Ipod shuffle?

[big_pete]

Hey guys
I'm thining about buying an ipod shuffle but I was wondering if the battery runs out in two years like normal ipods?
If you've have had one or heard any rumours about them breaking or anything please post away!
Cheers Pete

[roasted]

one thing that most people dont know about Ipods: you can get a aftermarket batterry for 30 bucks.

wjen mine breaks, thats what Ill be doing.

and I doubt it, the battery nit will be significantly smaller on the shuffle. whats te point of the shuffle anyway? its hardly any different to other flash based players on the market, is it?

[donthucktoflat]

there is ONE major difference.. it is 512Meg (or a gig) and it has no display, it is apple and it is twice as much as any other 512Mb flash player (even ones with a screen)

[benji boy]

Personall i dont like them i think they are ok but if u fall on them u will break it and if u drop it might snap i to bits and if u want some thing with an ipod name or apple logo get a normal ipod or a mini

[lotec]

and it is twice as much as any other 512Mb flash player (even ones with a screen)
not some of the irivers....

[Simo]

in all seriousness can someone please explain to me the advantages of a shuffle over another mp3 player? All I see it as is a player that is somewhat useless as you can't choose your next track or playlist whereas on any other mp3 player you can plus they all have a shuffle/random setting anyway.
I might be missing something but atm it just looks like the Ipod marketing machine keeps sucking people into buying an inferior product.

[lotec]

in all seriousness can someone please explain to me the advantages of a shuffle over another mp3 player?
there arnt any.

[bazza]

think a bit more. they are playing on brand loyalty/status here. if someone wants an ipod, say the major market for 13-18 year olds.....'in theory' wants an 'ipod'. they are going to go and look at what is there. if they dont have 400 bucks floating around than they can get the 200 buck one (or however much the pos is) and ta da. they have the status of owning an ipod but for half the price. also for xmas and bday pressies where parents want to get there kids what they want but they can get it a lot cheaper ;), so obivously instead of going with another product they can still get the ipod. so hopefully all that makes sense. just came from a consumer behaviour lecture brains still kinda numb from boredom. i am fairly sure that they will get good sales from them though. they dominated the market so well that im sure expanding it to a lower price bracket will pay off for them. blah blah blah blah. apple makes money blah blah. good on em.

[DRUM]

i personally like the idea of the shuffle.

its low price and has adequate space. see the thing is i want something for pysical activity . ie trials riding by myself.

1)long battery life.
2) no screen to scratch
3) random playlist.. i dont want to hop off my bike to change songs'
4) small
5) light
6) got enough space to last a few rides.

seems like the perfect riding companion..

i wouldnt trust myself with a 600$ ipod tho.

[Maffew]

Whats a good alternative to a shuffle for rougly the same price?

[MUGEN]

CREATIVE makes all sorts of mp3 players similar to the shuffle. Just go to the shop and find it!

[big_pete]

How many songs do you guys think it could hold on it?

Thanks for all your replys so far I appreciated them!

[cE]

How many songs do you guys think it could hold on it?

Thanks for all your replys so far I appreciated them!

Big Pete, this link should answer most of the questions you have on the Shuffle:

http://forums.ipodlounge.com/showthread.php?threadid=68561

[GoingDHfast]

I refuse to buy an Ipod for the simple reason that Apple (as far as I know) demand to control the software you use to connect to their hardware. By this I mean that you need to use "ITunes" to connect and transfer music to and from an IPod. Part of the beauty of MP3 for me is plug and play. (Being able to connect it to any computer with XP and have the player appear as a portable hard disk).

Also, the software downloads tracks in an iTunes/iPod-only format that cannot be burned except within iTunes and can't be played by Windows Media Player.

I would look at either a creative or an Iriver.

[Ivan]

iTunes can rip music into mp3 format, you just have to select which format you want to use in one of the preference menu's.... it just doesn't like WMA's

iTunes is pretty important when you're trying to manage 5000 + songs. A drag and drop system wouldn't allow playlists or an effective search method. itunes also isn't a bad program for playing music from your iPod through your computer speakers.

As for getting music off other peoples computers all you have to do is use the iPod like a hard drive then put the songs onto the ipod with itunes when you get home. Sure its a bit of messing around but it's not too bad.

[neko]

You can connect it to any pc and copy mp3's to it. You don't have to use ITunes. Good to know you've boycoted them though, they'll be feeling that one come end of financial year.

