Apple iPod Shuffle 3rd Generation
The first iPod Shuffle was revolutionary in its day, as until then it was assumed that a screen was an essential part of any portable music player. How else would you display track information and thereby know what you were listening to? Apple decided that for just 512mb or 1GB worth of songs no-one really needed to see track information, and for the most part they were right. The 1st and 2nd generation Shuffles were much beloved by exercise junkies and those who couldn’t afford a more expensive iPod alike.
So what about the 3rd generation Shuffle? With the 4GB 3rd generation Shuffle, Apple have radically ‘shuffled’ things around. The aluminum body is now just 1.8 x 0.7 x 0.3 inches, which is really tiny, but far more remarkable is the fact that the body now has no buttons at all (that’s right: none), just a headphone jack and a clip.
If you’re wondering where the controls went, the answer is that they migrated to a position on the cord of the supplied earbud headphones. There’s just three tiny buttons (up near the ear on the right-hand cord): plus; minus, and a blank button between them. Through different combinations of presses the user is able to change between playlists, hear the artist name and song title of the track currently playing (more on this below), play, pause, change tracks, and increase or decrease the volume.
The new control system certainly economizes on space, but locating the controls on the headphone cord is not without drawbacks. For one, it means that you have to use the supplied earbuds, which provide only so-so sound quality, or alternatively buy a new pair of headphones manufactured by a third party company specifically for use with the 3rd generation Shuffle. It’s also difficult to operate the controls when you’re moving (running or even walking fast) and impossible when you’re wearing gloves. Also, there’s really no reason (other than aesthetics) why the controls couldn’t have been located on the body of the Shuffle as normal – it’s small, but not that small.
The new stuff doesn’t stop with the location of the controls though. Also new is the ‘VoiceOver’ feature. This is a set of text-to-speech files that sit on the Shuffle along with the music files, one for each track. They mean that at any time you can hear both the title and artist of the current song, and if you hold the middle button down, the voice will read out all of your playlists one by one, and all you need to do to jump to a playlist is hit the button again. It’s a pretty cool feature, and one that makes up for the lack of a screen.
When it comes down to it, the real draw card of the Shuffle has always been size. The new Shuffle really is tiny, and that means that it can be used in situations where a full-sized player would be annoying or even impossible to use, such as when exercising. That’s all well and good, but the 2nd generation Shuffle was already small, and then there’s the issue of the control system. In short, potential Shuffle buyers will need to decide whether they like the new control system with the VoiceOver feature, or whether the old control system located on the body of the player is going to work better for them.
