Apple 1 GB iPod Shuffle MP3 Player $149.99 pre-order!

[IshmaelLeaver]

Originally posted by: MogyBear
I will never buy an Apple jukebox until they support Ogg Vorbis and WMA (I know WMA sucks, but I already have a bunch of music in that format). Ogg Vorbis is by far the best, and about half my collection is in that format. I can understand that Apple wants to protect its AAC format, but I think they are neglecting a huge portion of the potential market by not offering Ogg Vorbis support.

.01%

 

[Lucky]

"When people talk about MP3 players, someone ALWAYS mentions "Oh noes! It doesn't have an FM Radio!" When you have a freaking gig or 40 GIGS of your own, hand picked music, why the HELL would you want to listen to commericial-filled, cookie cutter modern radio?

And the ONLY answer that makes any sense is for the news and other talk radio. Well guess what, you can probably buy an FM radio for about $5 for those times you want to listen to talk radio."


What the main point of one of these small flash players? to exercise with, right? Well most good gyms have fm modulators on their TV where you can listen to your own radio and hear different TV's on different frequencies. No reason to have 2 portable music devices when you can get one with an FM tuner built in for reasons like this.

Or if you are at a high school sports game broadcast on FM and want to hear the announcer.

shut yer piehole.

 

[Cerb]

A small player like this with AM radio, on the other hand, would be great.

 

[JeffMD]

err, wasnt this thing selling for $100 on release? I think theres a $50 addition of greed tact onto this.

 

[intogamer]

there are 2 versions 100 and 150. i like the orginal ones. too bad thre is no fm radio, if so in 5th gen I will get it.

 

[CasmirRadon]

I'm beginning... very slowly, to come around to the idea that I might buy one of these.

Stupid birthday has to be in June, and money is tight, so I'll see how good my willpower is. The annoying thing is, I've never had an MP3 player, so I can only conjecture what my playing habits will form into. Assuming I use the damn thing, I *think* I don't need a screen and all those other features.

What I need is a freakin test-drive.

 

[aceO07]

Test drive it at an Apple store if you have one near.

 

[brucekatz]

Originally posted by: CasmirRadon
I'm beginning... very slowly, to come around to the idea that I might buy one of these.

Stupid birthday has to be in June, and money is tight, so I'll see how good my willpower is. The annoying thing is, I've never had an MP3 player, so I can only conjecture what my playing habits will form into. Assuming I use the damn thing, I *think* I don't need a screen and all those other features.

What I need is a freakin test-drive.

You need a screen.
Most of time (99.9999%) I listen to my music "Shuffle", once a while, I want to find a certain song, I need a screen! You "think" you don't need it, better have it than not.

 

[claffeyb]

I currently only listen to audiobooks mp3s. I have over a couple hundred cds with directory after directory of books, and use an old cd player with an almost worthless lcd display. Not only does it have problems when cold (has to be warm or I have to open it and reseat CD), but it does not resume where it was shut off, which means if I'm 23 minutes into a 45-minute chapter, I have to fast forward a lot next time I turn it on.

This sounds like a good choice to me. Any mp3 player I'd use, I'd have to pull the mp3's off my CD sources anyway. An ipod wouldn't accept regular-joe schmuck mp3s, but this does.

As long as it doesn't care what mp3s I use or where they came from, and allows me to ignore the random shuffle mode, I like the smallness of the shuffle and actually for once prefer the built-in battery. The muvo we have for working out at the club is always running out of battery life at the worst time. We use rechargeables, and that single little AAA battery, unless just recharged that morning, just doesn't seem to last. At least this way I can listen in the car and recharge during day on my work pc.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: claffeyb
I currently only listen to audiobooks mp3s. I have over a couple hundred cds with directory after directory of books, and use an old cd player with an almost worthless lcd display. Not only does it have problems when cold (has to be warm or I have to open it and reseat CD), but it does not resume where it was shut off, which means if I'm 23 minutes into a 45-minute chapter, I have to fast forward a lot next time I turn it on.

This sounds like a good choice to me. Any mp3 player I'd use, I'd have to pull the mp3's off my CD sources anyway. An ipod wouldn't accept regular-joe schmuck mp3s, but this does.

