Apple iPod Shuffle (1GB) MP3 Player Review

Introduction

The date:  January 11, 2005.  The place:  San Francisco, California.  The event:  Macworld Expo. 

What was all the buzz about?  Apple introduced the world to the newest member of their beloved iPod family.  The iPod Shuffle was born.

In a market saturated with MP3 players up the ying yang, it's very refreshing to see the industry leader one-up itself.  Having established itself with a strong marketing campaign to give us more iPods than we can chew, Apple decided to give us a leaner and simplified iPod.  In 512MB and 1GB flavours, the Shuffle immediately strikes you as the next sexy, must-have gadget.  Not to mention the fact that the 512MB goes for only $99US and the 1GB model retails at only $149US!

Compared to the 4GB/6GB/20GB/30GB/40GB iPods, the Shuffle seems pretty puny.  Also, where's the funky, backlit, multi-coloured, LCD screen??  How are we supposed to know what song is playing??  How are we supposed to find that one song that we're dying to hear??  Well that's the beauty of it:  You Don't.  This new device gets its name due to the fact that it's sole purpose in life, is to Shuffle the music in yours.  With the Shuffle, Apple introduces iTunes version 4.7.  The biggest feature in this iTunes is the ability to Autofill your Shuffle.  It randomly fills up your 512MB/1GB Shuffle with songs in your existing library, and the Shuffle plays it back either randomly or in a pre-determined playlist order (customized by you). 

To a lot of people out there, being at the mercy of a 0.78oz.  pack of gum wannabe is totally ludicrous.  But think about it.  Why would you carry a tiny MP3 player with you, instead of carrying your whole collection of MP3s with a larger iPod?  120/240 songs at your fingertips.  Who cares what song is playing??  It's for that workout at the gym.  That walk around the park with the dog.  That long and boring ride on public transit.  I don't know about you, but I know 99% of the songs that I have on my computer.  So I could care less which song is playing, because I chose to collect all the songs in my library.  If it so happens that a song is playing that I'm not in the mood for, I can press the Forward button.  If I'm not in the mood for that song either, Forward.  It'll be rare that I encounter 3 songs in a row that I'm not in the mood for.  It's also very rare that there's that ONE song that I MUST hear.  Oh well, I'll live.  There's always the custom playlist option, where I can make my own playlist in iTunes, and just fill my Shuffle with that exact playlist only.  Even in the not so distant past when I was burning my own CDs to listen to in my car, it was hard to choose about 15 songs to burn permanently on a CD-R.  I had always tried to make a varied playlist so that I'm not stuck with a CD that's too R&B or too Pop.  So when the Shuffle came along, I was immediately intrigued by the endless possibilities it presented.

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