I still see people that buy these things, which are $50 for 1 GB, as their main player. It makes no sense, it doesn’t even have a screen. A clip is a sport type mp3 player and is cheaper, has a screen, and has more features. That is, if the reason is because the person wants something for athletics. Otherwise, why not get a Fuze, or atleast something else? Just wondering.
I am considering getting a shuffle simply because of its lack of screen I can hide it easier and dont need to worry about cracks. I will most likly buy a clip but the shuffle does appeal to the part of me that always has a player on me but needs to hide it for meetings and such
Get a Clip. It’s more powerful, is equally concealable, and sounds better.
On the thought of a Shuffle, if you break the OLED display of the Clip, it will simulate a Shuffle. Or, you can easily place a strip of electrical tape over the display.
Bob :smileyvery-happy:
Black clothing made by a well-known designer is more expensive than colourful clothing with prints, dozens of pockets and ribbons. It has fewer gadgets, but is extremly good at what it does. Reduction to the basics, quality first.
In case of the Ipod Shuffle a screen would be contraproductive. It doesn’t fulfill any purpose for the task the device is made for. The device has to be as small and light as possible, store a few hours of music and play it. Nothing more.
Given a blank slate, the purpose of a media player is to make music. The problem is that one needs a convenient method of deciding just what music one would like to listen to. The display fits this need, especially if you have several GB of capacity.
Bob 
The other way of deciding is to put the music on the device you want to listen to and just shuffle. A display and megagigabytes of memory are useful for music libraries.
The Ipod Shuffle may not be good at being a ones only MP3 player. It is an excellent, unmatched second device. That is not although but because nearly all the competitors come with bells and whistles.
That said it is not cheap. But at the moment at last here you can get it as free bonus for a lot of contracts like magazines or bank accounts. (That certainly is not profitable if you don’t need the contract, but there are quite a lot of them so one time or the other you will find one you needed anyway.)
Message Edited by Ing on 12-27-2008 03:19 PM
And with the importance that some people place on seeing the album art, file type, bit-rate, Artist, Album, Title, etc., having a Shuffle with no display would be akin to poking their eyes out with a stick! It has to be someone who just needs to hear music and that’s ALL they care about, nothing else to want and/or enjoy the Shuffle player. Kinda like turning on the TV or radio just for ‘background’ noise, not really ‘listening’ to it.
Imo a better question to ask is why Sandisk made the Slotmusic player without a display and without a clip on the back? If they had priced it at $25 or $30 rather than $20 but added a basic display , a clip on the back, and also gave it sound quality at least equal to the Clip then imo it would be a very exciting player. A 4 gig Clip at under $50 is exciting though. Why would someone buy a 1 gig player without a display at the same price as a 4 gig player with a display, FM radio, and voice recorder?
Using a MP3 player for listening to music and not for fiddling around with it is blasphemy?
There are a lot of people out there who care for music but not a deuce for all that techno-fiddling that comes with the complicated players. (Like the slot player - with display and extra features it would be exactly the opposite of what it now should be.) There are a lot of people who even have problems with selecting and transferring music on and from their PC - without the hassle of a completely different usage philosophy on the device (just look into this forum, especially now directly after christmas). They can switch on the Ipod Shuffle or the Slot Player (or… not much more there) - and just enjoy music! Not everyone is born in the techie generation that spent endless hours learning different usage philophies in different games and operating systems and is willing to do this just for listening to music. For them such a simple to use device with fewer features is not a minus, but a big plus.
From my time on the iPod forums, the most common scenario I heard was that the Shuffle would be the second player. They’d rate a lot of their music on their iPod (some of these guys are obsessive about rating their music), then have the top-rated music automatically loaded on the Shuffle. So they could carry around the tiny little player and hear their favorite songs…sort of a personalized top 40 radio.
As a primary device, there are a lot of teenagers who only listen to singles, one kind of music, and doen’t have a lot of songs. They’ll probably be shuffling through the same stuff that’s on the radio, just without all the chatter and commercials. A lot of it is probably illegal downloads, and the tags are probably hosed up anyway.
I was never in either of these categories. :smiley:
Message Edited by bdb on 12-27-2008 04:28 PM
Amazing what Apple can do. I imagine them having meetings where they ponder how much they can charge for a new device.
What’s it cost to manufacture?
About 25 bucks.
Let’s post sticker price as $325. and hype up the marketing…make 'em wait 6 months or so.
