Recycle the Shuffle?

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In the most recent "Pundit Showdown" on the Macworld podcast, Chris Breen answered a question about what Apple products should be "recycled" by saying that 5 iPod Shuffles should be mashed together and recycled into "a single iPod that would actually be useful." I listened to this through a mist of irony since this podcast was delivered into my ear canal via . . . you guessed it, a 4GB 3rd Gen. iPod Shuffle.

I commented in this blog three times (here, here, and here) last year on this newest Shuffle before I'd actually handled one, and I didn't comment in the most glowing terms. This is certainly a device that can leave one thinking. . . "Huh?"

But then, for Christmas '09, my wife gave me one. In green. You know what? I love it.

I come not to evangelize for the Shuffle. It appeals to me for very specific reasons that probably aren't applicable to a great many people. I like it because it's small and stays out of my way when I do physical work on my second job that serves to supplement my freelance photography income until the economy stops sucking. I like that it supports multiple playlists, unlike previous Shuffles. It took me a while to make peace with the proprietary headphones, and I thought Voiceover would be cumbersome and difficult to learn. But Voiceover is a breeze, and I soldered my preferred Skullcandy in-ear buds onto the Apple cable, which has been shortened with small rubber bands my wife had on hand for the college cheerleaders she coaches (for pony tails, don'tcha know). It's now the perfect iPod for me. Not for everyone, to be sure, but for me.

The only way to make it better would be to add an FM radio. I don't know if the that's possible in that small a package, but I can dream. (I visuallize a "playlist" of station presets that could be navigated like any other playlist on the Shuffle, similar to the way the original Griffin iTrip worked).

If you're into getting geeky with smart playlists, and aren't picky about being able to select one particular song to play at the slightest whim, (in other words, if you don't need or even particularly want a GUI interface) this could be the iPod for you. I have several podcast smart lists set up in iTunes that make me feel like I program my own radio station. Every time I refresh podcasts and re-sync the Shuffle, a new roster of news programs, tech podcasts, and audio fiction streams out and keeps me sane as I do the brainless work that guarantees me health benefits and that the bills get paid for one more month. With a few clicks of the in-line remote, I can switch to a different flavor of podcast, or to an audiobook, rock'n'roll, classical, or film scores.

Honestly, I wish Apple would go back to a design similar to the previous generation Shuffle. I never liked arm bands or belt clips, and the Nano tended to fall out of my shirt pocket when I bent over, which I do frequently, so the built-in "tie tack" clip shared by 2nd- and 3rd-Gen. designs is an ideal form factor. I'd like the remote control headphones to continue to be an option (controls are handy right next to your jawbone), but I'd like to see Apple put some actual buttons back on the Shuffle so the proprietary headphones aren't required. I have a Scosche Tapstick, which gives the Shuffle buttons anyway, but this is one third party accessory Apple should make obsolete.

I doubt I'm changing Chris Breen's mind, and I'm not trying to. But the Shuffle has it's niche and I hope it continues to evolve.

New iPod Shuffle - Apple gets a clue

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At the much-awaited September 9 Apple announcement, newly-minted organ donation cheerleader Steve Jobs and Apple surprised pretty much nobody by revving up the iPod line. The Nano muscles up in ways that will surely keep it at the top of the music player heap, and the Shuffle gets a right-sizing and pricing correction.

While not the top of the line, the iPod Nano is the real flagship of the iPod fleet, and it was given a huge boost in value with the addition of an FM tuner, pedometer, and video camera with microphone not to mention the most appealing new feature, a $20.00 price drop on the 16GB model. The addition of a camera has been rumored several weeks since photos leaked from a Chinese aftermarket manufacturer of new Nano skins with a hole on the back that could be for pretty much nothing other than a camera lens.

With the broadest range of upgrades, the Nano was the star of the show. The iPod Touch would have been had it gotten its long-rumored camera. (The MacBreak Weekly guys seem to think this is a temporary design glitch and the photo-capable Touch will come soon.) But it may be that the first item from the event to cause me to open up my wallet will be the less-sexy iPod Shuffle. Here's why:

I posted back in March (here and here) when the new button-less shuffle first came out about my misgivings on the design. While I think it is undeniably slick, the proprietary headphones with inline controls and $79.00 price tag has held me back up to now. Though I've made peace with the headphones, it's hard to spend $79.00 on a 4GB shuffle when, for only 60 bucks more, you can get all the navigation interface mojo and video playing goodness of the 8GB Nano. But now, in addition to pretty new colors to choose from, I can now choose to get a 2GB Shuffle for $59.00. I think this is smart.

