Fuddland

Apple’s new iPod shuffle and it’s “innovative” notion of random playlists is precisely how I usually use my own MP3 player: very rarely do I copy entire albums into its 256+64Mb memory. I just fire up either Rio’s bespoke synchronisation application or Windows Media Player and copy over a random selection of my music, and enjoy the playlist for a couple of days before uploading a new one.

It’s because I knew this was how I wanted to use my player that I didn’t opt for a proper iPod in the first place: I don’t want all my music with me at all times, but listen to only ten percent of it on a regular basis—I want to be pleasantly surprised by a song I haven’t heard in years. And if I forget the name of the song or which album it’s on, I have a handy LCD providing the basic metadata, something Apple decided wasn’t worth adding—I can imagine that might lead to some frustrated users desperately trying to recall the name of the singer whilst out and about, having no choice but to try and remember to look it up later on. I can understand the thinking behind not including a display [reinforcing the fact that it’s designed for random play, as well as cutting the cost I should imagine], but personally I prefer to have the information readily available.

There’s an interesting [and lengthy!] look at the idea of shuffled playlists over at City of Sound.

#1

Vicky | 2005 / 01 / 14 – 19:45

Agree completely re: not needing/wanting to have all of your music available a la iPod. I’ve ordered the smaller iShuffle, having previously coveted the 256Mb iRiver - I’ll be interested to see if it does the job.

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