March 10, 2005
The Ipod Shuffle
I have been an admirer of ipods for some time. As much as I tried I could not come up with a practical reason to convince my wife to allow me to shell out the $300 to purchase one of the 20 gig models. Truthfully, I could never quite convince myself either. I always thought it would be far too much ipod for what I would really use.
Enter ipod shuffle. Perfect. A modest price. (100-150) Exceptionally cool size (the size of a pack of gum) and more than enough storage capacity (512mb 1g) for what I would need.
My sweet and wonderful wife bought me the 512mb version for Valentines Day/Birthday. I have been avidly using it for the past two weeks and have enjoyed it immensely. I will outline a few high and low points.
HIGHS
- I love the size. I have taken it running a few times and it fits nicely in my hand or pocket. I plan on getting the optional armband soon for ease of use. It is virtually weightless in my pocket, but difficult to switch songs while running. The armband will fix that problem.
- The neck lanyard is amazingly handy. I thought it was kind of goofy at first but hardly go with out it most days. Multitasking is now possible. The ipod hangs just below my chest and makes it easy to reach up and switch songs, pause, etc. If you dont want the neck lanyard, you can just switch the caps out, simple.
- Shuffle mode is great. I enjoy the random factor. If I dont want to shuffle the songs I just toggle to the continuous mode. Back Controls
- Auto fill. Very cool. Auto fill is a feature in itunes. If selected it randomly grabs songs from your whole itunes library and fills your ipod with random selections. It gets me out of the rut of listening to the same thing over and over.
- File storage ability. I have gown accustomed to only filling half the ipod with songs. The other half I save for files I might need to transport from work to home or visa-versa. Very handy.
LOWS
- USB connection. Being the only charging and syncing method for the shuffle, My computer (apple emac) has inaccessible USB ports. I could not plug my ipod shuffle into it directly. I tried the USB connection on my keyboard but was informed it did not have enough power. I had to run down to Staples and purchase a $18 USB extender cable.
- The ipod shuffle took about 4 weeks to get here.
Well, That's it. Not a very complete review I know but feel free to ask any questions or address something I did not cover.
wow micah,
real interesting about the whole i pod shuffle thing. i had a dream about one once and it was flying and stuff. not really. but it did happen once. so keep the great stories rolling in. dont stop now.
- your brother jon
I bought one of the original 5GB iPods about three years ago. Like you, I had to really convince myself to buy one, since I hadn't used my own Walkman in years. It seemed like a lot of money for something I might never use.
Then I got it—and it has hardly left my side since! It has completely changed the way I listen to music. Using my Walkman used to be a fairly big deal. The biggest hurdle was finding something I wanted to listen to. That took some time. And if I didn't already have it on tape, I was outta luck. Then if after a while I felt like listening to something else, I was stuck. I'd have to go home to switch tapes.
Now I have thousands of tunes at the ready at all times. I don't even have to think before grabbing the iPod. Better still, if I have to go to the grocery store or run some other little errand, I'll take the iPod just so I have something cool to listen to.
Last summer I had a really interesting and unprecedented dilemma. We were planning a thirteen hour car trip, so I loaded up my iPod for the journey, since it gave me literally days' worth of music to listen to. The problem then was that the trip would have outlasted the iPod's battery! Nice problem to have, though.
Using the iPod has even changed the way I listen to music at home and at the office. I'm lucky enough to have a computer at the office with a gigantic hard drive onto which I can store my music library. I am very careful to correctly tag all my music so that I can whip up some smart playlists in iTunes. Instrumental pop songs from the 70s and 80s? No prob. Songs with the word Moon in the title? Done. 90s alternative? Got it covered. And I want to take it home, I just copy it to my iPod.
My only complaint about iPods is that Apple doesn't make one large enough for me. I'm totally not bragging, but my music library is about 96GB right now, so not even the largest iPod could handle it all.
Still, when my beloved and long-lived first generation iPod finally bites it, I'm going to hustle over the the Apple store and replace it before the earbuds even get cold.
BTW: I found you by way of Googling for Bok Bok Fresh. A friend mentioned the place on her blog and I wanted to check it out. Very, very nice portfolio! I especially like the flames you did for your own satisfaction. If you have the time, you should develop those into desktops and post them to www.macdesktops.com. Just a thought.
Posted by: El Suprimo at July 19, 2005 09:10 AMEl Suprimo
Your right. With the recent upgrade to combining the ipod and ipod photo the mp3 player is only getting better and more useful
Thanks for the comments on my portfolio. I appreciate it. That's great that the word about Bok Bok Fresh is getting around.
Posted by: micahellis at August 5, 2005 10:37 AMPlease note: Comments will not appear immediately. Your comment will appear upon approval by the blog's editor. We had to implement this to decrease the amount of spam that our site receives. Please forgive the inconvenience. We are looking into other, friendlier options.