A day with the ipod shuffle 2

my shuffle 1 went dead, so yesterday i stopped by the apple store to pick up a shuffle 2.  one note about the apple store - clearly they hire people that are knowledgable about macs and ipods and stuff, but can’t they have at least one attractive woman per store?  the place is always like 90% guys, and the 10% of females that are there usually have a rosie o’donnel-ish feel.  i mean, you’ve probabaly seen the mac/pc ads where one kind of hip guy is representing the mac, and another stiff in a suit is representing the PC.  Man, i’d like to see that add with women.  i bet the apple girl would be a no-pit shaving, overweight hippie dyke.

In Fever Pitch they had drew barrymore to use a mac – why not hire one of those girls?  or is that just in the movies where attractive girls do use macs.  I mean, even fry’s, whose customer service sucks, manages to put a few attractive asian girls in tight pants around the store.

 anyway, the main debate about the shuffle 2 was whether or not to get one at all.  I had trouble choosing between the shuffle 2 and sony s2 sports walkman, a.k.a. the mp3 tampon (black).  the sony s2 is new, and very feature rich.  it comes in 1 and 2gb versions and unlike the shuffle 2 has a small OLED display.  the thing is also packed with workout features, like a pedometer, calorie counter, timer etc.  it will even recognize when you’re running, and change the music to a more fast paced playlist.

I was actually impressed that sony put so much work into the s2, and it was tough not to buy it.  i mean, japs really  love sony.  if this was the SATs the question/answer would be Black:Crack, Jap:Sony.  But one big turnoff about sony is that their sonicstage software is widely recognized as sucking heavily – plus i don’t need another music management app on my pc.  the s2 was actually a little bit too feature rich for my taste.  I wouldn’t have used the exercise functions very much at all, and i don’t think i would have even used the display when working out.  another thing is that the player is designed to be attached to your arm with the included armband, but i mean, it looks funny.  tampon jokes aside, it seems like it would get in the way and/or look like some sort of blood pressure monitoring device or something.

So, i got the shuffle 2.  the first thing that you’ll notice about the shuffle 2 is its slick packaging.  apple always is solid in this respect – and  the shuffle 2 is no exception.  it is encased in a little platic coffin-like box, suspended above a white background – i looks super slick.

The device itself is tiny.  if the shuffle 1 was a stick of gum, the shuffle 2 is a book of matches.  the weight is negligible and it will attach to pretty much any piece of clothing with the integrated clip.  actually, the shuffle 2 is so light that it will dangle from your earphones, although this does seem a little risky since it could be easily dropped that way.

the shuffle has a silver, aluminumy finish that seems durable enough, unlike scratch-prone ipods.  like the shuffle 1, it has no screen, so that may be a deal breaker for some.  one thing that stuck with me is that, y’know, there are a lot of small mp3 players out there, but most feel either cheaply built, or unsubstantial, or a mixture of both.  the shuffle 2, although it is very very light, still feels solid, looks and feels well designed, and is sturdy despite it’s size.  big plus there for apple.

i used the shuffle 2 for a couple hours in the gym.  i attached it to the bottom of my shirt, and ran the headphones under my shirt to my ears.  i liked this approach because it kept the shuffle from getting all sweaty, and kept it out of the way of arm motions.  also, by running the headphones under my shirt it kept the cord from getting caught up in equpiment and stuff.  that was important, since one of my biggest fears is that i’ll get tangled in a machine and get choked by this little bitch, which would be a hilarious story that would get a load of press that everyone would laugh at.

anyway, the shuffle 2 worked fine, sound was good and it was loud enough even in the noisy gym.  the controls were intuitive, although they are arrached in a circle and can be somewhat difficult to identify by touch, but i mean, who am i?  i can’t spare a second from my workout routine to look down at my shuffle 2?  s please.

the best thing about the shuffle 2 is that after a few minutes, you stop noticing it’s there.  it clips on sturdidly, and you just don’t have to worry about it, really.  this compares favorably to the shuffle 1, which was always swinging around my neck, especially when i used the laying-down machines.

to charge the shuffle 2, you insert it into this little white usb dock.  surprisingly, the thing charges through its earphone jack, which is a brilliant design feature that enables the device to maintain its small form factor.  a lot of reviewers have panned this feature, but i think apple did a good job here.  for one thing, the dock has a solid feel and it sits securely on your desk – it’s not like one of those plastic usb hubs with no weight or substance.  another thing is that it’s really a good place to store your shuffle 2, since the thing is so small that it can be easily lost.  and the whole contraption looks really slick.  i mean, it takes a lot for an mp3 player to secure space on my desktop, but this was not really a problem for the shuffle 2.

in terms of software, you use itunes and have to update it first.  i still don’t really get why everyone jocks itunes – i still like windows media player better, but oh well.  maybe it’s my computer (it’s not), but it takes a few annoying seconds to drag and drop songs into devices, and in that time itunes will often start doing something retarded like playing a song that i was trying to drop or scroll down to or something.  i mean, it was having enough trouble transfering – it shouldn’t really start doing anything else. 

the thing about the shuffle 2 is that you have to appreciate what it’s designed for.  it isn’t an jack-of-all-trades ipod video or zune, it’s more of a focused, niche-type player.  the shuffle 2 is like a goal line back – it won’t get carries every play like tiki barber, but it’ll get touches at the goal line because that what is designed for.  eh, not a great analogy, but you get the point.  i mean, you can bitch about how the shuffle 2 doesn’t have a screen, or you can get a nano.  the shuffle 2 is great if you’re going to spend a few hours in the gym, and have a solid list of songs that you will like to shuffle through.  but, it’s not for long listening marathons or cross-country flights.  it wins handedly in terms of size, while paying the price of features – but for me this is really a fair trade.

I mean, once you accept its role, it’s hard to say anything bad about the shuffle 2.  it’s just a simple, tiny mp3 player that works fine.  the niche it fills doesn’t have complex requirements, but at the same time, the shuffle 2 goes a long way in terms of innovation in even this relatively basic role.