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iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voice

Posted by Soulskill on from the easy-to-use-easy-to-lose dept.

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."

21 of 379 comments (clear)

  1. And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe consumers will draw the line when Apple requires its users to install DRM-equipped electrodes in their own frontal lobes.

    Maybe.

    1. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by broken_chaos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Ah, you beat me to it (I replied below). This really doesn't seem anything beyond a non-standard control interface - particularly since it doesn't seem to fit the definition of "Digital Rights Management" at all. It more accurately fits "Physical Rights Management" - in terms of restricting what accessories are required to do something with their device. It does nothing to the (digital) music playback (music is reported to play just fine through any headphones).

      I wouldn't doubt that one could, with a little ingenuity, hack together some sort of standard headphone jack on the end of a cut-off earbud remote that currently comes with the shuffle, as well.

      Normally I support the EFF quite highly, but they seem to be jumping the gun a little on this one, going on the word of one iLounge review, as opposed to a report from someone actually taking the thing apart to see how it works - such as a manufacturer.

    2. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Non-standard != proprietary DRM.

      People have already started announcing 3rd party accessories for the new iPod shuffle. It may not be a standard headphone jack, but it's not locked-down. I'm sure in a months time there will be people who've made their own iPod shuffle headphone controller just for the fun of it. If you want to talk about price of accessories making the whole package too expensive, then that's something else.

    3. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The impression I get about the EFF is that they've become a bit too much like Greenpeace. I'm an environmentalist, but I do get sick of Greenpeace. I also don't like the DMCA, but the amount of spin coming from the EFF lately is a bit too much for me. When organisations like this start going after the small stuff, I think they undermine the very importance of what they're fighting for and just end up preaching to the choir.

    4. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by berend+botje · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Too bad Rockbox has "by techies, for techies" approach to the user interface.

      It really isn't very good.

    5. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is debatable - what ilounge is claiming is that if you don't have headphones with controls all it does is play a loop of the playlist - because the player doesn't have any physical controls on the device.

      Apple is *forcing* you to buy their headphones if you want to control it and from what I understand is that 3rd parties cannot make these special headphones without a special chip only apple has.

      So yes - its drm.

      And while some 3rd party could reverse engineer the lockout chip apple could in turn shut them down with the dmca.

    6. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Apple is *forcing* you to buy their headphones if you want to control it and from what I understand is that 3rd parties cannot make these special headphones without a special chip only apple has.

      The problem being, this part is just speculation at this point and seems unlikely. No one has seen said chip or tried to reverse engineer the new interface from Apple.

      So yes - its drm.

      Assuming said speculation was true it wouldn't be DRM, but it would be intentionally enforced hardware component lock-in. If you want to call it DRM, go ahead, but it is inaccurate. Either way it is annoying and likely actionable if someone had the legal muscle.

      And while some 3rd party could reverse engineer the lockout chip apple could in turn shut them down with the dmca.

      ...if any such chip exists as opposed to the more likely scenario that Apple built a nonstandard interface and did not include a special locking chip. So far, all anyone has seen is the interface, not this supposed chip.

    7. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by adisakp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Assuming said speculation was true it wouldn't be DRM, but it would be intentionally enforced hardware component lock-in. If you want to call it DRM, go ahead, but it is inaccurate. Either way it is annoying and likely actionable if someone had the legal muscle.

      According to Apple's VP of iPod marketing, third parties will soon be selling a small cable with the controls on it that you can plug any headphones into. It's not even a "lockout". Basically they have an extra hardware feature on their headphones that isn't standard. To get these hardware features, you need to buy Apple headphones or a third party adapter with this hardware feature. Actually, you can still use any headphones but without the additional hardware buttons on the adapter or on Apple headphones you lose the control features. It's hardly DRM.

    8. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by adisakp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      BTW, Where is the outrage for the "DRM" of Google using a weird USB headphone adapter on Android phones?

    9. Re:And DRM in the fucking *headphones*. by snowwrestler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And your position is like the anti-Communist witch-hunting that pursued anyone who was not as strident in their positions as the hunters thought they should be. There's a vast middle ground between apologists saying everything is great and zealots calling everything the end of the world. Most people just don't give a shit about B2B supplier contract issues like this.

