A Shuffle Forward and Back

This morning, Apple released the new, 3rd generation, iPod Shuffle. The new Shuffle is even smaller than before. Half the size of the previous generation - if you can believe that. I always like the concept of smaller and more compact, but there are often tradeoffs. The tradeoff with the first two generations of Shuffles was the lack of display screen. With past Shuffles, if you like a song you're listening to and want to know what its name, you were out of luck. For many like myself the display didn't really matter. The Shuffle has always been easy to carry around and when it drops it rarely is damaged. With the new Shuffle, Apple ushers in the era of micro players. For Apple to pull of this new form factor they removed the controls from the device and moved them to a Apple specific headphone. What I liked about the first two Shuffles was that I could walk down the street, sit on a bus, whatever, with my Shuffle in hand. When I wanted to change a song or adjust volume I could easily and discretely move my fingers while holding the device. With the new Shuffle I have to make a conspicuous and non natural gesture of moving my hand to the top of the headphone to adjust track and volume. Not a fan of this new method. The new Shuffle continues to lack any type of display. There is a large segment of those who like players small, but don't want to lose the ability to know what song they're listening to. And for those, the new Shuffle offers VoiceOver (space not included). The new robotic voice will announce the song or playlist you're listening to. Nothing sexy, but I suppose nice to have if you want to know the song. The device has 4GB of memory to hold 1000 songs for $79. The 2nd generation devices are still available while they last.