[Xeo]

Has the shuffle changed how you listen to your music? How do you listen to music on your Shuffle?

I usually listen to full albums. I still do on my computer. However, when using my shuffle, I have used only the shuffle feature. I have the Billboard Top 100 for all the years since 1960, so for the last week it's been an all 80's week. I have a smart playlist selecting random songs from the 80s with a play count of zero. So when I plug my shuffle back in, all the play counts get updated and my smart playlist has new songs in it from which I Auto Fill. It's been great to have a fresh set of songs every day. I love it because I hear songs I haven't heard in years, songs I never would have otherwise heard. It was something I had meant to do with my computer, but it was the Shuffle which got me to finally start doing it.

So what do you do? Is it different from what you're used to?

[mrpuddles]

I listen to it the same way I listened to my iPod. I loaded my entire library and clicked random. Nothing has changed....

[turtle777]

Originally posted by Xeo:
Has the shuffle changed how you listen to your music? How [i]do

No, I'm still using mostly my ears

-t

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

All I know is that I like it 10x more than using my 15 gig ipod.

[typoon]

I love using the shuffle feature on my iPod. It's great to see what comes up next. You never know. It can go from some Ray Charles to Guns 'n Roses to White Zombie to Queen back to some Billy Joel. It keeps it interesting, sometimes making you scratch your head wondering why it shuffled the songs like it did.

[Disgruntled Head of C-3PO]

It is like listening to the radio but they only play songs you like and no ads or talking.

[cmoney]

I've got too many different genres on my big iPod to make use of the "Shuffle Songs" feature on the main menu. And it's too much of a hassle to switch between shuffle and sequential play going through the menus to do it for a playlist.

So I've found I rarely use shuffle on my big iPod, I hate ending up listening to classical one second and then punk, not to mention having classical tracks or even mix discs play out of order.

On the Shuffle though, I limit it to one genre type at a time so it's really much more useful. So in that sense, I guess I have changed how I listen.

I like your idea of a smart playlist with zero playcount songs. I probably haven't listened to a third of my library, ever. I'll have to do that more often.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by typoon:
I love using the shuffle feature on my iPod. It's great to see what comes up next. You never know. It can go from some Ray Charles to Guns 'n Roses to White Zombie to Queen back to some Billy Joel. It keeps it interesting, sometimes making you scratch your head wondering why it shuffled the songs like it did.

I just got my shuffle yesterday. I was quite amused when it followed up "Help Is Coming" from Crowded House with "Help!" by the Beatles. That's classic!

[DigitalEl]

All I know is that I like it 10x more than using my 15 gig ipod

Sad but true. My iPod photo has hardly been touched since my shuffle arrived. I'm trying to justify keeping the photo.

My ShuffleBeast Smart Playlist is:

Songs Rated: 4 or 5 Stars

Genre is Not: Classical, Comedy, Gospel or Jazz

Time is Not Longer Than: 7 Minutes

That works for now. And when I want something from one of those genres usually excluded, I can move it over manually or simply AutoFill from Library. The shuffle's simplicity is its beauty. I'm shocked I don't miss a screen, but I genuinely don't. I know my own music.

[philc]

I use the shuffle mainly for listening to Podcasts on the way to/from work. I load them onto the shuffle in the order that I want to hear them. If I happen to want music or have my wife in the car I switch to shuffle and it is pretty good. The 1GB holds more than enough music to take a good sample of any collection.

[iREZ]

I've used my shuffle for about two weeks now and for now I have about 14 albums that I let shuffle through, but once I get a HD to house all my music, I want to create a list of all my favorite songs, old and new, to shuffle on through. I really love this lil thing, and it's ashame that I don't use my 20GB iPod as much as I used to anymore.

[wataru]

Originally posted by typoon:
sometimes making you scratch your head wondering why it shuffled the songs like it did.

Uh, it's random?

[mitchell_pgh]

Just out of curiosity, why are you using a shuffle more then the other iPods?

I just picked up an iPod mini. Nice size, 6GB.

While I understand why people don't need a screen on the shuffle, I like the screen because I listen to a TON of music all over the place... and if I like something, I usually buy the full album (I buy a considerable number of soundtracks and "hit mixes")

[wataru]

I like the shuffle because it's light enough not to weigh my polo shirts' breast pocket down. If I don't have a breast pocket, I can use the lanyard (hidden underneath my shirt, of course). I already have a 3G iPod and I can't justify getting a mini. The 512MB shuffle was the right price with the right features (especially being able to use it as a USB keychain drive), and it's just so damn light.

[iREZ]

The shuffle is soooo light n tiny that you don't feel the thing on you at all, that's why I like it. I buy albums at a time, vs just singles, too, and have a pretty respectible collection no doubt but not having a bulky iPod in my pocket is soooo much of a plus...

I advocate telling non ipod owners to get either a new mini or 20GB, but I always tell reg iPod owners to get the shuffle...best compliment to the reg iPod.

[teknopimp]

i would say the shuffle has indirectly changed the way i listen to music. i didn't really start using itunes until i got my shuffle because i have no desire to rip all my old cds yet, which i call old because i haven't bought a cd in three years during which time i got my music from the radio and local deejays. now i only listen to my downloads (i still listen to radio).

