Apples are the Fords of the portable MP3 market.

Rabid, blind fans and a complete loss of vision as to what the consumer wants. Have fun with your new Apple product!

@Radi0logy: Please, if anything, they're the BMWs of the portable MP3 (and computer) market.

It's funny how Apple kept attacking Microsoft about unfriendly business practices in the past. Now Apple is becoming worse than Microsoft ever was.

As a long time and avid Ipod user, I feel that this is a real shame. Apple has delivered some fantastic products over the years and they've built a fan base that has taken them to new heights. Let's face the facts, where would apple be today 'sans Ipod'? I feel that this truly is an injustice to their respected fan base.

my friends and I have been saying this for awhile....that another company needs to come out with another revolution of the 'ipod' and put apple in its place. Apple has become an arrogant company that cares nothing about its consumers and everything about getting the last nickel from our pockets.

I mean, if apple really cared and listened to its consumers, we wouldn't have crap like this, or the outrageous prices for their devices, or the bull crap that the put on (or leave off for that matter) on the devices.

I'm not an iPod hater by any means... but these kinds of things are why I'm glad I own a Zune.

I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around how Apple thought this shuffle was a good economic OR a good design decision by any means. I'd really like to know how well this is selling, because if this article is entirely true, this shuffle is almost wasted money. I'd clearly rather have one of the older versions, were I in the market for a Shuffle.

I was never too fond of the shuffle in comparison to other iPod models and this newest one just totally ruined the shuffle line forever for me. The only benefit of the shuffle now is that you can stick it up your bum and leave it there. That's it.

It's super deceiving to market it as a super-affordable player then force you into a world of buying those expensive accessories if the included ones aren't adequate enough. I hope this kind of stuff won't expand to regular iPods.

Hopefully this new Shuffle is not going sell well. And teach Apple a lesson that less is not more.

Apple must have been bought out by Bank of America, and are now following their corporate how to "stiff the consumer model."

@B: I find this to be an appropriate comparison.

The "It just works" argument is defeated by the "but when it breaks, it will cost a fortune to fix" reply.

The bottom line is this is a truly stupid product. Just get an iPod nano. It has more storage, a display and actual controls you can use. Sure it's a little more expensive but it's worth it. The new shuffle is a flop...

I'll stick to my $30 Mp3 player.... I'm too poor to invest in special chargers and headphones.

That is indeed quite lame. I'm the type of person who opts not to buy the ridiculously overpriced OEM accessories, and instead buys generic stuff on ebay for $3 or $4. Eliminating that option makes me 100% against purchasing this product.

As much as this sucks, let's be honest: the vast majority of iPod users are perfectly happy with the included headphones and will likely never want a replacement. The "geek" community is up in arms about this, because we're the ones who WOULD buy better headphones, but Average Joe iPod Buyer will just use what's included and be happy with it.

How is this different than patenting the port? Surely they could patent the port and it's implementations and collect money off the royalties, right?

People are really slow if they think it is complicated. The only thing that takes some thought is how to change play list, which is going to require some button combination because theres NO SCREEN! Other then that hold the up button to change the song. touch up or down to change volume. touch middle button to here the song title. Wow! i am so confused by those way too detailed of commands.

Apple is getting greedy with the lock down but then again they do own the market so why not leverage it.

Ha! This is almost exactly what I said when I first saw the new Shuffle. Sorry, but I'd rather be able to use any damn headphones I want. Especially since the earbuds won't stay in my ears when I'm skating, walking or working in the yard.

This should not surpise anyone who has followed Apple's business practices for even a small amount of time. They have always favored DRM and proprietary equipment. They are as anti-consumer as it gets. Keep falling for the "we are so cool" marketing if you must; but don't complain about it later.

@verucalise: agreed. I'll stick to my little $30 player that plays video, has a radio, plays Mp3's, I can read text on and has a SD card slot....

