[gomariners]

The shuffle is great, but I'm already noticing the absence of soundcheck. I've gotten used to not having to adjust the volume significantly on my big iPod. Can they include this in a firmware update?

Now that you have yours - what do you think Apple should have done differently? What minor adjustments should they make as they update it?

[Seattle]

Small grooves in the slider on the back might make it better. Send a short usb cable with ipod?

[hyperlucid]

I agree that soundcheck would be an EXCELLENT firmware upgrade. I would also like earbuds with a shorter cord (especially considering that it is going to hang around my neck most of the time I use it.

Other than that...my Shuffle is perfect. I love it! (and have already gotten several curious/jealous looks on the subway on the way to work this morning). They're going to sell a TON of these.

[mitchell_pgh]

- shorter earbuds (but that's a difficult call because not everyone is going to listen to it around their neck)

- small usb dongle

- more free music

[mdc]

how would soundcheck be turned on and off?
i don't use it on my ipod, so not everyone would want it.

i want to order a shuffle. the waiting continues

[gomariners]

Originally posted by mdc:
how would soundcheck be turned on and off?
i don't use it on my ipod, so not everyone would want it.

i want to order a shuffle. the waiting continues

Presumably you could set it in iTunes - then you'd be stuck with your choice until you plugged it in again.

[Kirke]

I haven't "switched off" my G2 iPod in months (ever?). I believe the shuffle has the same "soft off" that the other iPods have. After it's paused for a minute or two, it shuts down until you press a button.

I believe this is why the power slider doesn't have any "treads" to make it easier to shift: you just turn it on once and leave it on. Of course shifting between shuffle and ordered mode is a little tricky too.

Kirke

[Gamoe]

I think this would've been a great product to introduce a small translucent LCD screen worn over the eye like a pair of glasses. You would be able to flip it up or down depending if you wanted to see the screen or not. It's been done before, but since these would be rather low resolution black and white screens, the cost wouldn't be significant, I think. Perhaps Apple could have provide these as upgrade options. Oh well.

[ibook_steve]

Originally posted by Gabriel Morales:
I think this would've been a great product to introduce a small translucent LCD screen worn over the eye like a pair of glasses. You would be able to flip it up or down depending if you wanted to see the screen or not. It's been done before, but since these would be rather low resolution black and white screens, the cost wouldn't be significant, I think. Perhaps Apple could have provide these as upgrade options. Oh well.

<GEEK_ALERT>

I think this would only make Cardassian and Vorta customers happy. It's pretty uncomfortable for humans, gives them headaches.

</GEEK_ALERT>

Steve

[JohnM15141]

I probably would ask for a little "teeny tiny" display so I can read the song playing when I forget what I have on it, otherwise I will leave it just as it is... a perfect complement to my iPod. So far I have found the iShuffle to be extremely convenient, I listen to music just about all the time now that it's so easy to have it(the iShuffle) with me at all times. Most outstanding!

Note: if you want playlists just install the songs in order and play them without shuffling and you'll know where you are if you remember how you installed them.

[Parky]

Originally posted by JohnM15141:
I probably would ask for a little "teeny tiny" display so I can read the song playing when I forget what I have on it, otherwise I will leave it just as it is... a perfect complement to my iPod. So far I have found the iShuffle to be extremely convenient, I listen to music just about all the time now that it's so easy to have it(the iShuffle) with me at all times. Most outstanding!

Note: if you want playlists just install the songs in order and play them without shuffling and you'll know where you are if you remember how you installed them.

But the rest of us don't want to pay for a display we don't want just so you can jog your memory.

Ian

[jesset]

Is anyone else frustrated with the Automatic Shuffle Update. Every single time I edit an mp3 in my library thats on my shuffle, like change song name or artist name, it takes 10 seconds and locks up my machine while it updates the shuffle. Whats worse is that if I bring it to my work computer and plug it in, in order for me to put music from my work on it, it deletes all the songs I added from home. I was hoping this would work like the other iPods when you have it on manual mode. Very frustrating if you have work and home PCs.