In a year we’ll let dealers cut the price by $5.
How many did we make?
70 million.
We’ll be sold out in a week…
Do it.
Meeting adjourned.
You can just fix the tags using a program though. Don’t think of it as illegally downloading either. If you buy a CD and loan it to a friend so he can rip it onto his mp3 player, are you not essentially doing the same thing-sharing music with other people?
"There are a lot of people out there who care for music but not a deuce for all that techno-fiddling that comes with the complicated players. (Like the slot player - with display and extra features it would be exactly the opposite of what it now should be.) "
I don’t want complicated features, just a basic display. I want the Slotmusic player to be a replacement for a portable CD player. Something easy to use, that has a basic text display, no computer connectivity, and an easy to swap standard sized battery. Many portable CD players also had both AM and FM radio. I would like a Slotmusic player to have this as well. I have a Fuze and find that I can’t recommend it to those I know who are are computer phobic, or who rarely use a computer and don’t like using one. They still want a radio though(including AM), and of course they also want a basic text display. Just a direct replacement for a CD player that is in a smaller and lighter package, has no computer connectivity, that is as easy to use, and plays removable media.
I just had a thought.
Some people will get excited over anything in colorful anodized aluminum. I fall into that category too. Racing stuff, man.
I have to give credit where it’s due, and though they forgot all about the requisite display, the case is pretty.
Bob
@conversionbox wrote:
I am considering getting a shuffle simply because of its lack of screen I can hide it easier and dont need to worry about cracks. I will most likly buy a clip but the shuffle does appeal to the part of me that always has a player on me but needs to hide it for meetings and such
@I Made the Decission and bought the clip and slot music tonight. I found a clip 2 gig for $25 at an Office Depot that is closing. It was listed @ 40.00 then 20% off and since it was the last one they had I was able to talk them down. I paid full price for the slotmusic at Best Buy, plus I got the Jimmy Hendrix card. The clip will go with me to formal events, the slot music will get hooked in to my office sterio, and the fuze will go everywhere else
@neutron_bob wrote:
I just had a thought.
Some people will get excited over anything in colorful anodized aluminum. I fall into that category too. Racing stuff, man.
I have to give credit where it’s due, and though they forgot all about the requisite display, the case is pretty.
Bob
When The Ipod started using brushed Aluminium with colors I was walkin thru Best buy on a mission for new CD and all the sudden out of the corner of my eye “OOO Shiney” Before I came back to my senses the guy was ready to ring one up! A.D.D. ■■■■■ in Apple Country
@conversionbox wrote:
The clip will go with me to formal events, the slot music will get hooked in to my office sterio, and the fuze will go everywhere else
I hope you got the Clip in black. Nothing says formal like a little black Clip.
And you’re taking the Fuze everywhere else . . . and just where would this be? To the kegger at the frat house?
You sound like my wife co-ordinating her shoes & purses! :smileyvery-happy:
The fuze goes to the car, to School, to Office #2(Job 2), The Radio Studio, My parents house, my house, my Gfs, On planes and Trains, and to bed… And I still have my connect which is only for movies at this point.
@ing wrote:
Black clothing made by a well-known designer is more expensive than colourful clothing with prints, dozens of pockets and ribbons. It has fewer gadgets, but is extremly good at what it does. Reduction to the basics, quality first.
In case of the Ipod Shuffle a screen would be contraproductive. It doesn’t fulfill any purpose for the task the device is made for. The device has to be as small and light as possible, store a few hours of music and play it. Nothing more.
If Shuffle is better and its lack of screen shows the product’s dedication to its core feature, listening to music, I would expect it to have sound quality so great that any would-be competitor can never come close. I have never listend to iPod Shuffle but the impression I am getting from other messages in this discussion is that Clip sounds much better.
Does your Shuffle sound much better than anything else in the market?
Does your Shuffle sound much better than anything else in the market?
No noticable difference for me. All the major brands sound good today. Self-made blind tests show me that friends who brimmed over with enthusiasm for the sound quality of their specific player (whatever device in particular) couldn’t recognize it (with otherwise same conditions, like same speakers and files, of course). So mostly esoterics for me, like golden audio cables or the direction how to put up the transformer of your amplifier.
(And, btw, the sound quality is not the one thing the Shuffle is built for, where it needs to be the best.)
But there is another reason for a display now: AP news
