The Shuffle does speak, but in a language of colour flashing LEDs. Flashing green means you're paused, and orange means you're in Hold mode, which you can also activate by depressing the centre play/pause button for 3 seconds. Red on the battery indicator means you'd better stick the Shuffle in any available USB port to juice it up. Apple even includes a meticulously designed card-size at-a-glance guide with the Shuffle.
Obviously the Shuffle is intended for the day-tripper or the athlete who probably already owns a bigger iPod. It's meant to be recharged daily (its rated battery life is 12 hours), and while it's docked into your computer, iTunes will help you refresh your content with its new autofill feature. It won't skip, it's utterly portable, and it can even be worn stylishly around the neck with the included lanyard, though beware the mess of wires. In addition to the lanyard, you get the standard iPod earphones, a manual, and software, but we're not so sure MP3 newbies will warm to the Shuffle, given a wealth of other feature-filled, albeit more expensive, flash-based models to choose from. Then again, a lot of prospective Shuffle owners are mainstream buyers looking for affordability and simplicity.
Features
As far as extra features go, the Shuffle has none and leaves it to the slightly more expensive Creative MuVo Micros of the world to handle FM radio, voice recording, and line-in recording. A single playlist is all you get, either manually or automatically determined and played back either linearly or shuffled. Audio is plenty loud, and sound quality is quite good despite the lack of an equalizer. Those who need to pause in the middle of a track will appreciate the resume feature, and a true shuffle, where iTunes randomly fills your iPod, will lead to discovery (or rediscovery) of music. But again, we remind you that virtually every other player out there includes a shuffle feature. If you're an iTunes loyalist and you need only digital audio playback of your favourite songs on a compact device, the Shuffle is the player for you. Otherwise, spend a few extra pounds and get one of these.
The Shuffle works seamlessly with the latest iTunes 4.7.1, which includes the mentioned autofill feature that automatically loads the Shuffle player with an optimal number of songs based on user preference. Our first 512MB autofill stats: 488MB, 103 songs, 7.5 hours. We're wondering why iTunes wasn't able to cram another 4MB-plus of audio (the amount of space left for audio data) onto the Shuffle. For those who will use the Shuffle as a storage device, iTunes will allocate a specific amount of space for dedicated data storage. You can direct iTunes to swap out the Shuffle with brand-new songs and/or load them randomly from the playlist of your choice, as well as manually transfer the songs yourself. And remember, if you're an iTunes Music Store junkie, the Shuffle is the only flash-based player that will play your FairPlay-protected AAC files.
Speaking of supported file formats, the Shuffle will play back AAC up to 320Kbps, MP3 up to 320Kbps, MP3 VBR, WAV, and Audible files. It does not support AIFF, Apple Lossless, and of course, WMA - although you can use third party software to convert audio from these formats.
Die-hard Shuffle fans will appreciate Apple's nice set of accessories. These include an AAA battery pack, a miniature dock, a USB power adapter, an armband, and a cool protective carrying case. More will surely come from third-party vendors.
Performance
We were able to get 15 hours out of the Shuffle, which is considerably less than some other flash-based players out there, such as the 40-hour iRiver iFP-800 series but plenty more than Apple's claims of 12 hours. But realize that most other players lasting more than 20 hours typically use a replaceable battery--good for convenience, though bad for the wallet. The Shuffle takes two hours to charge to 80 percent and a full four hours to charge completely. If you're traveling with it, you'll need to have a computer or the optional power adapter (which is several times larger than the Shuffle itself) nearby. Transfer time was 1.4MB per second, noticeably slower than a hard drive-based iPod's and disappointing for a USB 2.0 device.
Edited by: Jasmine France
Additional editing by: Chris Stevens
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Simeon Kudratt 14 May 2006
Good: Size, weight and price.
Bad: No LCD. I've got one that simply no PC will detect.
Comment: I like its simplicity and dedicated volume and it goes damm loud. Its the only player in the iPod range I'd suggest simply cos you can move the songs onto other computers with it. Something other iPods are incapable of. This may not be quite true, but I have done this myself once.
chris lynch 15 July 2005
Good: nice size, simplistic
Bad: you wont read this review through because it's anti-ipod
Comment: Well done, reading this youre thinking "hey ive got one of those (am im gonna )"well dont let me stop you. Let me instead say try to look at the bigger picture. What apple have manage to do is take a perfectly good mp3 player ripped it to its bare bones, claim this is a good thing and charge the same amount of money. Firstly the lack of a screen is pitiful, imagine the scene where you lend it to youre friend, they hear a song they like, but they dont know whats its called because there's no screen to tell you.
Whats that i hear you scream " i only want shuffle on my way to work i ca'nt constantly be changing songs" Well my answer to that is, every self-respecting flash player does has shuffle mode which can be turned ON or OFF which after reading the shuffles specs seems almost space age. Having 3 settings for how much battery is left! lots a bit, none; i find this extremely vague. No lcd means no way to ability to display track, EQ, battery, and other "biological" information. Lastly no abilty for radio is a major drawback when supposidly its designed as if "you're listening to an online radio station". And lastely (ohh yes theres more) the battery length of to quote CNET "15 hours out of the Shuffle, which is considerably less than some other flash-based players out there"
If i have enlightened you in any way im thankful and will be happy to answer any questions.
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