[fritzair]

Can you listen to books? Wondering if anyone has tried this? What happens when you pause for a long period of time- will it return to the same spot? Or do you start at the beginning and fast forward?

Thanks

[jswhitejr]

Originally posted by fritzair:
Can you listen to books? Wondering if anyone has tried this? What happens when you pause for a long period of time- will it return to the same spot? Or do you start at the beginning and fast forward?

Thanks

I called Apple about this and they said "yes". It plays audio books (from Audible.com, like the larger iPods) and remembers your place if you quit listening in the middle.

Jack White
Abingdon VA

[jswhitejr]

Originally posted by jswhitejr:
I called Apple about this and they said "yes". It plays audio books (from Audible.com, like the larger iPods) and remembers your place if you quit listening in the middle.

Jack White
Abingdon VA

If you are interested in audio books, the Audible.com website now has its $100 discount offer applicable to the 1 gb iPod Shuffle. That is, you sign up for one of the two Audible Listener plans for a year and they will sell you the Shuffle for $49 (or the mini for $149, etc.). The two plans are BasicListener, which entitles you to one book and one "subscription" (publication, radio series, etc.) each month for $14.95 per month; and PremiumListener, which entitles you to two books but no subscription each month for $21.95 per month.

That's a fantastic deal because one book sells for about as much as the monthly tab and and you get $100 off on your listening device.

Oh, yes, Audible also offers its own MP3 player that you can get free if you sign up for one of the two Audible Listener accounts for a year. It has a small memory, maybe 128K, which will hold a couple of books plus a few subscription items, but not a music collection.

I would get the iPod Shuffle or Mini and have room for some music along with my books and subscriptions.


Jack White

[ASIMO]

I would make it smaller and with twice the current screen size.

[JHromadka]

I want a way to rate songs. Since you can get a random sample of your library, I want to press a button to change the star rating for songs I haven't heard but discover I like them.

[andretan]

Originally posted by jesset:
Is anyone else frustrated with the Automatic Shuffle Update. Every single time I edit an mp3 in my library thats on my shuffle, like change song name or artist name, it takes 10 seconds and locks up my machine while it updates the shuffle. Whats worse is that if I bring it to my work computer and plug it in, in order for me to put music from my work on it, it deletes all the songs I added from home. I was hoping this would work like the other iPods when you have it on manual mode. Very frustrating if you have work and home PCs.

How do I put my shuffle to manual sync mode?

[fritzair]

Originally posted by jswhitejr:
If you are interested in audio books, the Audible.com website now has its $100 discount offer applicable to the 1 gb iPod Shuffle. That is, you sign up for one of the two Audible Listener plans for a year and they will sell you the Shuffle for $49 (or the mini for $149, etc.). The two plans are BasicListener, which entitles you to one book and one "subscription" (publication, radio series, etc.) each month for $14.95 per month; and PremiumListener, which entitles you to two books but no subscription each month for $21.95 per month.

That's a fantastic deal because one book sells for about as much as the monthly tab and and you get $100 off on your listening device.

Oh, yes, Audible also offers its own MP3 player that you can get free if you sign up for one of the two Audible Listener accounts for a year. It has a small memory, maybe 128K, which will hold a couple of books plus a few subscription items, but not a music collection.

I would get the iPod Shuffle or Mini and have room for some music along with my books and subscriptions.


Jack White

Thanks Jack.
Will try Audible.com website for more info..

Mike

[DigitalEl]

Originally posted by ibook_steve:
I think this would only make Cardassian and Vorta customers happy. It's pretty uncomfortable for humans, gives them headaches.

Obscure references rock! (Not mocking you. I'm serious). Thanks for the smile.

[gomariners]

The one sort of annoying thing about not having a screen is, if, like me, you have a bunch of songs on your computer you've only heard once and won't recognize, and then such a song comes out the shuffle and you say "Hey, that was really good, I wonder what it was?" you can't find out.

