Damn Google outbid us again! And we really put our hearts into those brownies.
Our New iPod Shuffle Totally ROCKS!
Notes: Before we get anymore snarky comments, 2G means second-generation, 1 GB means one gigabyte. Also, we used our MacBook’s iSight camera for these pictures. That’s why they, uh, suck. You’ll find purtier pictures here.
First off, for the 5 or 6 readers that care, we’re 99.99 percent sure our new 2G iPod has a push-pull amplifier. This is very very sweet. We say 99.99 percent sure because we don’t have an oscilloscope handy, but let’s just say it sounds at least as good as the 1G shuffle, even at deafening volumes, and puts our otherwise-decent 2nd-gen iPod mini to shame. Compared to the 1G, audiophiles will also appreciate the added AIFF support.
What most people will care about is its size. Ohhhh, it’s tiny. Our pictures below don’t do it justice. You have to feel its sheer lightness and teeniness in your hand to realize how ridiculous it is that you can get 12 hours of rich playback from 240 songs in this teeny little paperclip thing. It’s like having a 2-months-premature baby doing your calculus homework. Check out our pictures comparing the 2G shuffle to the 1G model (yeah, we lost the USB cap) and some common, er, household objects.
It is true that the 2G shuffle does not get the swanky new rubbery and coverless earbuds that ship with the new nanos. Apple’s not being sneaky, you can see the obviously old earbuds on the shuffle’s web site. Also, it’s not to say that the headphones aren’t a fresh design. Check out the picture below; clearly the new headphone plug is shorter and less rounded than the old one.
. not that we noticed that. Shut up. Anyway, they’re otherwise identical to the old buds and still come with those silly black covers. Tim Cook must have over-ordered the old design and had to find something cheap to dump them on. Whatever, the earbuds sound great with the sweet push-pull amp.
Also in the package is the new shuffle dock:
Look at that upside-down logo. Remember the Pismo PowerBook? Ahh, good times. Anyway, previously you had to pay $30 for a shuffle dock. The new dock is equally tiny and has nicely weighted, rubberized bottom, just like your mom. The dock is necessary for connectivity as the 2G shuffle runs USB through its headphone jack, and only the dock has the special 4-pin headphone plug for USB, wheras the old shuffle had a built-in standard USB plug. This makes the 2G less useful as a USB flash drive, though you do get a $30 piece of plastic for free now. Call it a wash.
Speaking of USB, we had transfer rates of about 3 MB per second, about twice as fast as our 1G shuffle, and about on par with a new Nano. Check out iFixit’s take-apart if you’re curious about the innards. Note that the vast majority of the interior volume is taken by the battery.
While some nerds may decry how much space it takes up relative to the rest of the pod, we love the built-in clip. It feels surprisingly substantial, and will attach to just about anything. It’s especially nice for a jeans pocket. No more feeling up your pockets for the skip button, now it just clips over unobtrusively.
There’s no longer a separate battery indicator button, so it just displays battery status through the main indicator light whenever you turn it on. Actually, there are redundant indicator lights in both white panels. Works for us. We also dig the new separate aluminum switches for power and shuffling. While teeny, they’re much less fiddly than the 1G’s slidey switch.
Wrapping it up, If you’d overlooked the shuffle before as too primitive compared to a regular iPod, you’ll do yourself a favor by giving it a second glance. At $79, it’s the same price as a Radio Remote and the Camera Connector for your current ‘Pod. Or, $20 LESS than the A/V kit. Or, instead of an iPod Hi-Fi, you could buy a shuffle and three more for your family, and have $30 left over. Any way you choose to rationalize it, it’s a bargain.
Cons: -No built-in USB connector -Old-school earbuds
Overall Score: Aww yeeah, it totally ROCKS.
Posted by AtAT2 on Sunday, November 05, 2006 @ 6:42 PM Permanent Link 205 comments
Источник
As the apple turns
(Welcome to the World of Endless Reruns! Two decades ago, As the Apple Turns (AtAT) was a daily web-based soap opera obsessively following the melodramatic ins and outs of all things Apple. Now the archives are broadcasting in syndication, so each day you can see what life was like 20 years ago when Apple was still the underdog, all in not-so-fabulous RetroVision™ !)
December 10, 2001: Apple meets— and beats— its goal of opening twenty-five retail stores by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the first real iPod updater is out, which perks up units that are overly lethargic, and a second Power Mac fire survivor leads us to wonder whether all Power Macs are similarly flame-retardant.
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Exceeding Expectations (12/10/01)
Let the word go forth: this past Saturday, Apple officially met an original deadline— without moving the finish line, and without sneakily changing the specifics of what would be delivered. (Those of you who remember when the Premiere release of «Rhapsody» was supposed to ship back in early 1998 should feel free to take a moment to be appropriately stunned.) You see, last May Uncle Steve officially took the wraps off one leg of his elaborate scheme for world domination— namely, the bit about opening retail stores. At that time, Steve indicated that Apple would have no fewer than twenty-five locations with cash registers a-ringin’ by year’s end.
Color us suitably impressed, then, that on Saturday, less than seven months after the official announcement of that lofty goal, Apple hit its deadline: the Rockingham Park location is Magic Number Twenty-Five, and Apple beat its deadline by over three full weeks. The AtAT staff feels blessed to have been present at such a momentous occasion. As proof of our attendance, we’d like to point out that faithful viewers Dundee and Macintech both spotted us in several photos published over at MacCentral; we’ll leave it to you to pick our various body parts out of the crowd. (Figuratively speaking, of course. Eeeeww.)
