Real People Reviews: the iPod shuffle—iFashion, iBling, I like it

Posted by Daniel East Jan 18, 2005 at 12:15am

With all of the excitement over the very hot new releases out of Cupertino at last week’s Macworld Conference & Expo keynote address from Steve Jobs, I could not wait to get my hands (and ears) on Apple’s new iPod shuffle model. It is smaller than a holding up two fingers on your hand and sounds bigger than most products of this type. Before I go further, I have to thank the staff at the San Francisco Apple retail store for all of their help and for their excellent staff.

First impressions? As you might expect, it was just a matter of plugging in the “iPod-S” and away we go. I was nice to see that it comes with a reasonable battery charge out of the box; however, fully charging before use is recommended. The software disk simply adds the iPod updater and iTunes 4.7.1 update to your Mac. Once installed, iTunes gives you the option of “Auto-fill,” selecting your tunes from your playlists. Or you can drag and drop your music of choice onto the iPod-S. The sound quality is very good after testing with several brands of earphones, although maximum output did distort slightly even when volume wasn’t extreme by most standards. (Our graphic shows the iPod shuffle with Future Sonics Ear Monitors brand custom earphones.)

The iPod-S supports file types MP3 (up to 320kpbs), MP3 VBR, AAC (up to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (AA) and WAV only, but this allows the user up to around 120 songs at 128kbps in AAC for the 512Mb model tested and 240 songs in the up-coming 1Gb model. Frequency response is 20hz – 20khz.

In actual use, the iPod-S is as much fashion as it is function with a clear target audience in the so-called “Echo-boomer” generation. For its size, sound and user-friendly interface, you don’t need to be a boomer of any generation to love this new addition to the iPod family. My initial concern is that these cool new players might be yanked off the lanyard, but I’d imagine that third-party vendors will come up with a variety of skins and clips to prevent such problems. Apple, itself, is releasing several new accessories for their new baby-iPod including an armband holder, sport case, dock and extended battery life option. The stealthy L.E.D. indicators show green when in use and, like other Apple branded chargers, amber when connected to the USB port on your Mac. The back of the iPod shuffle has a battery check button and power switch that doubles as the selector for play modes (repeat or “shuffle”). While there is no display, there is no need. The navigation on the front side is extremely intuitive and easy to use with controls for volume, skip/scan, back/scan and play/pause.

If you have always wanted an iPod, but didn’t want to shell out the US$299 plus for the big brother models, the iPod shuffle should be a hot ticket, a hot trend and affordable option for most Mac and PC lovers who may have held out for cost factors. The 512MB version is $99, while the 1GB model costs $149.

This is a great move by Apple to offer the “iPod for everyone” and will clearly raise the bar, yet again, for the electronic gadget industry in terms of style, price and function. I can’t help but wonder what was going through the mind of Sony president, Kunitake Ando, who made a cameo appearance at Jobs’ keynote, when he saw this.

Macsimum rating: 10 out of 10.

Have a product you’d like us to review? Contact us at dsellers@macscimumnews.com

Daniel East is the founder and president of the Mid-Atlantic Macintosh User Groups Team (MaMUGs); co-host of PC Talk Radio; a live speaker/presenter and a freelance columnist for several Mac publications, as well as a Macsimum News contributing editor.

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