I'd like iTunes to create a playlist like "heard on the shuffle" so whenever you plugged your shuffle in, it would list what you listened to since the last time you plugged it in. Right now, it updates the playcount of songs (so it knows I'm listening), but not the last played date (so I can't do this myself). That would be great, because already the shuffle has showed me I have some great songs I didn't know about - and I still don't!

[iMacfan]

One thing for me is the colour of the 'yellow' battery light. Without seeing them both at the same time (which you don't), I find it hard to distinguish from the green one - it should be more orange so that you immeditately know what the battery is doing.

[Michael1980]

Have a small lcd with just the numbers. Then I can say, like the song number 55 and come back to it. But now it is a bit of a pain.

[Simon]

Originally posted by iMacfan:
One thing for me is the colour of the 'yellow' battery light. Without seeing them both at the same time (which you don't), I find it hard to distinguish from the green one - it should be more orange so that you immeditately know what the battery is doing.

Thanks for bringing up LED color.

I can't understand how so many companies can use red, orange, yellow or green LEDs next to each other or have LEDs that change from one to another one of those colors. I am red green color blind (like many other men, actually 7 out of 100 males are color blind) and to me a LED that is either green or red says nothing - for example, I can't tell by looking at my PB's power plug if the battery is charged or not, because the green and orange color of the plug lining look the same to me. Especially when it comes to Apple, a company that normally thinks a lot about usability, I can't understand why they do this.

Can't they use blue, white and red LEDs instead? There are really many people who can't distinguish red/orange/green well.

[iMacfan]

I see what you mean - that must be a real problem. I'm definitely not colourblind, so I'm wondering if the firmware on the shuffle just isn't that sensitive, so goes straight from Green to Red? Anyone else ever seen the orange/yellow battery light?

David

[andretan]

Originally posted by Simon:
Can't they use blue, white and red LEDs instead? There are really many people who can't distinguish red/orange/green well.

I think it's easier to understand Red for "stop", Orange/Amber for "prepare for stop", and Green for "go".

No?

[Simon]

Originally posted by andretan:
I think it's easier to understand Red for "stop", Orange/Amber for "prepare for stop", and Green for "go".

It's only easier for those who see red as red. For me, it looks as if red means stop, and red means go as well. Red and green look identical to color blind people. They can't use this metaphor you're talking about. The metaphor is good, but only if you see the colors.

[lavar78]

Besides, it's not as simple as red/yellow/green for traffic lights. The lights are always in the same position, so even colorblind people know what they mean.

BTW, not to be rude or insensitive, but it must really suck to be colorblind.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by gomariners:
The one sort of annoying thing about not having a screen is, if, like me, you have a bunch of songs on your computer you've only heard once and won't recognize, and then such a song comes out the shuffle and you say "Hey, that was really good, I wonder what it was?" you can't find out.

I'd like iTunes to create a playlist like "heard on the shuffle" so whenever you plugged your shuffle in, it would list what you listened to since the last time you plugged it in. Right now, it updates the playcount of songs (so it knows I'm listening), but not the last played date (so I can't do this myself). That would be great, because already the shuffle has showed me I have some great songs I didn't know about - and I still don't!

If you turn on the option to leave the shuffle in your source list, you should be able to find the song in that list before you sync.

[JHromadka]

Originally posted by Simon:
It's only easier for those who see red as red. For me, it looks as if red means stop, and red means go as well. Red and green look identical to color blind people. They can't use this metaphor you're talking about. The metaphor is good, but only if you see the colors.

Just curious, do you use OS X in Aqua or Graphite mode?

[gomariners]

Originally posted by lavar78:
If you turn on the option to leave the shuffle in your source list, you should be able to find the song in that list before you sync.

