We've always seen the shuffle as the poor cousin of the iPod family - good for a run around the park but not much else.
With the $129 4GB iPod shuffle announced today, the pint sized player suddenly looks a lot more appealing as a day-to-day music player (though not everyone remains convinced, including our resident Mac blogger Alex Kidman) , especially considering it can hold up to 1,000 songs and Apple claims is capable of 10 hours battery life.
Perhaps the most interesting aspects though, is the VoiceOver feature. In an effort to solve the shuffle's one Achilles heel - the lack of on-screen navigation - Apple's technical team has taught the iPod to speak.
Press a button and the iPod shuffle will talk to you, telling you which song or artist you're listening to, and the name of playlists, or how much battery life you have left.
One interesting point: the VoiceOver function in the shuffle is apparently capable of speaking 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.
The buzz about voice-capable technology, from Spinvox to text to speech seems to be getting louder.
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| Smaller than a AA battery. the new iPod shuffle is half the height of the nano |
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The 3rd generation iPod shuffle with 4GB and 10 hour battery life
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