chrispederick.com
iPod Shuffle
- Gadgets
- 6 Comments
- 3 years ago on January 15, 2005
Early last week I went shopping and one of the items I planned on buying was a USB flash drive. I use a Windows laptop at work and I have an iBook at home and there are times that I need to move files from one machine to the other. I would either FTP the files to my web site or wait until the weekend when both machines were at home, but I thought that a USB flash drive would be an easier, more efficient and just more convenient solution.
Call it fate, serendipity, luck or just plain coincidence, but when I went shopping a big storm hit and I decided to cancel the trip in order to avoid the heavy rain. The next day Apple announced the iPod Shuffle at Macworld.
Now, I already have a third-generation 40GB iPod that I am extremely happy with and I was not looking for a new MP3 player. However, in addition to being an MP3 player, the iPod Shuffle can also be used as a USB flash drive. For only $25 more than I was planning on paying I could get a USB flash drive that also doubled as an MP3 player. I was sold.
Apple Store
That evening I headed to the Apple Store after work only to discover that they had sold out of iPod Shuffle’s just before I arrived. I tried again a couple of times over the next few days with no success, and then on my way to work on Friday I headed in without much hope and discovered they had just received a new shipment.
I had planned on just getting the 512MB model, but of course I succumbed and bought the 1GB model. After all, it was the same physical size, had twice the storage and cost only an extra $50. So far (admittedly I have had it less than 48 hours) I am very happy with my purchase.
The iPod Shuffle is very small and incredibly light and this makes it perfect for using while exercising - maybe this will convince me to jog more…maybe! Plugging it into a USB port makes the iPod Shuffle instantly show up as a removable drive on both Windows and Mac OS X and makes copying files to it a breeze. Filling the device with music is also made simple by the new iTunes Autofill feature.
Right now I am listening to The Da Vinci Code from Audible and this works perfectly on the iPod Shuffle as I don’t need to carry around my entire music collection.
Overall, I am very happy with the iPod Shuffle both as a USB flash drive and as a small and basic MP3 player that compliments my iPod perfectly.
6 Comments
All iPods are designed to be used with iTunes, although there are third-party applications that I believe you can use, but I have never tried them.
If you don’t like iTunes you can always use it only to copy the music files on to the iPod and nothing else.
Just copying the music files on to the device won’t work as you need to set up the relevant playlist files as well.
what a shame. The iPod looks so much better than any other portable player in my acceptable price range, but I am not going to buy a player that requires iTunes, MusicMatch, Windows Media Player, or any other software. The other portables I’ve tried work fine via drag and drop, I wish the iPod did.
Well, as I mention I think the Autofill feature in iTunes is actually perfect for adding music to the iPod Shuffle and I actually think the automatic syncing between iTunes and the iPod is actually a plus rather than a hassle.
I understand why you don’t want extra software, but it’s a shame as I think the iPod is a great MP3 player.
I want iPod, but I don’t think I’ll be able to get it.
But iTunes definitlely replaced my winamp. iTunes has excellent features, built in radio.. so i don’t have to go to shoutcast.com everytime i wanna get the stream file, excellent “search thingy” and a nice layout.
Nice site, chris, love the ‘themes’ stuff.. you should add more colors. Try orange. I love orange.
It isn’t just the extra software, it’s the extra software on every single computer I ever want to get music from. Work, home, etc, etc. However, I’ve come to realize that my usage of the shuffle would basically be for 1 day playlists, so I wouldn’t really need to ever install iTunes at work.
I wouldn’t accept the iTunes requirement if it was a “real” ipod, but for $99 (and using it as a “day of music” player), I can accept that it is tragically flawed.
I wish iTunes worked for me as a music player. It doesn’t do the basic things I want, it doesn’t work in the same way every music player I’ve ever liked. The library function is great but if you don’t use the library (and instead use the file system), it is eithe useless or too hard to use. For me, the “right click, add to now playing list” is second only to double-clcicking an mp3 to play it. If iTunes has a “right click, add to playlist” function, I can’t find it. If iTunes allows me to select a few songs in the file system and open them in iTunes, then drag other songs (or preferably right click and add) to the now playing list, I can’t find that. Without that most basic of functions, iTunes will be little more than a sync device for me.
My friends with iPod and Creative experience all recommend the Creative Muvo over the iPod. So, at this point, it is basically a race to see who can get one in stock first.
Shannon J Hager
3 years ago
January 16, 2005
I don’t use iTunes and I don’t plan on changing that. Can I still use the iPod Shuffle as a music player? Can I just drag music to it and then play those files or does it rely on the iTunes playlist?