Yeah, but that involves me inspecting or listening to samples of 200+ songs to determine which it is. Typically I'll hear 20 songs between syncs and 20 is a much more manageable number.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by gomariners:
Yeah, but that involves me inspecting or listening to samples of 200+ songs to determine which it is. Typically I'll hear 20 songs between syncs and 20 is a much more manageable number.

I was just trying to help. Considering you heard the song, shouldn't you have some idea what it is? Even if they're a lot of instrumentals, don't you know enough about your music to eliminate a lot of the songs on the shuffle?

Another suggestion, go back to the song on the shuffle (right after you hear it ideally) and switch back to regular playback (does it work like that?). Maybe you'll be able to recognize the songs around it and find it that way.

[apollo11]

Apple should have Firewired it.

40 minutes to fill is toooooo loooonnnnggg

[T. Diddy]

USB2 is faster than firewire.

interesting point though. flash memory devices are fairly new and apple could have stepped up and become one of the few out there, while maintaining consistency with the rest of the ipod line.

[andretan]

Originally posted by apollo11:
Apple should have Firewired it.

40 minutes to fill is toooooo loooonnnnggg

40 mins? It took me around 20 mins+/- to have new songs on my 1gb.

[lavar78]

Originally posted by T. Diddy:
USB2 is faster than firewire.

No, it isn't. USB2 has a faster theoretical maximum, but Firewire is faster in actual performance.

[Simon]

Originally posted by lavar78:
Besides, it's not as simple as red/yellow/green for traffic lights. The lights are always in the same position, so even colorblind people know what they mean.

BTW, not to be rude or insensitive, but it must really suck to be colorblind.

Believe me, it does.

Especially when each time somebody hears your colorblind, they start asking you stupid questions like 'what's the color of my shirt' and even though it's red like a friggin fire engine they want to hear you say, 'well, its, uuh, maybe green, or maybe pink, or maybe...' which is of course a complete load of ...

[Simon]

Originally posted by JHromadka:
Just curious, do you use OS X in Aqua or Graphite mode?

I don't know, I can't see the difference.

J/k, I use Aqua, because I prefer blue to gray. There's enough gray around me otherwise.

[gomariners]

Originally posted by lavar78:
I was just trying to help. Considering you heard the song, shouldn't you have some idea what it is? Even if they're a lot of instrumentals, don't you know enough about your music to eliminate a lot of the songs on the shuffle?

Another suggestion, go back to the song on the shuffle (right after you hear it ideally) and switch back to regular playback (does it work like that?). Maybe you'll be able to recognize the songs around it and find it that way.

I appreciate the suggestion - this recent one is a good idea. I belong to emusic.com, and they used to allow unlimited downloads (it was all legal), so sometimes I would download whole albums I would like one song from to inspect later. Hence the mucho music I have and do not recognize.

[gomariners]

Originally posted by apollo11:
Apple should have Firewired it.

40 minutes to fill is toooooo loooonnnnggg

My understanding is that the flash memory rewrite is the limiting factor in the filling time, not the USB2. If that's the case, firewire wouldn't help.

[kman42]

Originally posted by gomariners:
My understanding is that the flash memory rewrite is the limiting factor in the filling time, not the USB2. If that's the case, firewire wouldn't help.

40 minutes?! I just refilled mine twice and it took less than ten minutes each time. Do you have the convert to 128 ACC feature turned on? Maybe that adds to the transfer time.

kman

[hwdor]

Originally posted by JohnM15141:
I probably would ask for a little "teeny tiny" display so I can read the song playing when I forget what I have on it, otherwise I will leave it just as it is... a perfect complement to my iPod. So far I have found the iShuffle to be extremely convenient, I listen to music just about all the time now that it's so easy to have it(the iShuffle) with me at all times. Most outstanding!

You mean like this mock-up over at YukonMac? It's not real, but I was pulling my wallet out before I read the type - and it looks great!

[lavar78]

Originally posted by hwdor:
You mean like this mock-up over at YukonMac? It's not real, but I was pulling my wallet out before I read the type - and it looks great!