      The EFF is foolish to waste time on this when (for example) the entire end-user online video experience remains horribly laden with real actual Digital Rights Management schemes. A propriety part in a hardware accessory is NOT DRM. The EFF of all people should know better.

      --
      Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
  2. Headphones by Ganty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:Headphones by mlts · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not sure who Apple is catering to by forcing people to either wait for third parties to license the earbud chip, or use the "one size fits some" earbuds that are included.

      Children who are given this as their first MP3 player might not be able to use the earbuds.

      People who want an inexpensive iPod for jogging or campus won't be able to use these earbuds, because earbuds tend to fall out.

      Which leaves people who are just buying a really low end iPod for financial reasons. If someone wants a generic MP3 player, choices abound in this market segment. Apple has competition here, as opposed to the other models which the choices thin out dramatically, especially the high capacity iPod Classic.

      This is a head scratcher, because Apple tends to know better than this. Maybe they will make an adapter with the volume controls and button for $29 or so, so people can use their own cans.

      UI-wise, features seem to have been lost. Say I have a long DJ mix with no breaks in it. From what I've seen, I can't fast forward or rewind in a song, its either go to the beginning or skip, with no in between.

      All and all, I am disappointed. Yes, this is their low-end product, but there are some definite features that some people use everyday that are missing. At least the 2G Shuffle is still for sale. If I had to buy a Shuffle, I'd buy the 2G which has half the capacity, but allows me to do basic music navigation actions with a single button press as opposed to multiple triple-clicks.

    2. Re:Headphones by pizzach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just a note because I don't think I was clear enough about the link. Scroll down and notice that apple is selling both versions of the iPod shuffle. Even more intriguing, they are filling different pricing brackets. $50 vs $80 which sounds very similar to the original iPod Shuffle pricing. The people who want the cheapest iPod would still be going for the earlier revision so the headphone argument is mostly moot for those people anyway.

      --
      Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
    3. Re:Headphones by tsa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      For $29 you can get an MP3 player with a screen and no ridiculous headphones.

      --

      -- Cheers!

    4. Re:Headphones by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's called "lockin".

      You kill the third-party market by designing your hardware in such a way that people can only buy the OEM's product. It used to be common practice in the computer industry, until the mid-90s when generic PCs took over. However Apple has clung to that paradigm right up to the present day.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  3. Re:Rockbox by SoupIsGoodFood_42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But that's not really a music player -- It's software that you can install on a music player. Apple is not fighting to keep it off the iPod, they just don't care about supporting it. Big difference. And why are you surprised? Apple isn't a bad company IMHO, but they're not there to be everyone's best friend, either.

  4. morse code controls by nloop · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Get a Sansa Clip instead by spike2131 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Get a Sansa Clip instead by spike2131 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Similar size, meaning in this case, "small enough you don't notice the dam thing".

      --
      SpyDock: Scientific Python in a Docker container
  6. NOT Digitial Rights managment by goombah99 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  7. Re:Screen costs money and take up case space. by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    Yes, he is. At some point there are diminishing returns regarding size.

    over having a clunky device with a bad interface

    You concluded that from, what, the fact that it's not an iPod? The Sansa clip actually has a pretty decent UI, as does the rest of the Sansa line. And you can load it without needing special software - it's a freaking mass storage device.

    It certainly is not, unless you start with the assumption that size and interface are worthless.

    Yes, it certainly is. It has more features (screen, FM radio, voice recording) for less dollars. It's not an evaluation of the quality of the Sansa or the iPod, it's just a fact.

    I don't personally have a need for a tiny jogging-targeted music player

    Apparently neither do any of the people buying the new Shuffle, because (according to Gizmodo) the tiny little headphone-cord cables are extremely tricky to use when jogging because they are too close to your head and too small (which makes them difficult to manipulate when you're bouncing around.

    Look, I like the previous-gen Shuffle's design (I own one). But there's a point when things get absurd. Requiring proprietary headphones means I can't use it in my car and I can't use it with my Shure e2g canalphones. There will probably be a $30 adapter at some point, but then we're talking about a $110 music player, which is getting into iPod Nano territory.