Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Michel Lefebvre]

It's their first non-HD unit. Starts at $99.00.

http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/

Michel.

[BlueGlow]

Saw that. Interesting device with no playlist or single playlist depending on how you look at it. I'd have a hard time living without playlists but the approach is a smart one. If the build quality is good I think it will be an enormous hit. This + iTunes is exactly what the average user can handle.

I'll be getting an iPod for my wife in a few weeks/months and this may be the one. Though I don't see yet how she'll manage having a few podcasts on there in addition to her favorite music. That may push her to a mini or a different flash based device. She also mentioned that she'd like to have 3 playlists, daytime favorites, mellow/night favorites, and radio shows.

[tlongacre]

This device seems to be a direct competitor to the Creative Nomad MuVos in all their various forms.  I wouldn't use one for commuting or when I wanted to listen to something specific, but I have a MuVo and use it for working out. It is perfect for this. I have a playlist in MC that picks high energy music (certain genres and intensity > 3), limited in amount by the size of my device. Currently I get about 1 week's worth of listening on my device before I have to refresh it again. This new iPod shuffle is perfect for this scenario, I would think. Given that it ONLY plays things randomly, I wouldn't think podcasts or audible books would work (hmm, chpt 5, then chpt 1, then chpt 11. . .).

[mrsnarky]

tlongacre - Random play is just an option; I don't know why Apple focused their announcement on that. Towards the end of it, they also say, "and, by the way, you can play your songs in the order in which you load them". It should work just fine for audible books.

[tristeve]

Hope this isn't a dumb question, but will MC10 work with the iPod Shuffle?

Thanks,

Steve

[SteveG]

Steve,

Not a dumb question. I do not know for sure. Probably. I (or someone) will have to get one and plug it in to see.

Steve

[tristeve]

Thanks, sounds great. I'm resisting installing iTunes as I'm really happy with MC10 and comfortable with it's features. The more I can do with it, the better.

We just had a Tivo installed so my next project is to learn how to interact MC with it. Always something to learn....

Steve

[razumik]

I bought the Shuffle last night and have not been able to get it to work with MC yet.  I will list the things that I have tried so far.  If anyone has any other suggestions please let me know.

     1.Immediately after connecting the Shuffle I started MC.  At that point MC sees the device as a portable hard drive, as opposed to seeing it as an IPOD.  I tried transferring a few songs manually.  It appeared that the songs transferred but when I tried to play them with the Shuffle I received and error on the device (flashing orange light.)
     2.I then connected the Shuffle to iTunes and copied a few songs over.  After doing so I browsed to the device with Windows Explorer and it appears to have the same folder structure as regular IPOD does.  It has the Ipod_Control folder with the iTunes and iMusic subfolders.  When I then opened up MC the device appeared as a regular IPOD would and I could browse thrhough ARTIST, ALBUM, GENRE, PLAYLIST like normal.  At this point I tried several things:
          1.Tried to copy a few songs over manually.  They appeared with the songs transferred from Itunes but when I attempted to play them with the Shuffle I received the same error lights.  Same thing happened when I transferred a playlist over.
          2.I noticed that after syncing with iTunes the only playlist on the Shuffle was named IPOD.  I created and IPOD playlist in MC and tried to transfer that over and received the same error lights.
          3.I initiallized the Shuffle in MC.  When I do this it clears the IPOD and creates the normal folder structure.  After trying to send both the IPOD playlist and individual songs I receve an error when attempting to play them on the Shuffle.

Each thing that I tried was attempted in both MC11 and MC10.  Anybody have any other ideas about what I could try? 

[SteveG]

razumik,

Are the files you are transferring AAC?

If so,

Open iTunes and make sure it is not set to autodetect the iPod (In 'iPod Preferences', select 'Manually manage songs and playlists.). Transfer one AAC song with iTunes. Then in MC, initialize the iPod.  Then, drag and drop one track onto the Shuffle and transfer it and see if it plays.

Steve

[razumik]

Steve, thanks for responding so fast.

All of the files I am attempting to put on the Shuffle (from MC and iTunes) are MP3s.

After trying it again on another computer I noticed that the playlist that is created on the Shuffle is always the name that you have given to the Ipod (i.e. MyIpod, IPOD, etc.) no matter what the name of the playlist is that you are syncing in iTunes.  Tonight I also tried to copy a song from my library into the playlist on the Shuffle.  When I do this, the song is copied over and from that point on will show up under ARTIST, ALBUM, and GENRE, but it never appears under the playlist.  If I then close MC and re-open it, it still appears in ARTIST, ALBUM, and GENRE...so it apparently is writing to the main db on the Shuffle, but it is almost like it is corrupting the playlist db which stops the Shuffle from playing once it is un-docked.

One other thing that I have noticed is that if I copy a song to the Shuffle in MC, iTunes will crash everytime that I open it with the Shuffle plugged in, until I use the restore program to go back to the factory settings.

Thanks again,
Dan

[SteveG]

Dan,

One possibility is that the Shuffle is writing its database differently than other iPods. Can you clean the shuffle of all tracks and then transfer one song with iTunes. Make sure it is playable and then send me the iTunesDB file from the shuffle so I can take a look at it.

Thanks.

steve @ jriver.com

[Otto]

One possibility is that the Shuffle is writing its database differently than other iPods.

Not just a possibility.. It's a confirmed reality. The iTunesDB has changed slightly (longer mhits) and there's a new file you have to write for the Shuffle, called iTunesSD.

I have got some documentation of the file format up on the iPodLinux wiki here: http://ipodlinux.org/ITunesDB#iTunesSD_file . This was appearantly enough for GnuPod to get their code to work on the Shuffle. Work is being done to add support for the Shuffle to the foo_pod plugin for the foobar 2000 player as well.

In other words, you're going to have to modify your iPod code to support the shuffle.

[JimH]

Thanks, Otto. 

We have a Shuffle now, so we'll take a look soon.

[Hildy]

Thanks, Otto. 

We have a Shuffle now, so we'll take a look soon.

Great news thanks!  For some reason iTunes doesn't recognize my ratings so I've been creating 4/5 star ~1GB playlists in MC11 saving them and transfering them to iTunes and using AutoFill to get music onto my shuffle, but I'd rather use MC!  I was going to ask you guys to consider the AutoFill functionality that iTunes added for the shuffle but upon second thought it is pretty much the same as a random generated smartlist... but the smartlist is more powerful.  It may be usefull to add a fill feature to the smartlists that can figure out the max volume of a portable and create a smartlist limited to that physical size, (that would actually be useful for my 30GB iPod too).  I can never figure out precisely what the max space available is for different portables, but that could just be my personal shortcoming...

I can dig it.

[pietro]

Thanks, Otto. 

We have a Shuffle now, so we'll take a look soon.

Thanks, that sounds great! Now that my son's bought a Shuffle... we need your support!
-Pietro

[tristeve]

Yes, looking forward to hearing all about MC and the Shuffle.

Steve

[tristeve]

I know it's early days, but any developments on the shuffle front?

Thanks,

Steve

[SteveG]

Not yet. Sorry.

[pietro]

Not yet. Sorry.

What a pity! Now also my daughter got her iPod Shuffle today... JRiver, anything we can do to speed the implementation of iPod Shuffle support up?? We're really waiting for this.

Thanks in advance!
-Pietro