The New Shuffle

Apple announced this new iPod shuffle without any buttons. It is an awful product, and here's why.

If you like using your own headphones with your MP3 player (as opposed to stock ones that may come with the player), this new shuffle becomes an iPod without a single button - it's just a block of metal. Apple is expecting you to use their own crappy, uncomfortable headphones instead of your own ones in order to even turn it on. I hate this. I have really good earphones, and, supposing I have this shuffle, I won't be able to use them.

I also hate their most touted new feature, "Voice Over" which basically announces the title and artist of the song that you're listening to using a synthesized voice. The synthesized voice that they chose sucks. I know you can say that it's "really hard to make it sound good," but seriously - if you go with using a voice, don't use some crappy one and just go around saying, "Oh my God this is so good, look at what this can do!"

And that's for the voice that comes with the Mac. The voice that comes up if you sync with a Windows computer is just so much more awful. I don't even know how to describe it.

And that is my short rant of the day. The biggest thing for me is the lack of buttons, though. Stupid inline earphones!