It has a capacity of 4GB, or approximately 1,000 songs.
Check this baby out
But something I noticed... Is it really that much of a "baby"?
Look at the comparison between the old iPod shuffle and the quarter (below). Compared to the picture above - not much of a size difference is there.
Image is from http://www.sigonlegacy.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/ipod1.jpg
Upon researching the dimensions of the two, here is what I discovered:
2nd/3rd generation iPod shuffle: 1.07 inches tall x 1.62 inches wide = 1.7334 square inches
4th generation iPod shuffle: 1.8 inches tall x 0.7 inches wide = 1.26 square inches
This is a difference of a little over 27% - pretty significant - but comparing them head to head, why is it that the new one seems so much smaller?
It's the proportions, combined with the visual changes of taking away the hard controls, which left breathing room in the 2nd and 3rd generations' appearance.
A specific example to prove this theory: I have sold over 150 BlackBerry 7290 cell phones. At $60.00 each, one would think it's being sold at a bargain price. Of those 150 sold - I have had to deal with dozens of rejections that could have turned into potential sales.
Why?
Because I kept getting remarks like this
"It's such an old phone..."
"Too big for me"
"I don't think my wife will want to deal with the bulk of the phone. I'll have to pass."
These were said just by looking at the phone, and never actually touching it.
Some of them had asked me about my iPhone and how I liked it, as they were considering getting one instead when it comes out (this was during a time when the iPhone was not yet officially released in Canada, so everyone was envious).
Rather than to be snide to the customer, I kept it to myself that the 7290 was, indeed, the same size as the iPhone. Seriously. Look at this.
The BlackBerry looks a lot larger right? See below image to compare widths...
The difference: 1.7mm, or 22%. But note how the BlackBerry's height is less than the iPhone's, therefore exaggerating the width.
Much like the hard controls on the shuffle, the buttons on the BlackBerry give it a cluttered, less streamlined appearance, and as such, makes it look larger.
In reality, statistically, they had nothing to complain about in the way of size. Mind you, the BlackBerry is significantly thicker than the iPhone - but if they never even bothered to look the BlackBerry over, they'd never be able to notice the thickness.
Now, enough about the sizing and appearance, let's talk about the functionality.
As I had mentioned, the hard controls have been removed. The instantaneous question would be, "then, how do you change the song being played?".
The smart answer would be "You don't. If you've got a song on your iPod, that means you like it, right? What would your reason for changing it be?"
I've got to adopt that mentality myself. I have 141 songs and listen to 20, maybe 30 of them.
The real answer is that it's all done through headphone-based controls. The standard stuff such as play/pause and skip/previous are there - even volume control. But I believe that the feature that they added to this generation is the one that is going to sell it best, whether they changed the appearance or not.
It talks to you. At the press of a button, you can request that it announces which song is playing, which playlists are available to you, and even the battery life!
Not only that, but it can be done in English - as well as 13 other languages. Check out the
The USA Today review of it can be seen here:
My take:
Pros: Sexiest iPod yet. Can't wait to see the rest of the new lineup. Voiceover feature is a real breakthrough. The price is right at $79 - for 2x the storage of the old shuffle at the same price.
Cons: Battery life was reduced by 2 hours. So small that you might lose it. Must use Apple earbuds.
Next steps: There's an opportunity here to charge an extra x amount for special voiceovers.
I.e. if somebody really likes Katy Perry's voice, and they want that voice to do the talking when requesting a song name, for $0.29 on top of the cost of the song, Katy Perry's announcement of the song's name can be had as well. All it is on Perry's part is a simple matter of saying "I kissed a girl and I liked it" once - and 10,000 purchases of the add-on = $2,900.00 in extra revenue.
Just thought I'd add as a final comment... the sizing of this iPod looks something like what was featured on David Letterman in June of 2007 when he was talking about the iPhone. Size-wise, I do believe he predicted correctly a year and a half later! Here is the video to which I am referring:
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