[gzeus]

Gizmodo's how to hack ipod into ipod-shuffle

[im_noahselby]

Now that some time has passed I find myself warming up to the iPod Shuffle. The whole random concept of the unit will never grow on me. But if you consider its ability to store and transfer files on the go, than it's a good value. This iPod costs only marginally more than many of these flash drives on the market; something I was in the market for anyways...

While, I'm more attracted to the iPod mini, I find myself drawn to the iPod shuffle for a few key reasons:

-Regular iPods are still too expensive. The iPod shuffle is at a great price point.
-Thieves are probbably less inclined to eye up your iPod shuffle than they would be a more expensive model.
-The fact that it's flash based means skip free music when you're jogging.
-HD players can get very hot, they can freeze-up, can't be dropped, and to a large degree are fragile. The iPod shuffle will counter these issues.
-Small, hassle free, plugs right into your computer, etc.

Noah

[macgyvr64]

Suffice to say I really like the iPod shuffle! I'll be ordering a 1 GB soon.



Get It Here

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by Forbodium:

originally posted by me re: why no display
1. cost
2. space
3. weight
4. battery life
5. complexity

1. cost: Who cares?
2. space: Who cares?
3. weight: Who cares?
4. battery life: Not an issue. Other flash-based audio players have a screen AND good battery life.
5. complexity: Any more complex than a regular iPod?

Huh? Are you for real?

If cost, size, AND weight are of no concern to you, and you insist upon a display, then you obviously don't want this thing, you want an iPod mini.

If you want an iPod mini, THEN BUY AN IPOD MINI.

4. battery life: Do those other flash-based audio players have a backlit screen AND good battery life? non-backlit screen == useless in enough situations not to be worth including.

5. complexity: a single-line display is good for nothing except displaying a single track title. do we assume that *most* people know what they are listening to, since the thing has no radio? Running file navigation/iPod interface on a single- or double-line display is fiddly, annoying, and yes, much more complex than the stick is now. You'd also need a scroll wheel or something.

which folds back into size.

which of course you don't care about.

And since you don't care about any of the things that make this thing unique and excellent - size, cost, weight, and simplicity - I REALLY don't get what the hell you're complaining about: Apple already makes a player that suits your needs.

-s*

[kman42]

Originally posted by Forbodium:
So you are saying that the issue of size and complexity is with the players offered by competing companies? What was stopping Apple from putting flash-memory into the proven-popular Mini? That seems like the optimal size and complexity, and it would solve the skipping/pausing problems that occur with the iPod/Mini during heavy physical activity.


If the 1-gig players that the iPod Shuffler competes with (JetAudio, the new Audiovox player, etc) get under $190, I'll be giving them my consideration.

For $50 more than your $190 price line, you can buy a mini.

It's about price/feature ratio. You can get no screen and 512MB for $99. Good deal and cheaper than most other flash players with 512mb. For $149 you get 1gig, definitely cheaper. If you want more flexibility and a screen, bump up to the $249 for a mini.

Apple has hit all the price/feature points pretty well if you ask me.

kman

[Michaelbetzel]

I'm buying one. It is what I am looking for. I have a 12 inch Powerbook for the road so I don't really need an Mp3 player with a lot of memory. I'm a little upset about it not having a screen but am happy to hear that it doubles as a flash drive. I wonder if you will have to make it either a PC ishuffle or a Mac ishuffle. i never liked that feature on the iPods. we will see. I think Apple did a good job.... but just barely!

[Dalhectar]

If apple wants to market it's flash memory drive ability, I would think Apple would format all of them in FAT32/DOS so data can transferred between PC and Mac.

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by Dalhectar:
If apple wants to market it's flash memory drive ability, I would think Apple would format all of them in FAT32/DOS so data can transferred between PC and Mac.

Which is exactly what Apple did.