That thing looks like a nightmare in usability. When you're reading the screen, the controls are turned 90 degrees from where you'd expect them to be.

[yukonmac]

Originally posted by lavar78:
That thing looks like a nightmare in usability. When you're reading the screen, the controls are turned 90 degrees from where you'd expect them to be.

I made a revision to the iPod Shuffle with display and posted it to YukonMac.com - take a look. I reworked the display and buttons and think this is a good layout for the shuffle should Apple (crossing fingers) ever introduce such a product. I heard a lot of criticism about the control layouts on the original 3D render, hopefully this will be better received.

[maxintosh]

Originally posted by yukonmac:
I made a revision to the iPod Shuffle with display and posted it to YukonMac.com - take a look. I reworked the display and buttons and think this is a good layout for the shuffle should Apple (crossing fingers) ever introduce such a product. I heard a lot of criticism about the control layouts on the original 3D render, hopefully this will be better received.

Have you ever held a Shuffle? The thing is absolutely tiny. I can't imagine reading menu options and song names that are the width of a stick of gum.

[yukonmac]

Originally posted by maxintosh:
Have you ever held a Shuffle? The thing is absolutely tiny. I can't imagine reading menu options and song names that are the width of a stick of gum.

Yes I did get a chance to play with one at MacWorld. As I stated in the post, I got the dimensions from Apple's web site and so the display in my 3D renderings are accurate - the shuffle is .98" wide according to Apple.com and the display on my 3D model is .88" - which is wider than my wrist watch display by about 1/16th. It would be small - but the type could be 10 point with 12 characters per line.

I have designed about a gizillion business cards over the years and 10 point is a very common size, using 9 and 8 point for smaller type is even fairly common. So yes while it is small it could still work. The idea with the shuffle obviously isn't to be as good as the hard drive based iPods but at least this would let you navigate playlists and songs if you had 240 songs and wanted to go to a particular song or playlist.

I just checked the specks for the display on my cell phone at motorola.com (its a motorola V120c) and the display is listed as 96 pixels wide - I get about 22 text characters on that screen. The screen measures 1-1/8" wide. So a 7/8" wide screen on the shuffle should easily fit at least 12 characters, maybe more. The cell phone display is very readable I even think they could shrink the width of the fonts to about 90% and still be okay. So I really do think a display would work on the shuffle.

[Simon]

Originally posted by yukonmac:
I have designed about a gizillion business cards over the years and 10 point is a very common size, using 9 and 8 point for smaller type is even fairly common. So yes while it is small it could still work.

Have you considered that your business card is printed with about 600 dpi while the iPod mini's screen has only 106 dpi? I doubt your 9 point screen fonts are as readable as your 9 point printed fonts...

[Forbodium]

Now tell me what you think by leaving a comment.

Sweet! And it even has the headphone jack in the proper place.

Please, Apple, give the people what they want. I'm getting tired of scouring the web for a usable flash-based player.

[lavar78]

It's a lot better. That being said, I still don't think it would be a good idea for Apple to do something like this. It's too close to the mini.

[thunderous_funker]

I don't really need a display on my Shuffle. I really don't.

However, I really sympathize with the scenario of listening to a terrific mystery song and wondering what it was.

But I think that the other suggestion of having a way to add/remove stars from a song rating would take care of it. That way I could simply flag mystery songs by adding/removing stars and easily check them later.

Of course, most of my mystery songs are from the old pirate days of just randoming downloading gobs of tunes based on liking a single or simple recommendations. Eventually there won't be mystery songs in my collection (or scant few of them) and then my wish for seeing what a particular song is the instant I hear on my Shuffle would go away.

So again, the Star Rating feature would continue to be useful beyond a means of flagging mystery songs since ratings have other uses.

I'm blathering so here is the final tally:

1) yes to star rating feature on Shuffle (simple as thumb up/down button)

2) no to LCD since primary reason for wanting it would be handled by the above.