Apple Goes Nano With Shuffle

Suddenly I got email from Apple - the new iPod Shuffle is now in store. What? New Shuffle? But how exactly new is the new. When I click on to read, WHOA.. what?! Apple has done it again!

What strike me the most is the size, without any doubt. It's like the "Honey, I shrunk the kids!" moment. The size goes half the original. Yet, wait a minute - the storage now has doubled to a whopping 4Gb! How does Apple do that? Insane... but brilliant. The other one that made me wonder - how to control this thing? Well let's see.

This new kid is really small - about the size of an index finger. On the front, there's nothing - plain, sans any control. On the back is the clip. Very sturdy one like the 2nd Gen. On the top, there's a On/Off Button-slash-shuffle/continuous mode; and earphone jack/USB charging port.

Exactly how to control this thingy? It's now located on its earphone cord. Click once to play/pause, double click to forward, and click thrice to rewind. Brilliant? Maybe. And the volume is controlled via the cord as well with the +/- button.

And there's a new feature - it talks. Yes you heard it right. Apple called it 'Voice Over'. Shuffle will literally 'talk' to you what songs you are currently listening. Little bit like SatNav if you like. Hold the play button, and it will read out the title of the song. It will speak different languages as well depending how you connect your Shuffle to iTunes. I wonder whether it will speak Malay? Hmm...

Price? Below £60. And it comes in silver and black. It seems that the future of nanotech is already here. Nice...

(Pix from Apple.com)