Before I got the Mac Mini (truly a wonderous machine, that), my wife and I splurged on iPods: she was the recipent of the older iPod Mini (and, yes, we bought it a little more than a month before the announcement of the new models, as is my lot in life with electronic purchases) and I picked up an iPod Shuffle 1G.

Now, I’m not the kinda guy who spaces out listening to music, so I won’t be walking down the street jamming. However, I do find that if I listen to music while working I do tend to be more focused (or, really, less distracted). The Shuffle is perfect for that: it doesn’t have a cool screen to futz with, and I’m never really concerned with finding specific songs, so the lack of precise controls doesn’t faze me.

The Shuffle is small, though: thank the Lords of Kobol that the lanyard attaches to it securely. This is one of those items that appears easy to lose or sit on, it’s that small and light. But, despite the size, it sounds really good (and that’s the number one priority for a music player).

Transferring music to the Shuffle can take a while, though: the USB 2.0 transfer speeds can be a little slow (especially over a wireless network), but it is tolerable. Takes about 15-30 minutes to fill it using iTunes’s autofill feature. I wish there was more configuration for autofilling: while you can have it choose higher-rated songs more often, there doesn’t seem to be a way to exclude audio from being chosen without creating playlists. I’ve got a few audiobooks in my library, and it’s a little annoying to hit chapter 7 of I, Robot while listening. I hope the next version of iTunes improves autofill.

Controlling the Shuffle is simple: there’s previous and next buttons, a play-pause button, and the volume control on the front; the back has the on-off, shuffle and linear play toggle. The controls are nicely laid out and easy to press, even when the Shuffle is underneath a sweatshirt.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the Shuffle: I’ve been listening to music I forgot I owned, and I like the form factor as well. You have to give Apple some credit for turning what from the outset looks like a mistake, the lack of a dsiplay, and turning that into a selling point for the device.

I guess I’m drinking the Kool-Aid, slowly but surely…

This entry was posted on Monday, March 21st, 2005 at 9:55 pm and is filed under Electronics, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

Comment on this entry

The URI to TrackBack this entry is:
http://strangematter.net/2005/03/21/20/trackback