Really, how many people need 4GB in a shuffle? The shuffle is a playlist based music player. You don't really need a huge chunk of space for your whole music collection in this type of player. At four gigs, it's doubtful that battery would last long enough to continuously shuffle through all the music through even once. Two gigs makes a little more sense. I'd load a Shuffle two or three podcast playlists, and a couple or three music playlists, and one or two audio books. That's probably only a bit more than one gigabyte of media.

When you buy a shuffle, you just know you are handing Apple one of the largest, if not THE largest, profit margins for any hardware product they sell. But a $59.00 price tag makes this easier to swallow than $79.00.

OK, so maybe it's Form 1, Function 0

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I may owe Apple a bit of a mea culpa for yesterday's post. I still think the inline controls that require OEM head phones or the purchase of new (and not yet available) third party headphones with built-in controls is a dumb piece of design. But I may have been wrong about the lack of fast-forward/rewind.

I just found this Apple tech article, which was posted yesterday and says, in part, "When rewinding or fast forwarding an audiobook, you will hear a brief audio snippet that lets you know where you are in the book." So this indicates the fast-forward and rewind are possible, but still sheds no light on HOW it is possible. My guess at this point is double click and hold for FF and triple click and hold for rewind. That would be roughly analogous to current iPod behavior, but this is only a guess as I still have not found the procedure explicitly stated anywhere.

Still sounds harder than it should be, but at least it seems to be possible.

New iPod Shuffle: Form 2, Function 0

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A while back I opined that Apple shareholders should sit tight and relax even though Steve Jobs has "gone fishin'" until sometime this summer. Apple has a deep bench, I said. Don't worry. Be happy. Things are in good hands.

But then I took a look a the new iPod Shuffle.

I'm a big fan of the shuffle. I actually have three of the original "Wrigley's Spearmint" shuffles from a few years back. I've gotten moderately geeky with smart playlists in iTunes to easily create a selection of podcasts to load on a shuffle to keep me entertained and informed as I drive or walk from job to job. And since they probably have a current street value less than 20 bucks, I don't worry about a shuffle getting lost or stolen, as I would with a late generation Nano or Touch.

The new model gives us a feature I've long pined for on a Shuffle: the ability to load and play multiple playlists. It's very cool they've finally found a way to allow selection of playlists on an iPod with no LCD display. But as cool as that is, there are other design decisions that I find much more suspect.

OEM headphones only (at least for now) - Third party manufacturers will probably step in here, but with the controls built into the headphone cord, we are currently limited to Apple-made earphones. Two MacWorld writers (Christopher Breen and Dan Moren) reviewing the device say Apple's 'phones just fall out of their ears. With me, they stay in OK, but for some reason my ears start to ache after only an hour or so of listening. After some trial and error, I found Skullcandy in-ear earbuds, which are comfortable for hours and hours of use. I actually go to sleep most nights with these phones in and have no discomfort at all. So as long as it's Apple earphones only, I'll have to say "pass" on this new Shuffle.

No fast-forward/rewind? - I have no "hands-on" with this iPod yet, but I've read multiple articles and looked at the Apple website and their "guided tour" video. The in-line headphone control does, in an ingenious yet less intuitive way, carry out all the functions one would need on a shuffle EXCEPT. . . fast forward and rewind? I see no reference anywhere to how I can scrub forward or backward in the currently playing track. As I said, I play a lot of podcasts on the shuffle. If I'm distracted and miss part of a spoken word audio program, I just press and hold the "rewind" button for a few seconds and listen to the passage again. This is important to me, and is probably important to any podcast or audiobook fan. But if the new shuffle can do this, it is so far a mystery to me how it's done.

So, first glance, the score for the new shuffle is Form 2, Function 0. Was the previous generation shuffle really so big and ungainly that it needed this degree of shrinking and sleeking? I don't think so. This slicker new design seems to come at the expense of ease of use, simplicity, and one (at least to me) vital function.

This new device was probably in development well before the Steve Jobs hiatus, but I can't help but think this is a product he would not have let out the door in it's current form.