[Michaelbetzel]

Originally posted by maxintosh:
Which is exactly what Apple did.

nice

[MacMcMacintosh]

Was just about to go out and buy a 1gb memory dongle (for work) but after seeing the keynote (and i think im correct here) you can use the shuffle as a storage device as well. I think i'll get one of these instead as it work out a little cheaper than buying as normal dongle - fantastic!

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Here is the big one for me, will it still charged plugged into the USB port if the computer is asleep. Firewire will but I don't think USB will.

[dazzla]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
Here is the big one for me, will it still charged plugged into the USB port if the computer is asleep. Firewire will but I don't think USB will.

Same here, if I can stick the shuffle in my Mac whilst it's asleep and still have it charge that's quality.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by dazzla:
Same here, if I can stick the shuffle in my Mac whilst it's asleep and still have it charge that's quality.

I think if you stick it into a powered USB hub that would work but would be really inconvenient.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
Here is the big one for me, will it still charged plugged into the USB port if the computer is asleep. Firewire will but I don't think USB will.

If USB actually doesn't, just buy the USB charger at the AppleStore. It looks like the normal iPod charger, but instead of a FW port it has a USB port. It costs $29.

[dazzla]

Originally posted by Simon:
If USB actually doesn't, just buy the USB charger at the AppleStore. It looks like the normal iPod charger, but instead of a FW port it has a USB port. It costs $29.

See at the moment I have the USB + FW lead for my 40GB iPod, Firewire goes to mains and USB goes to the computer so it can charge when the comp isn't on.

With that power adapter you'd presumably be switching between Mains -> Dock/iPod direct and Mac/PC -> Dock/iPod direct. You can't to both at the same time (unless I'm missing something).

[vmpaul]

Originally posted by Big Fat Al:
There is an option you can set in the new version of iTunes to automatically down-sample your existing tracks to 128k bps ACC during synchronisation. Wicked!!!

Read about it here http://playlistmag.com/weblogs/today...irst/index.php

That's a great feature. Sold me on a 512mb model to compliment my larger iPod.

[mrgaskell]

Chris Breen (I think) or the guy from the Times reported a 16 hour battery life in his usage testing.

I will be getting one because I carry a flash drive around with me everywhere to load stuff to and from a PC. And I carry my mini or my 40GB iPod for music. Now I can have 4x the flash drive size and carry a 100 or so songs with me to listen to all at the same time. Very cool!

Too bad the Apple accessories are taking so long to hit the market (4-6 weeks on average) as I would love that rugged lanyard case.

[Athens]

Originally posted by im_noahselby:
I don't see what is so appealing about this little mp3 player, besides the price. I find it kind of ugly, and don't like the idea that it has no screen. The scroll wheel and large screen were part of the charm of the iPod and iPod mini. White plastic? - What about anodized aluminum colour versions like the iPod mini? That would have given it more character. This player won't stand out like the iPod or iPod mini. In a market that is already oversaturated, Apple didn't really bring anything new or innovative to the table. I credit them for tapping into this market and I hope that this device is a success; I just don't see it yet...

I will definitely be grabbing an iPod mini now...

Noah

4 of my PC friends are already talking about getting one. Me personally I almost always use my remote vs the ipod controls so I dont really care about a screen. Also it has great battery life (time will tell if it really is as good as they say) and because its branded as a Apple Ipod it does have the status symbol of the ipod which will help it too. My mom wants one too, its at a great price point. Don't forget the ipod itself isnt the only thing that makes it great. The iTunes software is part of what makes the ipod so wonderful, this little player will get that advantage over other cheap flash based mp3 players.

[SpaceMonkey]

So does it only support USB 2.0? No firewire? I'm on an older G4 PowerMac that only has Firewire and USB 1.1. I imagine that it is backward-compatible with my USB ports, but it would just be so slow.

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by SpaceMonkey:
So does it only support USB 2.0? No firewire? I'm on an older G4 PowerMac that only has Firewire and USB 1.1. I imagine that it is backward-compatible with my USB ports, but it would just be so slow.

