How to start this article on the new-born of the iPod family? The iPod shuffle is a brief MP3 player weighs 22g, which allows you to listen to 512MB or 1GB of music throughout your day, or 120 or 240 songs.
The Shuffle is based on flash memory (512MB or 1GB), so it's not a hard drive as its bigger brothers. This allows for not jumping in listening to music, even when running or moving a lot. It weighs only 22 grams (battery included), however it is not like a pile of other models, but an integrated battery, allowing it to be smaller than most other players. When I received it, I was immediately amazed by its size. It is really very small.
The box packaging is all green. The record stands on a small card the size of a playing card. The buttons allow to change the piece to play / pause and change the volume. Above these buttons is a small LED (not shown in the photo) which is green or orange depending on the case. Basically support causes the ignition of green if the iPod can not hold position. Pause, the green LED blinks to say that the iPod is not extinguished. The snaps hold mode by pressing 3 seconds to play and that the LED flashes orange. Thereafter each press a button turns on the orange LED to signal qu'hold is engaged. An ingenious battery indicator shows green when the battery is well, orange when she begins to tire, red when she died and nothing when it is completely empty ... And a slider to turn the iPod by putting either mode shuffle (random) or continuous reading mode, as in iTunes.
Using iPod shuffle :
There is no screen! I can not say if this is right or wrong, opinions are very divided. What I can tell you is how I use iTunes and you will understand my point of view.
So I use iTunes to manage my mp3. I have 5GB of music, all my mp3 have a ranking. I put a star to say that I dislike, and I regularly turns the 1 star. Then 2 is history that I have but I do not listen. Same for a good 3 but sometimes I listen, and finally, 4 and 5 are obviously my favorite. I have a smart playlist that takes me that the 4 and 5 and other temporary playlists that change regularly. So all that to say that I listen to almost the play list 4-5 stars. And the largest share of chances, this list contains 229 pieces, or 999.2 MB So in my case, it is with this play list that I sync the iPod. Insofar as there is no particular order to this list, and I listen all the time mix evening, no screen is perfect for me because, first, I already know the name of my songs and another by the order does not matter to me. If I ever want to hear a particular album, I only update with the iPod and play the album in order. So the lack of screen does not bother me absolutely not. However, it is impossible to put your favorite song that you know is the 34th for example, or to know the name of a song you hear for the first time with the Shuffle. Well, this device is perfectly suited to my needs but I fully understand that everyone has not the same as me.
In terms of loading time pieces, this is not very fast. Roughly 10 minutes to load in the GB (actually 990 MB) of the iPod shuffle, when the same time allows to load an iPod photo completely. Obviously you can specify whether you want to replace everything or just update the news, so the 10 minutes are finally true that for the first time.
iTunes actually manages admirably iPod shuffle. The counters are updated with the number of plays on the iPod during the update by example. I sold the USB key that I had won, but what I had time to test, I think the iPod shows an apparent solidity and reassurance on the quality of its housing. Also he read the AAC, what did the key of a sudden I could not read much of my music. Regarding the transfer of music from the iPod to a computer, they are in a hidden file so no need any special software to do the transfer, of course we can also put any file on the iPod the Go also allows to put a lot of miscellaneous documents. I probably forgot many things, but I'll stop there.
Conclusion :
In conclusion I would say that this player completely captivated me. The bad point is the lack of screen sharing views, but I think at least I have explained mine. Regarding the autonomy I measured more than 15 hours which is above the 12 announced by Apple. A little research on the web I noted that a key 512MB Creative stood with a stack 15h. Some keys, however, announced 30 hours of battery life. Regarding the battery, it allows greater autonomy certainly (much as you can see this is not always the case) but is often larger and ultimately the batteries back quite expensive wholesale These go to 10 euro 4 so 10 euros to 60 hours of music for the Creative and 120 for others. If you listen to your iPod to go to class or other, we can count 1 hour of listening per day, which makes us a stack annual budget of more than 60 euros for the creative. So a point was taken into consideration in your choice of player ... If the iPod shuffle to the air to sell well because it is hard to get it without having to wait 2 see 3 weeks, as we pass directly by iPod StoreAnd retailers such as Fnac do not seem to have very large stocks for now, although the situation is about to improve. We shall see in a while he has allowed Apple to continue foraging in the digital player market ...