As for a device that compares, just about any flash based mp3 player will be much the same. The advantages of the Shuffle are that it's cheap being about $20-$30 cheaper than the Creative alternative. It's simple, yes it just playes a random play list but I guess the assume you won't put songs on that you don't want to listen to. It looks good, Apple make attractive products, no getting away from it.

In the end, all of those things are kind of irelevant. They don't set the shuffle apart from any other players other than in price but you do lose functionality for that. I personally use my PDA to play my music.

[LTR]

Ipod Mini's are $249 atm. Pretty close to a 1gb Ipod shuffle in price.

[Hex515]

My suggestion is to not get a cheapo thata doesn't have a guaranteed battery life... I did like 3 years ago and it has 1 hour battery life which is sooooo annoying.

[GoingDHfast]

You can connect it to any pc and copy mp3's to it.

Copy being the operative word. Play, on the other hand and as I said you need to use their proprietary software...

Good to know you've boycoted them though, they'll be feeling that one come end of financial year.

Interesting how Apple has this strange ability to make their customers passionately (and often irrationally) defend their products - even if it comes to personal insults over petty things like this.

[danv]

Personall i dont like them i think they are ok but if u fall on them u will break it and if u drop it might snap i to bits and if u want some thing with an ipod name or apple logo get a normal ipod or a mini
Dude, I think they would be a lot less likely to break in a fall compared to any HDD player. Small piece of plastic falling to the ground barely makes an impact. Probably much more likely to break when stepped on, but in terms of dropping, the lighter the better. The less mass, the smaller the slap the ground gives your player. Not to mention the shock resistance of solid state chips compared to Hard Drives.

As for a shuffle, have a look at what else is available. Unless it REALLY suits your specific requirements, its a piece of junk.

[Avanti_Racing]

in my opinion i like to choose what to listen to which is why i have one of the big ipods, i didn't think they had screens, theyre small enough, and cheap enough but you might aswell get one for 200 bucks odd like a creative with a screen and just buy a rechargable battery, thats what i'd be doing because it shits me when i dont know what im listening to, my opinion though, upto you, go to dick smith and ask if you can try it out there or something adn sus it out there and then.

simo i owe you 10 bucks and a set of tyre levers still.

[tombre2]

i think the shuffle is sick, saves you choosing the songs, it hold 250 songs, thats like 10hrs of music and that plenty of music for only $150

[W2ttsy]

yet again, time to dispeal all the false crap that is being injected by the members here on farkin...

(think of me as an Apple version of S. or Rik)

1) iPod shuffle can play your songs as they appear in your playlist (iTunes). there are THREE settings. off, playlist, shuffle.

2) you can use other applications appart from iTunes to manage your iPod. Music Match JukeBox used to be the bundled software before iTunes PC was available. but iTunes is a FREE download, and a worthwhile application.

3) All iPods can play music in the following formats. AIFF, MP3, M4a/AAC, Apple Lossless encoding, Wav.

4) iTunes can convert all your songs to the above formats, and the PC version will happily convert into WMA aswell (why is beyond me. its a shit format). also it offers a yet to be rivalled system for management of playlists and songs. WMP doesnt even save playlists, so what use is it?

5) the shuffle is only the size of a PK packet, so its not a big item. bundles of keys would be bigger. its solid state, and for the capacity, id be hard pressed to find anything else with the same value. also, if you are a TAFE or Uni Student, you can get an education discount on the 1Gb model. it ends up being $204.75

6) as for the store being DMCA controlled, well stiff shit. all online stores have similar policies. and since the ITMS is not available in australia, its a moot point.

7) Boycott apple if you must, but since they have a 92% stranglehold on the Digital Music Player industry, i doubt you are going to dent it anytime soon.

8) you can use the the iPod shuffle, as well as any other iPod model) as a portable hard drive. great for storing files on when you dont have access to a DVDR or CDR drive.

They are sexy, affordable and in my opinion offer the best solution. i have a 15Gb one, and just got my hands on a 1Gb shuffle for my brother. a pretty decent birthday present for him too.

W2ttsy

[GoingDHfast]

- Apples unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months.
http://ipodsdirtysecret.com/
Yes, this might have been "fixed" now - but to me I think its a sign of apples not so good intentions. What sort of company designs a "high quality" power intensive product with a non-replaceable battery? One that wants to sell more Ipods! Of course Apple would have asked its engineers to ensure the battery outlasted its 12 month warranty, but not by too long please!