I have USB 1.1 on my powerbook and it's not too bad. I use it with a flash drive and transfer speeds are pretty snappy.

[sworthy]

Originally posted by SpaceMonkey:
So does it only support USB 2.0? No firewire? I'm on an older G4 PowerMac that only has Firewire and USB 1.1. I imagine that it is backward-compatible with my USB ports, but it would just be so slow.

Yup, usb 1.1 works, just slowly

On an iPod domination note, did anyone else see this and gasp?



The iPod shuffle is going to clean up in the remaining 29%. Pretty soon, Apple will sell over 80% of ALL digital music players.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by sworthy:
Yup, usb 1.1 works, just slowly

So I guess nobody want to plug it into the keyboard but the back on the computer. Yuck.

Thank god for the USB port on the front of my G5 (which had better be USB 2.00 BTW)

[Leo the 3rd]

Well for me (I currently have the iPod Photo 40GB), I could use the Shuffle for just my audiobooks. Don't really need a screen for that. I'll probably snag the 1GB when it comes out - use that $10 coupon I got from Apple for doing their survey recently. Then I can also use it as a thumb drive too. Works for me.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

I just ordered the iPod shuffle to replace my 15 gig iPod.

[sworthy]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
Thank god for the USB port on the front of my G5 (which had better be USB 2.00 BTW)

You could always get the dock, it's only $29. BTW, I'm 99.9% sure that the front port is usb 2

[Leo the 3rd]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
So I guess nobody want to plug it into the keyboard but the back on the computer. Yuck.

Thank god for the USB port on the front of my G5 (which had better be USB 2.00 BTW)

From the Tech Spec page on the G5: One FireWire 800 port, two FireWire 400 ports (one on front); three USB 2.0 ports (one on front), two USB 1.1 ports (on keyboard); AGP 8X Pro slot with graphics card installed

[f1000]

I rarely listen to music for more than an hour at a time anyway, so being able to carry one to four hour's worth of ALE audio in an iPod Shuffle is good enough for me. I hate being encumbered by electronics, so the incredibly compact iPod shuffle seems to be a no brainer.

Apple should really emphasize the USB flash drive aspect of the iPod Shuffle. Forget hauling floppies and CD's around, just carry an iPod Shuffle and be able to listen to music to boot!

I do hope that the iPod Shuffle is as durable as it looks. At the very least, I want to be able to sit on one without having it break.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by sworthy:
You could always get the dock

Ya I could but since the computer still has to be on it doesn't help all that much.

What if I had a powered hub? Would that keep the juice flowing on USB?

[anamexis]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
Ya I could but since the computer still has to be on it doesn't help all that much.

What if I had a powered hub? Would that keep the juice flowing on USB?

What you need is the iPod USB Power Adaptor. A powered USB 2.0 hub would also work.

[dazzla]

Originally posted by anamexis:
What you need is the iPod USB Power Adaptor. A powered USB 2.0 hub would also work.

Yeah, that was linked to above, but then you've gotta unplug the shuffle from the PC/Mac then plug it in somewhere else to charge.

[moki]

Originally posted by Randman:
Moki, report back on battery life (ordered a 1GB model).

Battery life seems exactly as advertised. I've used mine on and off for two days, and its still going.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by moki:
Battery life seems exactly as advertised. I've used mine on and off for two days, and its still going.

Question - is there any way of getting eq? I don't imagine there is but every portable audio device I've owned for a decade has had a need for bass boost, so without that the shuffle would be a non starter for me.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by Mr Scruff:
Question - is there any way of getting eq? I don't imagine there is but every portable audio device I've owned for a decade has had a need for bass boost, so without that the shuffle would be a non starter for me.

AFAIK, all iPods respect your individual iTunes EQ settings. I'm not sure it respects your overall settings.

And, with all due respect, all those devices don't need bass boost; you just think they do. Of course, perception is reality, so there you go.

