IPod shuffle (1st generation)

Life Is Random

The iPod Shuffle was released on January 11, 2005 in the Macworld conference in San Francisco. It's goal is to go after the remaining 30% of market share that belongs to Apple competitors. With the rest of the iPod line, Apple already had 70% of the digital audio player market.

Capacity & Pricing
The iPod shuffle comes in two different models. The first, which is $99 USD, is the 512MB model. It can hold 120 songs (based on a four minute AAC format song at 128-Kbps quality).

The second, which costs $129 USD, has 1GB of flash memory. It can hold 240 songs. In terms of storage, the 4GB iPod mini is actually a better deal at $199 for it's only $70 more, with four times the storage space. (Using this argument, the regular 20GB iPod is a still better deal, not to mention better deals from competitors.)

Technical Specifications
According to Apple, the iPod Shuffle is "smaller than a pack of gum and much more fun".

Physical Appearance and Size
The shuffle is, like most other iPods, completely white. It has no screen, only a simple set of controls, a power button on the back, and a switch. The switch tells the iPod whether or not the user wants the songs shuffled. According to Apple, the Shuffle weighs less than one ounce and is the size of most pacages of gum. Shortly after its introduction, the Apple website politely reminded users not to eat iPod Shuffle.

Shuffle
The feature that gave it it's name - Shuffle. It shuffles your songs automatically. As Apple says on their website, "Your songs. A million different ways." To activate it, just move the switch at the back to the Shuffle position.

This feature was actually the point of the iPod shuffle. Steve Jobs said at Macworld that the most popular feature on an iPod was the shuffle function, so they made an iPod just for it!

Playlist
If you just got a new album and want to listen to it, or for some other reason that you don't want your music shuffled, you can use the Playlist mode. This allows you to listen to playlists created on iTunes. Just bring the playlist to the top of the list in iTunes. To use it, flip the switch at the back to Playlist position.

Hold
Like other iPods, hold mode is for when you don't want to press buttons while in your pocket and such. Hold mode can be activated by pressing the Play/Pause button for three seconds. To turn it off, do the same thing.

As an alternative, many people have a lanyard for their Shuffle, so they do not need to use hold mode.

Navigation
Navigation is purely elementary. + for volume up, - for down. << for previous song, >> for the next song. The middle is play when not playing, and pause when playing. It can also be used as the hold function (listed above).

Unlike the other models, you can't scroll by moving your finger around the circle, as there is no navigation menu to navigate, and the volume controls are already taken care of.

Uploading Songs
A shuffle user can choose from two ways of uploading songs: Autofill or Drag and Drop. Using Autofill, iTunes can either randomly choose songs or choose higher rated songs and then completely fill the Shuffle. Drag and Drop allows the user to choose songs or playlists to upload to the Shuffle, which then can be played back in the same order thusly eliminating the shuffle nature of the Shuffle. The Shuffle is very similar to USB Thumb Drives, as it only has a USB connector.