- W2ttsy, you managed to avoid my main gripe with the Ipod - the fact that it has no plug and play functionality within XP... (I'm talking drag and drop playable music here)

- Apple did research into the main things consumers liked about the Ipod - number 1 was that it was percieved as "sexy" (as you said W2ttsy). Personally, thats not something I look for in a portable sound device - more important to me are things like digital optical out support, something the Ipod lacks.

[W2ttsy]

- Apples unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months.
http://ipodsdirtysecret.com/
Yes, this might have been "fixed" now - but to me I think its a sign of apples not so good intentions. What sort of company designs a "high quality" power intensive product with a non-replaceable battery? One that wants to sell more Ipods! Of course Apple would have asked its engineers to ensure the battery outlasted its 12 month warranty, but not by too long please!

The battery is replaceable, just not USER REPLACEABLE. meaning that you can go to the AppleStore within or out of your warrenty and have it replaced. THe new battery is $30 and the standard service fee is $45 an hour. For those who value their iPods, they will purchase the extra 2 years of warrenty for $99 (AppleCare iPod)...
and to be honest, 18 months out of a battery in a high usage device like an iPod is a great ask. i bet your player wouldnt last 18 months using the same AA batteries.


- W2ttsy, you managed to avoid my main gripe with the Ipod - the fact that it has no plug and play functionality within XP... (I'm talking drag and drop playable music here)

The iPod is not plug and play in Mac OS X either. this is due to the special library system on the iPod. this system is mainly to allow for the DMCA legislation. preventing users from being able to copy files onto their iPods from external machines. Also how is a user supposed to create a nice custom playlist (or multiple lists) using drag and drop? its not a feasible concept.


- Apple did research into the main things consumers liked about the Ipod - number 1 was that it was percieved as "sexy" (as you said W2ttsy). Personally, thats not something I look for in a portable sound device - more important to me are things like digital optical out support, something the Ipod lacks.

Yes, because all iPod users have high fidelity stereo systems in their backpacks for listening to their music on the go. :rolleyes: its a PORTABLE music player, not a $7000 home theatre system. if you dont like the sound of the iPod headphones then go out and buy some other ones, or maybe try encoding your mp3s at a higher bit rate than the default 128bit.

[thewayitis]

All right lets get some things straight
1. you can use other software to put music on your ipod. I use some called vpod it works like a treat and you can use it on any computer
2. you can replace the battery your self. buy the $30 battery and 6cm from the top on the side is a leaverage point you can open up you ipod with to replace it.
mines sitting on my desk in pieces drying because it had water spilt through it.
3.the music quality is second to none. its better then my minidisk.
4. strength- mine has been threw hell and back, it has been in water twice before and worked afterwards and also it has sand and shit on the inside so they are strong.

Basically you can change almost anything on a ipod. i have learnt how to hack an ipod. i can change any picture or display name on the ipod.
Im quite happy with mine and will be getting a ipod photo soon since this one is now completely water logged.
cheers
Chris

[naz]

in all seriousness can someone please explain to me the advantages of a shuffle over another mp3 player? All I see it as is a player that is somewhat useless as you can't choose your next track or playlist whereas on any other mp3 player you can plus they all have a shuffle/random setting anyway.
I might be missing something but atm it just looks like the Ipod marketing machine keeps sucking people into buying an inferior product.

exactly, ipod have only just broken into the solid state market, whereas a company like creative who have been making solid state players for 5years plu at a fraction of the costs, seems much more logical.

once again fashion over function.
12hour playback ahahaha
i know of a player that has 40hour+ with colour lcd screen 512 or 1g

buy it if ur another mainstream, brainwashed foo.

[Elbo]

the ipod is one of the simplest things i've ever used. Now i'm starting to see companies like Creative with the Zen touch's adopting touch pads and nearly identical interface's trying to bring apple simplicity to their products...
If buying an ipod makes you 'mainstream', does that mean people buying creative's and iRivers are only doing so to boycott the ipod?

function sells, but apple adds fashion.

[DRUM]

hey guys!

I just got IPoD shuFFle AND there SHITE!!! You can't Even FIRIKKEN see What song your l00king at!


I got to get rid of this piece of shite im only asking around 40$ cause its a piece of crap.