[JHromadka]

Originally posted by Disgruntled Head of C-3PO:
Here is the big one for me, will it still charged plugged into the USB port if the computer is asleep. Firewire will but I don't think USB will.

I have a USB cable for my Treo 600 that still charges my Treo when my PowerBook is asleep.

[The Mick]

Ordered a 512 MB model earlier today. It should work perfectly at the gym while jogging on the treadmill or riding the bikes. I'll just have it autofill from my workout music playlist. 8 hours of music and 12 hours of battery life will cover a full week of exercise time, so I'll just sync and charge it once a week. Who cares about a display, I know what I'm listening too. Now I won't have to worry about my 40 GB 4G iPod bouncing around in my gym bag or getting dropped. I can leave my 4G iPod in the car, so I have my full library at my disposal, and have the smaller, skip-free shuffle in my gym bag. Sweet!

[kmkkid]

Originally posted by pantalaimon:
i don't get it, apple makes it look like its shuffle only, surely this isn't the case, how do you select a specific album to play?

From Apple's Site:


Jumping to the beginning of a playlist
Press the Play/Pause button three times quickly to jump to and begin playing the first song in the playlist. The front status light will display green for 2 seconds and then turn off. If the rear switch is in the shuffle position, iPod shuffle will start playing the first shuffled song.


So just make each album a playlist. Simple





I Just got an iPod photo 40 Gig for Xmas, but I might just buy one of these too. I think i'm addicted.


Chris

[Zimmerman]

Originally posted by Leo the 3rd:
... I could use the Shuffle for just my audiobooks. ...

When I read that, I didn't laugh physically, since I'm really really tired, but inside I was laughing like hard. Its funny that you say you'd listen to audio best arranged in a fixed sequential format with a product designed to best play randomly.

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by kmkkid:
From Apple's Site:

Jumping to the beginning of a playlist
Press the Play/Pause button three times quickly to jump to and begin playing the first song in the playlist. The front status light will display green for 2 seconds and then turn off. If the rear switch is in the shuffle position, iPod shuffle will start playing the first shuffled song.

VERY interesting... but the language is quite unclear here... it isn't necessarily implying that you can have multiple playlists. It sounds more like if you press the button three times, it goes back to the first song that you loaded from iTunes.

However, this would be a good way for Apple to implement playlists in a firmware update if people were dying for them.

[dazzla]

Originally posted by kmkkid:
From Apple's Site:


Jumping to the beginning of a playlist
Press the Play/Pause button three times quickly to jump to and begin playing the first song in the playlist. The front status light will display green for 2 seconds and then turn off. If the rear switch is in the shuffle position, iPod shuffle will start playing the first shuffled song.


So just make each album a playlist. Simple





I Just got an iPod photo 40 Gig for Xmas, but I might just buy one of these too. I think i'm addicted.


Chris

Can you really have multiple playlists though? That would be sweet as hell. Dump say 6 or 7 albums on the Shuffle, either listen to individual albums by jumping to the first song or stick the whole lot on shuffle. Moki, any experience with the above?

[Randman]

You don't have to have it on shuffle. You can set it for linear play and it'll go through each album in order.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

Originally posted by JHromadka:
I have a USB cable for my Treo 600 that still charges my Treo when my PowerBook is asleep.

Can anyone else chime in on this?

[newcomer]

iPod Shuffle;

Anyone know what these are priced at (the 512MB and the 1GB) in the US Education store?

Also; I have an (early) 2003 800MHz G3 iBook - am I USB 1, 1.1 or 2? And is anything less than 2 going to be prohibitively slow for mp3 transfer?

The Shuffle is just what I've been waiting for. I've never had the need even for a 4GB player, so I've never really been able to justify the expense of a mini or a normal iPod.

But this I love. The new mini Mac looks pretty rockin' as well.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by lavar78:
AFAIK, all iPods respect your individual iTunes EQ settings. I'm not sure it respects your overall settings.

Sure, but all previous iPods had essentially the same feature set. This is a new offering with a new feature set so nothing is guaranteed.

