And so it comes out that there is NO encryption/DRM in the headphones:
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/03/16/no-drm-in-headphones-for-new-ipod-shuffle/
Then let the user buy his own headphones.
Oh wait, Apple want to sell their own proprietary headphones at Apple prices (i.e. several times more than a standard equivalent providing the same function elsewhere) or to sell licenses to accessories manufacturers.
My bad. I should not get into Apple's plans of flogging the consumer during an economic depression.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Have some responsibility for beenies sakes ...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is this iPod ready for Nike+?
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