As long as it doesn't care what mp3s I use or where they came from, and allows me to ignore the random shuffle mode, I like the smallness of the shuffle and actually for once prefer the built-in battery. The muvo we have for working out at the club is always running out of battery life at the worst time. We use rechargeables, and that single little AAA battery, unless just recharged that morning, just doesn't seem to last. At least this way I can listen in the car and recharge during day on my work pc.

I think you just need a newer mp3 player... No resume feature? If the ipod shuffle doesn't have lcd display, how will you know where to resume in the case that the player had to restart or you picked a different mp3 file?
If you have several books on the player (w/o lcd) how will you locate them efficiently?
Lcd displays aren't great in the extreme cold, but that doesn't mean they're bad at other times..
I was under the impression the ipod took all mp3 files..?
How would you recharge if you're not near a pc with usb? or power outlet?

 

[claffeyb]

OK, here's a bit more info.....

Ipod Shuffle:
MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps)
MP3 VBR
AAC (8 to 320 Kbps)
Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P)
Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4)
WAV

Other Ipods:
MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps)
MP3 VPR
AAC (16 to 320 Kbps)
Apple Lossless
AIFF
Audible
WAV

Don't know how DRM fits into this yet either. OK, found some stuff on it from someone else's newsgroup post:

Seeker1: "iPod itself imposes no DRM restrictions. The iTunes Music Store
(iTMS) does insofar as it only sells AAC files with DRM. However, the
iPod can play MP3 or AAC files with no DRM. If one wants to, there are
also techniques for stripping the DRM from iTMS songs.

You can play music from anywhere on the iPod, DRMed or DRMless. It is
the case that just about every other online music store is choosing to
use a format that the iPod doesn't support, WMA, which also carries DRM.
I grant that the iRiver and others do play WMA, but then they often
don't support AAC (with or without DRM). However, there are places where
you can buy un-DRMed MP3's and they will play just fine on the iPod.

My only complaint about the iPod at the moment is that they should add
OGG support also. I honestly don't care about WMA although I know there
are many who want that added.

I am not crazy about DRM myself but IMHO Apple was one of the first to
offer the least draconian scheme. Three computers and ten CD's isn't
nirvana, but it beats earlier systems where you had to be a subcriber
paying monthly fees to continue listening to purchased music and could
only do it on one machine."

So, I didn't have the full story on a regular ipod - looks like it would do fine with regular mp3s. Hmm, I wonder if I had been reading a 1st generation ipod review then.

As far as how would I know where to resume in case the player had to restart, I don't know why it would have to restart. And since I'm listening to audio books, I don't need to know where to resume if I pick a different mp3 because that would be where I would start. In other words, say I load up two books worth. The first book sucks, so I just FF to the next book, 1st chapter. When I listen to audiobooks, I generally listen to them just like I'd read them - from the first page thru to the end of the book. I'm not skipping around. I don't need LCD if I have only a couple of books as they'd be placed in order. Book one has 30 chapters - well, not a big deal. My cd player I have to hit FF 30 times or whatever to go to next book anyway because folder navigation is difficult to do. It's got to be easier on this.

I have a laptop with a USB port. If I am on a trip, maybe skiing, and I load up mp3 music from laptop, then ski all day and need to recharge, I'll plug it into laptop to recharge.

 

[metalmania]

You don't need to persuade yourself to buy this shuffle for audio books. You only listen to YOUR audio books? I have several audio books, one mp3 file is like over 1 hour, no resume function? that's ridiculous. I don't want to listen to the last 5 minutes by listening from the beginning AGAIN!

 

[CasmirRadon]

I honestly do have to say that the included Lith-Ion battery is one of the biggest draw-backs of the Shuffle for me. Likewise, the AAA battery that the MuVo uses is one of the only reasons I am considering that player instead. Of course I've heard complaints, such as the one above about AAA battery life being low, but I can only imagine that is because they are not using quality NiMH batteries which are far superior for this use. And besides, I already have above 4 NiMH rechargables in my room, it is easy to just grab a couple and throw them in my pocket with the player when I'm going out, in case I forgot to charge it overnight or something.