And, with all due respect, all those devices don't need bass boost; you just think they do. Of course, perception is reality, so there you go.

There was an inferred 'in my opinion' in my original post. It is however a fact that the bass response on portable headphones is poor, and some way of compensating for this is neccessary if you don't want the music to sounds ridiculously tinny.

This isn't a hi-fi debate, I can show you the frequency response curves if you like.

[Randman]

Get better headphones. And if that doesn't float your boat, then you shouldn't get an iPod.

[Mr Scruff]

Originally posted by Randman:
Get better headphones.

I already have �40 headphones for portables and a high quality pair of cans for at home. I would never use the iPod headphones. As I explained earlier this is a problem inherent to the small transducers on portable headphones.

And if that doesn't float your boat, then you shouldn't get an iPod.

Why? They produce the same output as any other audio hardware. It's just neccessary (IMO) with portable audio to have a way of compensating for the problems inherent with the portable headphones you tend to use with them.

[Simon]

I just saw Apple's iPod shuffle TV ad and immediately noticed that they mention the price of $99 at the end.

Could it be this is the first time in ages that Apple advertises their hardware on TV and explicitly mentions the price? I mean, normally Apple didn't speak much about the price, it was more about features and style. And now it's suddenly about at what low prices you can enter Apple world.

Now there's the iPod shuffle, the Mac mini, iWork for $79 and all of a sudden you start wondering if Apple has really started to listen to the ultra price conscious people...

Catering to all markets, but keeping the high standards common - it's a great time to be an Apple customer.

[LeeG]

Originally posted by dazzla:
Can you really have multiple playlists though? That would be sweet as hell. Dump say 6 or 7 albums on the Shuffle, either listen to individual albums by jumping to the first song or stick the whole lot on shuffle. Moki, any experience with the above?

You can set up a smart playlist that has other playlists as a criteria (even other smart playlists that update automatically), or certain albums, etc. Then sync your shuffle to that.

You have always been able to limit the size of your smart playlists, but I wonder if they will integrate autofill - eg, limit to the size of the shuffle.


L

[Sparkletron]

Compared to other Flash-based players, the Shuffle has numerous negatives and only one positive.

The negatives are numerous missing features such as FM radio, recording, scheduled recording, A/B looping, continuous play of a single song, support for more codecs such as Ogg and FLAC, etc., etc. And no removable battery! And only one color.

The only positive that I can identify is integration with iTunes--something other vendors would provide if Apple would allow it.

This article suggests that most competing vendors don't think very highly of the Shuffle either...
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01...raid/index.php>

Of course none of this has anything to do with success. Microsoft has already proven that crap can be successful. Still, I predict that this thing is not your grandpa's iPod and will fail.

-S

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by Sparkletron:
Compared to other Flash-based players, the Shuffle has numerous negatives and only one positive.

The negatives are numerous missing features such as FM radio, recording, scheduled recording, A/B looping, continuous play of a single song, support for more codecs such as Ogg and FLAC, etc., etc. And no removable battery! And only one color.

The only positive that I can identify is integration with iTunes--something other vendors would provide if Apple would allow it.

This article suggests that most competing vendors don't think very highly of the Shuffle either...
<http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/01...raid/index.php>

Of course none of this has anything to do with success. Microsoft has already proven that crap can be successful. Still, I predict that this thing is not your grandpa's iPod and will fail.

Don't underestimate the integration with iTunes. This is huge. Almost 500 million iTunes songs have been sold, so support of protected AACs is very important. Besides the fact that the so-called "missing" features -- many of these aren't present on the normal iPod and they are wildly successful -- and others are present on the more expensive models, so that's an option for people that have to have them.

And of course other vendors are dissing the iPod. They're scared to death of what this thing can/will do to their marketshare.

I predict that you are very, very wrong.

[Randman]

Gee, it's only selling like hotcakes. And of course competing vendors will diss it.

We'll come back in a year and you can eat crow.