I love having a remote on my iPhone headphones, so much so that I recently upgraded my Apple in-ear headphones so that I could have the comfort of in-ear headphones plus the useful Apple remote. Apparently, even Apple considers its remote pretty inspiring. Yesterday, Apple announced the $79 third generation of its iPod shuffle. Once again, this generation is even smaller than the last, and this time the miniaturization was made possible once Apple realized that it could rely on the headphone remote instead of making space for buttons on the iPod shuffle. Greg Joswiak, Apple's VP of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, explained to Macworld:
“The concept for doing this came from the iPhone, specifically the
iPhone headset,” said Joswiak. “After we expanded on it in the fall by
adding volume control, we looked at it and realized that would work for
the shuffle too.” Joswiak explained that by removing the buttons Apple was able to make
the shuffle smaller, without compromising on other features.
I own three iPods. First, there is the iPod app on the iPhone, which is what I use most of the time. Second, I have a 5th generation 60 GB iPod which had been my primary iPod before I got the iPhone; now it mostly lives in my Bose SoundDock Portable. Third, I have a second generation 1GB iPod shuffle
. I love my shuffle. It weighs nothing and easily clips on clothes, which makes it the perfect iPod to listen to podcasts or songs when I am working out or doing chores around the house. When I got the shuffle, I thought it would just be a little toy, but I am amazed how often it is the iPod that I most want to use.
The new iPod shuffle improves on the old shuffle in many ways. First, it is smaller and lighter, which reminds me of the famous Saturday Night Live skit in which Fred Armisen plays Steve Jobs introducing progressively smaller iPods -- the iPod Micro, followed by the iPod Piqueño, followed by the iPod invisa which held "eight million songs, every photo ever taken and Pong." (Here is the best link I could find to that video, although if you are so inclined you can purchase it in HD from iTunes for $2.99 as a part of 22 minutes of sketches from the November 19, 2005 show.) Second, the capacity is increased to 4 GB. Third, it includes a synthesized voice that can tell you what you are listening to or even announce your playlists and let you choose one. Apple's website includes some samples if you want to hear what it sounds like.
Of course, because there are no buttons on the new iPod shuffle, you pretty much need to use headphones that have a remote. Jason Snell, the editor of Macworld, noted on Twitter that that makes him unhappy -- "it requires you to use Apple's headphones. Which suck." Christopher Breen of Macworld agrees. I am also not a huge fan of the standard Apple headphones, although as previously noted I really like the newer and much more comfortable Apple In-Ear Headphones that come with a remote, which I understand works fine with the new iPod shuffle. If you want to use headphones made by anyone other than Apple, you will need to make sure that they have an Apple-compatible remote built in or you will have to use an adapter along with the headphones. Otherwise, Apple says that standard headphones will work, but you lose many features such as the ability to change volume, FF, RW, the
voice features, etc., although you can use the
single switch on the 3G iPod shuffle to play either in order or randomly.
Removing all buttons from the iPod shuffle itself is also a controversial decision. Dan Moren of Macworld worries that the remote will be more complicated to operate than the buttons on the previous iPod shuffle. I will admit that Apple's chart on how to use the remote is a little daunting at first look, but Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal has been using the new iPod shuffle for a few days now and he says that it "sounds more complicated than it is." Moren is also concerned that he will lose the Apple headphones. Frankly, given the size of this thing, if I was going to lose something it would most likely be the iPod shuffle itself.
[UPDATE: Jason Snell of Macworld got a chance to sit down with Greg
Joswiak this morning and he provides a lot more details about the 3G
iPhone shuffle here.]
Along with the new iPod shuffle, Apple updated iTunes to version 8.1. Apple says that the new iTunes includes speed boosts that iPhone owners should appreciate, including faster loading of large libraries, faster browsing the iTunes Store and faster syncing. To be honest, I didn't notice much of a speed boost when I used the updated iTunes last night, but I'm sure Apple is correct and there were some increased speeds. iPhones can also use the Remote app with iTunes DJ, an updated version of what Apple used to call Party Shuffle. Click here for a Macworld article describing the additional new features.
Back to the iPod shuffle, although I haven't tried one yet, I'm impressed by what I have seen so far. I love the design. As Stephen Wildstrom of BusinessWeek
notes, Apple's "minimalist approach is taken to the ultimate ... I can’t think of a way to design a product any cleaner than this." And it includes everything I love about the second generation iPod shuffle, plus great new features like increased capacity and the synthesized voice. If you are reading this, you presumably already have an iPhone and have built up your iTunes library. The iPod shuffle is a great and inexpensive accessory that will let you use your iTunes songs and podcasts when it would not be convenient to carry around the iPhone.
Click here to get the 3G iPod shuffle from Amazon.