I would be interested to learn how much Apple is going to charge to get a replacement battery for the Shuffle, when it eventually dies.

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: CasmirRadon
I honestly do have to say that the included Lith-Ion battery is one of the biggest draw-backs of the Shuffle for me. Likewise, the AAA battery that the MuVo uses is one of the only reasons I am considering that player instead. Of course I've heard complaints, such as the one above about AAA battery life being low, but I can only imagine that is because they are not using quality NiMH batteries which are far superior for this use. And besides, I already have above 4 NiMH rechargables in my room, it is easy to just grab a couple and throw them in my pocket with the player when I'm going out, in case I forgot to charge it overnight or something.

I would be interested to learn how much Apple is going to charge to get a replacement battery for the Shuffle, when it eventually dies.

Yup, high capacity rechargeable batteries is the way to go.

It'll cost your first born child to get a new battery from apple..

 

[metalmania]

When you decide to sell your baby for an ipod battery, that ipod is outdated already. Just throw it away and get a new mp3 player, ipod or whatever. Mp3 players are just like cell phones, come and go.

 

[claffeyb]

metalmania - I think you misunderstood. My current cd player, which plays mp3s, doesn't have resume. The ipod shuffle does.
CasmirRadon - I use the highest rated mAh Everyready batteries - the fact is, if my wife complains that it's always cutting out, I can't win no matter what battery brand. This way, the shuffle can sit plugged in all darn week long in the USB port of the laptop for all I care. We she goes to the club, she'll grab it out of the laptop and she's ready.

 

[metalmania]

claffeyb, understand now.

 

[claffeyb]

I do agree that it is kind-of stupid to want a dumbed-down mp3 player. Over the last year, I have eagerly read about each new mp3 player release, especially those few that finally hit 512MB and then 1GB. I would weigh the pluses and minuses and all had problems of one sort or another, so I kept putting it off. Dumbing the Ipod Shuffle while making it with a large enough capacity actually makes it so I don't have to worry about how many lines of text it shows or what backlit color it is or does it have the right tag support or how does it navigate through folders. Although the built-in battery has it's own problems, it is a better solution for me than the muvo we have been using - having to peel that rubber protective cover off the muvo to pull the AAA battery out on that is enough of a pain that we didn't do it more than necessary and thus always ran out of battery life at the wrong time.
A dumber mp3 player may actually be a plus in traffic and driving at night as well - I was always struggling with the 2-second backlit display of my CD player as I tried to find where I was without the auto-resume. I was always hitting folders instead of files or dir instead of FF - man, I am ready for a dumb mp3 player with 1GB right now!

 

[aceO07]

Originally posted by: claffeyb
A dumber mp3 player may actually be a plus in traffic and driving at night as well - I was always struggling with the 2-second backlit display of my CD player as I tried to find where I was without the auto-resume. I was always hitting folders instead of files or dir instead of FF - man, I am ready for a dumb mp3 player with 1GB right now!

You make a good point. Hopefully it'll reduce accidents due to people fumbling with gadgets while driving. Though people might be tempted to keep hitting FF to get to the song they want..

 

[metalmania]

I always listen to the playlists in my muvo2 4GB, no FF, REW and other selection needed. But for the same price, 4GB muvo2 is better than 1GB shuffle.

 

[claffeyb]

I didn't like how they called it MuVo Squared. Cute name, but MuVo, in my book, is flash-based. And I can't argue that the Shuffle is better than it - I'm just going to say it is for different folks. My mom would like a dumber unit also. The closer an mp3 player is to the simplicity of an old cassette player, the better haha

 

[geekender]

http://www.apple.com/education/

If you are a student or faculty member you can get $10 off the larger shuffle also.

 

[JeffMD]

a whole 10 bucks! dont think that even covers taxs ^^

 

[cain]

i pre-ordered one.

 

[potatoBBQ]

well?... isn't someone going to post a link to a referal for themself on one of those free ipod sites? it's already been more than 20 posts and i don't see one yet... how am i ever going to get a free ipod? btw, is it just me or does the ipod shuffle resemble some sort of home pregnancy test kit? if the circle turns blue, you're probably in trouble...