But wait, there’s more: on the same exact day— indeed, just minutes after meeting its original twenty-five-store goal— Apple exceeded its target and opened its twenty-sixth store at Palisades in West Nyack, New York. We noticed over at MacNN that a gentleman named Brian Burton has posted photos of that grand opening, but as far as we can tell, the AtAT staff doesn’t appear in any of them. Curse the laws of time, space, and dimension. (But we think we spot an AtAT t-shirt in this shot.) In any case, congrats to Apple on overdelivering; does this mean that the company’s true calling is neither software development nor hardware design— but retail? A question for the ages.
While you’re chewing on that one, Apple isn’t standing still; faithful viewer Luke pointed out that the CambridgeSide store is now in the on-deck circle on Apple’s retail page. As usual, no date is given, but the odds are good that the grand opening will take place this Saturday morning. Yes, the AtAT staff will be there (this’ll be our fifth), and we’re hoping for a better crowd than at the Rockingham Park opening, which was fun, but a little on the light side. Boston area Mac fans, come on down and say hi to us there— we’ll be hanging around for the first couple of hours, handing out stickers and hawking shirts as usual. Like you have anything better to do on a Saturday.
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The Best Just Got Better (12/10/01)
You know the old adage, «it ain’t really shipped ’til the first bug fix is out»? Well, digital music fans, rejoice— for the iPod has finally «really shipped.» Last Friday Apple posted the iPod Software Updater 1.0.2, and while it’s true that the 1.0 version appeared a month earlier, we seem to recall that it didn’t actually do anything except restore an iPod to its from-the-factory minty-fresh condition. 1.0.2, on the other hand, actually fixes an «issue» and adds new capabilities, thus making it an honest-to-goodness «updater» (as opposed to the last release, which was more of a «do-nothinger.»)
The «issue» in question is a sleep bug «that can cause a small percentage of iPods to temporarily not wake from sleep when the battery reaches a low charge level.» Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first officially acknowledged iPod bug! So if you’ve occasionally found your iPod so sleepy you can’t even wake it up after plugging it into the wall and only a hard reset will snap it back to life, this firmware update is just the kick in the scroll-wheel your iPod has been waiting for.
Even if your iPod isn’t particularly narcoleptic, you should apply the 1.0.2 update anyway, because it also functions as a sort of Matrix-style set of instantaneous night school classes. Give it a spin and you’ll find that your iPod has suddenly gained additional linguistic capabilities; out of the box it spoke English, French, German, and Japanese, but after the language crash-course included in the 1.0.2 update, it’ll be able to handle Spanish, Italian, and Dutch as well. Now, we can already hear the cries of outrage from the non-English/French/German/Japanese/Spanish/Italian/Dutch-speakers in the crowd: «What, no Swahili? No Klingon?» Keep your pants on, Chuckles; they had to save something for 1.0.3.
Those of you who have unselfishly purchased iPods for others as holiday gifts and have them stashed away in the closet, we imagine that right about now you’re wondering whether it’s kosher to take them out and play with th— uh, update their firmware. Indeed it is; in fact, it’s practically your responsibility. After all, you don’t want to be the one who gave someone a crashing iPod, right? So pop open those boxes and update away. Feel free to test the devices under actual battle conditions for a few days before returning them to their original packaging, just to verify that they work properly. Handy tip: fingerprints wipe off easily with a soft, lint-free cloth.
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Fire? Ha! We Scoff At Fire (12/10/01)
A couple of weeks ago we told you about an Australian Power Mac G4 that, despite having been horribly disfigured by intense heat, managed to survive a fire that killed a slew of lesser Wintels. Once the unit had been literally sawn open, all three of its hard disks were found to be in perfect working order with zero data loss; the RAM and SCSI cards worked; and once a display had been plugged into the charred monitor port, the owners discovered to their astonishment that the system still booted up just fine. At the time we suggested that this UberMac be sent back to Apple for breeding purposes, because it clearly possessed some sort of super powers to have withstood a blaze that melted its enclosure almost beyond recognition.
Well, now we’ve got to retract that suggestion— not because the survival of that Power Mac was anything short of miraculous, but rather because all Power Macs with the Yosemite-style enclosure might possess the same miraculous fireproof characteristics. Faithful viewer Blondie tipped us off to a Spanish article which we gather (thanks to a heaping helping of Babelfish translation) describes a blue-and-white Power Mac G3 that emerged from another inferno similarly intact. (WARNING: there are photos of the charred G3, and while the unit is basically fine in every way except aesthetically, viewers with more sensitive constitutions may find the graphic images upsetting.)
Two fires, two Power Macs, and two survivors (despite the ugly scarring) while all around, PCs choked and died. Coincidence? We think not. Now, we are by no means telling you that your Power Mac is magically fireproof, or anything, and we certainly don’t want to get any irate mail from viewers who chucked their Macs in the fireplace because we told you they’d be fine. Nor do we need the AtAT compound to be surrounded by angry villagers wielding torches and pitchforks who had all decided to throw their Macs into a huge pile, douse them with lighter fluid, and toss in a match, expecting that after the bonfire they’d all be able to plug into a hub and have a big ol’ Quake 3 LAN party. In short, kiddies, do not try this at home. For all we know these two fireproof Macs were anomalies.
Betcha they weren’t, though.
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Previously, on As the Apple Turns. December 7, 2001: Evidence of a January LCD iMac intro continues to mount. Meanwhile, the proposed penalty in the continuing «Redmond Justice» case aims to keep Office available for the Mac, and some iBook-enabled students in Henrico County get busted performing some additional and unsanctioned ‘net-based «research».
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