Without the shadow of a doubt, Apple is the world's best-known manufacturer of portable multimedia players, its famous iPod series of devices becoming iconic for the concept of digital entertainment. One of the most important things Apple has tried (and actually, succeeded) with the iPod series is to pretty much cover all of the possible market segments, ranging from power users looking for a complete portable multimedia playback device to those people looking for a very small player they could listen music on while running.
This latter model is the Shuffle, which we'll actually talk about as follows. Initially released in January 2005 and updated once ever since, the Shuffle is a very simple player, which has been designed for maximum ergonomics in any conditions, whether the user is running, going to the gym or simply walking on the street.
One of the main feature that recommends the Shuffle as an “outdoorsy” and “sporty” player is its design in general and the “clip” attached to its back in particular. The clip makes it very easy for users to attach the player to their clothes or backpacks, while its very small size (27.3 mm x 4.12 mm x 10.5 mm) and low weight (just 15.6 grams) will ensure the fact that you won't even feel it's there.
The current iteration of the Shuffle is available in two storage version, namely 1 and 2 GB, respectively. This might not seem like much, but it's enough to store up to 250 or 500 songs in 128-Kbps AAC format, which is only one of the numerous music formats it supports: AAC (8 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3, and 4), WAV, and AIFF.
Like all iPods, this device offers a very intuitive control system in the form of a circular control pad. Working with the pad is a very easy task, since all the users have to do is simply click the center button to play and pause and the outer buttons to move back, skip forward, and adjust the volume.
The battery is pretty impressive as well, since it offers up to 12 hours of continuous playback after being charged for around 4 hours (full charge).
The iPod Shuffle sells for 49 and 69 US dollars, respectively, for which the users will get, beside the device itself, a pair of high-quality earphones and a dock for charging the battery/connecting to a computer.
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