Apple iPod Shuffle V1 Review

Overall Rating

Small.
Simple user Interface.

Color coded signal LED's are confusing.
Poor (Too tight) fitting USB Plug.
PC often failed to recognize the device was inserted. (Never a problem with my pen-drive).
Required iTunes software repeatedly crashed my OS on W2K.
IPod storage media managed to get itself in a twist with lost clusters in the first 20 mins of usage and required a scandisk, re-format and reinstall of firmware.
Can't move music files using file system and thus forced to use the very user unfriendly iTunes software.
Failed to playback half of my variable bit rate MP3's.
Failed to continue the play list once it encountered a "Unplayable MP3."
Failed to play at all in shuffle mode.
OFF/Shuffle switch is very tight and requires quite a bit of force to move (Caused the plastic to bend while operating the switch).

Time for a scathing attack on the marketing hype called the Apple iPod Shuffle (1GB). For once I give in to marketing hype and I get stung in a big way. I have been searching for the perfect MP3 player for my wife for quite a while now. I did consider the iPod Shuffle, hyped as the user friendly easy to use MP3 player. Well since Apple has such a big mouth about User Interfaces, it has to be good right? WRONG!

Sorry Apple zealots, my last experience with Apple is at least 10 years old and involved throwing my A: drive icon into the bin to eject it. If I can help it, my next experience will be at least 10 years from now (hopefully they will be out of business by then). The much hyped iPod Shuffle comes with a piece of crud software called iTunes.

The documentation was clear. Install iTunes first before you plug in the iPod shuffle. Honest to god, I did! The installation software wanted me to do differently but I resisted. Once I plugged in the iPod the fun really started. I ended up with major lost cluster issues in my system. A reboot and a scan-disk were required to fix that. The iTunes user interface was impossible to use and kept insisting on copying 1 gigabyte of MP3's that I didn't want to copy. iTunes kept prompting me to click on an OK button that wasn't there. I don't know how iTunes terminates normally because it never gets that far.

The iPod Shuffle itself wasn't much better, a poor fitting USB plug (way too tight) may have been the reason the device was detected only half the time on my W2K PC. The flat switch on the back is very difficult to operate and only slides when squeezed hard at which point the thin plastic casing starts to bend and groan.

Long story short it took me 3 hours of intense battle to get a few MP3 songs onto this thing. Disappointed that it is not possible to simply copy music files onto the iPod. It is clear that Apple tries to keep as much control as possible over what will play and what will not play on an iPlod since all music transfer MUST go though the iTunes Gestapo. I seem to have quite a few MP3 files that won't actually play on the iPlod. This thing is so stupid that it can't get past the files it can't play so I am forced to get in and remove the offending file from the iPlod. Running the thing in shuffle mode results in deafening silence. Indeed, the iPod shuffle can't shuffle!

Guess what this piece of crud is going back to the store! It is supposed to be a present for my wife but she has done nothing that bad to deserve this kind of torture. Apple is good in one thing only they managed to turn marketing it into a religion with many blind followers.

Members' Comments onDinther's Review

• duncanbayne on 4th Jul 2005

  I haven't used the iPod, but I've had some remarkably negative experiences with the iTunes software under Windows 2000. Drag & drop simply ceased working, so I can't now build playlists. I have tried everything, including installing the latest version of iTunes (4.9), but the problem is still happening - and no-one has responded to my query about the issue on the Apple discussion board. In addition to just plain not working, the iTunes interface is horrible. For starters it doesn't obey the Windows theme settings, it uses it's own chrome theme. This is outright rude; perhaps the developers ought to actually read the Windows UI guidelines sometime. If the iPod is made with the same loving care as the iTunes software, I'm surprised it didn't simply catch fire when you plugged it in.

• timbo on 17th Nov 2005

  The iPod Shuffle was the first mp3 player that i owned and you can critise it all you want, but in the end it does the job. You can listen to music with ease. And if some people have problems with putting songs on it then they must have made a mistake some-where. And in this review it states that all files must be dowloaded through iTunes, that is incorrect. There are other ways to put files on the shuffle. The shuffle does the job that it was made to do, what more do you want from it?

• Styve100 on 29th Nov 2005

  hi Guys, really sad to hear you had such trouble with itunes and the ipod. iTunes only works on XP very well, this is, surprisingly like OS X on macs! You can select any settings for the updating of ipods through itunes, ie let it loads songs itself or you specify. alternatively you can use the shuffle as a 1gb removeable drive which I have done, its easy, just comes up as another drive letter, does on windows too. drag files to it as well as most music files etc except wma files, and if music files are present along with your cv on word files, it will play the music, take the ipod to your friends miles away listen to your music and print off your cv, easy.