iPod Shuffle 4th Generation - 2010

[LightShadow]

Recently bought my first ever iPod today, and it was the iPod Shuffle 4G. I decided to get it as I love the new design and price.

The Box

The box is quite small considering the size of previous generation boxes. To make the box more green, and as Apple call it "cuter" they made the boxes small and curved.

On first opening the box you will see the iPod Shuffle attached to a bit of plastic, in which you need to peel off to remove the iPod. Then after the "Designed in California" text flap. You will discover a booklet of manuals including a Quick Start Guide and a Apple Sticker. The only other things in the box are the apple headphones (Normal without remote) and the usb cable. The usb cable has a 3.5mm jack instead of a 30-pin connector and is considerably shorter than cables for the other iPods.

The Main Points

So getting onto the main item itself, the iPod Shuffle. This redesign in 2010 brings the return of the buttons that got removed in the 3rd generation iPod shuffle. Many people hated the design without the buttons so apple has bought them back in a design similar to the 2nd generation. But making the iPod thinner, and the buttons are larger. The other big change is that it has brought voiceover from the 3rd generation over.

The first thing you have to do as with all iPods is connect to iTunes, after going through registration it will ask you to name it. Also it will ask you if you want to enable voiceover, if you do. You choose the language and it will download the files. Then you can sync your music and podcasts to it. Another good idea would be to check for updates, as when I got mine it promoted to update to 1.0.1 which brought along some bug fixes and a great feature - locking. So you can hold down the Play/Pause button till you hear a lock (Like when pressing sleep on a iOS Device) and then all buttons don't respond. Then you just hold again till you hear a unlock (Like iOS) and it's back to normal. Great feature to avoid changing songs.

After you have synced, you just turn on the device by sliding the little power slider over to the left. You slide it all the way to the left for the Shuffle mode, or in the middle to play in normal order. Then it plays just like a normal MP3 player. Using volume + & -, Play/Pause and Foward/Backwards. The forward/backwards buttons can also be help down to jump parts in the song. But the best feature is the voiceover button. On the shuffle, there is a new button right next to the headphone jack and the power switch. If you press this once, it will read the name of the song out. Press it twice to hear the battery status, and hold it down to hear your playlists on the device. Playlists work very well, using |>> and <<| to change through playlists and ►|| to select.

Pros

• Easy to Use
  
• Available in a variety of Colours (Blue/Green/Orange/Pink/Silver)
  
• Small size and strong clip
  
• Disk Usage (You set aside space for it, and it will appear in "Explorer"/"Finder" and you can use it to store your files)
  
• Compatible with Mac or Windows
  
• A Great Price (£39 from Apple/£35 elsewhere) and is cheaper than previous versions
  

Cons

• The small size means it's easy to lose
  
• You are restricted to using iTunes just like other iPods
  
• Voiceover can be very off (For example, favourites is pronouced fav-o-rites instead of fav-our-ites)
  
• Not Fully or Officially compatible with Linux
  

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

I would also add another con being that a large number of iPod Accessories won't work with the iPod Shuffle.

Nice review though. My first iPod was a 2G Shuffle.