Apple Offers Tiny, Affordable iPod Shuffle Player.

Apple Computer introduced at Macworld Expo in San Francisco, California, its latest music player from the Ipod family aiming at customers who want to have an affordable and extremely small player from the maker of the iPod. The affordability and price-efficiency did not come without sacrifices: the iPod shuffle does not feature LCD screen and has only 512MB – 1GB of memory.

“iPod shuffle is smaller and lighter than a pack of gum and costs less than $100. With most flash-memory music players users must use tiny displays and complicated controls to find their music; with iPod shuffle you just relax and it serves up new combinations of your music every time you listen,” said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO.

The iPod shuffle, Apple’s first player that uses flash instead of hard disk drives, is supplied in two flavours – with 512MB and with 1GB of memory – and at two price-points – $99 and $149, respectively. The iPod shuffle players weight only 0.78 ounce (22 grams) and measure by only 3.3” x 0.98” x 0.33” (approximately 8.4cm x 2.5cm x 0.84cm) (height x width x thickness). Apple supplies ear-bud headphones and lanyard with its iPod shuffle family of products.
Apple’s latest players can operate for 12 hours, just like more expensive iPod brethren, have USB 2.0 connectivity and can play the same types of music files, including MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Music Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4) and WAV. Apple’s software allows the iPod shuffle to seamlessly download music from end-users’ PC or Mac, or allows listener to choose what to load and what not to load into the player.

While Apple believes the absence of LCD screen is an advantage, its customers may run into difficulties when controlling the playback of 240 songs without any display. Still, 1GB version of the player is likely to become popular among certain types of users who do not need large players with 4 – 40GB of storage as well as comfortable playback control with a screen.

iPod shuffle is the newest member of Apple’s popular iPod family for both Mac and PC which includes the fourth generation iPod, the iPod mini, the iPod U2 Special Edition and iPod photo. More than 10 million iPods have been sold since it was introduced in 2001, and it is the number one selling digital music player in the world, Apple said.