[GoCats]

I actually just returned my Shuffle for a Mini. My biggest complaint about the Shuffle is that it didn't update the song's metadata. I have a play list of the songs that I haven't heard in the last 40 days. Well, even though I just listened to them on the shuffle, then sync'd, the songs 'Last Played Date' didn't change, so the songs were not removed from my play list.

If it weren't for that I would have kept the Shuffle... even though I did miss having a display to be able to change the song ratings, and see what song is actually playing. I could have lived with that.

As for shuffle mode, it hasn't really changed my life like the iPod itself. I also have a iPod Photo 60GB... having my entire music collection with me on road trips is AWESOME. I always hated having to decide what CD to put in next when I was driving. I never have to think about what to listen to next!

[Vsx1]

I've had my 512 shuffle for a few weeks and I'm thrilled with it. The battery hasn't changed to orange yet. I use my shuffle about 8-10 hours a day @ work. I find that the shuffle starts running out of new songs at about the 7-8th hour (128k AAC files). Two of my other co-workers have HD based iPods but they don't use them...dunno why. The shuffle feature is cool...I load it randomly thru iTunes not the switch on the back. My only complaint is that the conversion from Apple Lossless to 128k AAC takes a long time....couple hours via usb 1.1. my 2 cents...

[The Ancient One]

Don't have a big iPod, just the 1GB Shuffle. First time I fired it up, I combined a bunch of musical cuts with a few comedy ones. The Shuffle followed "Amazing Grace" with George Carlin's "Religion" (There's an invisible man who lives in the sky...) and topped that a little later with the combo of Bach's "Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor" and Tom Lehrer's "Vatican Rag." Out of all the songs on the device, those were the only four religion-related pieces. Amazing! I got a Shuffle with the same irreverent attitude toward religion that I have.

[stwain2003]

Originally posted by Xeo:
Has the shuffle changed how you listen to your music? How do you listen to music on your Shuffle?

No, not really, but instead of my CD player, I use an iPod Shuffle 512

[resuna]

Originally posted by cmoney:
I like your idea of a smart playlist with zero playcount songs. I probably haven't listened to a third of my library, ever. I'll have to do that more often.

Heh.

I have the following playlists set up in iTunes:

5 star, last play > 1 day
4 star, last play > 4 days
3 star, last play > 2 weeks
2 star, last play > 6 weeks
0 star, last play > 4 weeks
Weighted (any of the above)

This way I get to hear EVERYTHING eventually, since once something's played it vanishes from the Weighted list until it's been X days/weeks. The reason for zero stars getting more play than 2 stars is that 0 tends to be stuff I haven't made up my mind about yet...

The only problem with the shuffle is that it doesn't update the "last played" date, so what I hear on my shuffle tags along with "Weighted", it doesn't help drive it.

Been tweaking this since last August, it works pretty well. What the shuffle has done is make me add a couple of extra playlists for stuff that works well when I'm out and about but is too distracting as background music in iTunes... the smart playlist I load the shuffle from (I don't use Autofill straight) thus gets a slightly different set of music.

[resuna]

Good idea whoever suggested filtering by play count: I've added a "select least often played" rule to my smart playlist for filling my iPod Shuffle. That should give me the same effect and cycle music out of the shuffle after I've listened to it a bunch...

[resuna]

Originally posted by GoCats:
I actually just returned my Shuffle for a Mini. My biggest complaint about the Shuffle is that it didn't update the song's metadata. I have a play list of the songs that I haven't heard in the last 40 days. Well, even though I just listened to them on the shuffle, then sync'd, the songs 'Last Played Date' didn't change, so the songs were not removed from my play list.

The shuffle doesn't have a clock chip. It does update the "total plays" count, though. And it's got better sound than the Mini.

[resuna]

Originally posted by lavar78:
I just got my shuffle yesterday. I was quite amused when it followed up "Help Is Coming" from Crowded House with "Help!" by the Beatles. That's classic!

Heh. My shuffle seems to play Chumbawamba WAY more often than it seems it should.

[bedoughty]

I just sold my 60 GB ipod photo cuz of my 1 gb shuffle. The idea seemed insane when it first came to me but.. I'm in the same boat as a lot of others here; three weeks after I got my shuffle I realized I hadn't touched my photo once, except for transferring a couple files, which can be done with a regular external a lot cheaper.

So out w/the old 'n busted (ipod photo) and hello new shuffle hotness!

[moonmonkey]

Originally posted by resuna:
Heh. My shuffle seems to play Chumbawamba WAY more often than it seems it should.

Mine too.

Strange.

[Simon]

Originally posted by resuna:
Heh. My shuffle seems to play Chumbawamba WAY more often than it seems it should.

In general, I have the impression that my iPods (60 GB photo and 1 GB shuffle) as well as iTunes have a weird random number generator for shuffle mode. If I make a histogram of songs played x no. of times, there are many songs with 0 or 1 count and many with the maximum count, but a huge drop in the center. Certainly doesn't look like a very Gaussian distribution to me.