Yeah.. I know I’m a little late on this one. Had one heck of a long day at work..

As most of you know by now, Apple announced a new version of their iPod shuffle player – basically shrinking the device down to the size of an AA battery (actual measurements for the new shuffle are 1.8 x 0.7 x 0.3 inches with a volume of 0.26 cubic inches for those of you that care about such things). 

While they shrunk the player down in size, they upped the storage capacity of the shuffle to 4GB of flash space. That’s enough to store roughly 1,000 songs.

But wait.. it’s so small now you have to wonder where the controls went off to right? Well they’re now located on the right earbud. Don’t worry.. if you’re not of the Apple earbuds, third party manufacturers will be coming out with headphones that can control the shuffle (b/c those Apple earbuds do .. well suck). The only controls on the shuffle itself is a switch that has three options – shuffle, straight, or stop.

Now onto one of the more interesting new innovations on the shuffle – a feature called “VoiceOver”. VoiceOver basically “tells you” the artist, song title, playlist name on your iPod. You’re in the middle of listening to a song and you’re curious what this song is or who the artists is – no problem. Press a button and VoiceOver will recite to you the title and the name of the artist. VoiceOver’s core engine resides in iTunes which runs on your PC or Mac. According to Apple’s webpage, iTunes “reads your song information, then uses the new VoiceOver Kit to generate the announcements for the songs, artists, and playlists on your iPod shuffle.” You’ll hear different voices depending on what type of computer you own (a.k.a. PC and Mac users will hear different voices). VoiceOver currently supports 14 different languages.

With the introduction of VoiceOver, the shuffle now supports multiple playlists for the first time.

Other notable features on the shuffle include:

• A clip that allows you to well.. “clip” the player to your shirt pocket, sleeve, whatever you want.
• Built-in rechargeable lithium polymer battery
• Charge via USB – 80% charged in 2 hours, fully charged in 3 hours
• 10 hour battery life on a full charge
• 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack

Finally, there’s the price. Apple brings the Shuffle back to the price point of $79 dollars – but remember in doing so, they upped the storage capacity, shrunk the form factor, and added some cool new features. Those of you who lead an active lifestyle will probably appreciate the new iPod shuffle the most. Definitely might have to get one for our household now.

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