The government and their policies should be blamed for this. The DMCA, patent laws, and a lack of taking companies to task on these kinds of things are the reason it happens. Companies will keep pushing the limit on what they can get away with unless they are forced to smarten up. Apple knows they can make an extra buck, so they do it to satisfy their shareholders.

@CRNewsom: This is why I've invested my $30 in a Sansa (from woot no less. Granted, the interface is kind of clunky and not so easy to use. It's definitely not particularly elegant. But, it gets the job done. It plays music, has decent battery life, and cost be about as much as 2 pizzas.

I very much like apple products, but while their laptops continue to be top of the line, the majority market share they have on the portable music player market seems to be going to their head.

The thing I haven't seen in any reviews of the new iPods yet is a comparison to other companies' products. It sounds like they're complaining, but not offering solutions.

After having my 3rd gen Nano (a gift) involuntarily wiped clean due to plugging it in to my laptop (which runs Linux and doesn't have iTunes,) I was less than happy with Apple's tricks to "keep you in the Apple family." When it came time to buy my mom a shuffle-like MP3, I got her the Zen Stone. Drag and drop software and it even has a little speaker on the back. Plus it was half the cost of a Shuffle.

@Anthony Rinaldi: Amen! Yet, people still shell out their money for over-priced and under-powered items from Apple all the time. It's quite ridiculous how some people will buy anything Apple offers.

I'll stick with my 2GB Sansa that I got for $15. With a color screen even!

I honestly don't see why anyone would have a good reason to buy this at it's price point. If you really want an iPod, it seems worth it to pay the extra for the Nano, which is plenty small and has twice as much storage, not to mention a screen, and you can use your own headphones.

If you don't care about the brand and want something small, get a Sansa Clip; 4GB for $50, best deal in town IMO. Good sound quality too.

This is something that has been happening with the new iPod classic models for a while now, although not as severe. The new classics cannot use any video out cable except for Apple's. And many docks that were vary expensive now do not work with them. I got into the Apple craze at the wrong time. This greed will continue to happen until enough people stand up and complain.

I can't for the life of me figure out why Apple thought this would ever be a good idea. Guess they're confident that they have enough sheep out there that will buy anything and everything with an Apple logo on it, regardless of how expensive/ridiculous it is.

"in which Apple controls and taxes literally every piece of the iPod purchase from headphones to chargers"

People are surprised about this? LOL.

Are you kidding me? I could have told you years ago when i got my first generation I-Pod Mini that Apple is a rip off. Ugh. Seriously there are so many better MP3 players on the market, but people are all about the name. So, people will continue their absurd love affair with Apple and will continue to get ripped off.

Just goes to show that power corrupts. I wonder how long before Google follows suit.

I thought the original shuffle was a stroke of genius. the appeal was very broad, as the mechanism was dead simple. It was a real boon to people who just wanted the most intuitive way to advance a track and adjust the volume without paying much attention to it. I still think the Shuffle control pad is the most intelligently designed mp3 player controller ever.

That said, nearly every other aspect of the various ipods, except the stalwart nano, has been complicated by fickle controls (3G ipods) or having to deal with the inevitable problems of jamming a hard drive into a tiny case. Every high capacity ipod I've owned has needed a new drive eventually. And this irks me to no end about Apple; their products were NOT meant to be upgraded by laypeople.

I have loved my AppleIIs, MacIIs, quadras, powerbooks, ibooks and macbooks, and I have no complaints about the apple OS. But the suffocating control over hardware, ironically as it was originally meant to alleviate hardware problems, has finally forced me to change allegiance. I have switched to easily upgradable PCs (not all are, but I now can pick and choose whatever I want) and Linux. My portable music players are solid state and/or wifi enabled so I can have real control over streaming media and don't have to worry about f***ing my mp3 player for good after just one trip to the concrete. Goodbye ipod and apple, most likely forever.

@zandar: Get an ipod Touch. Solid state drive, wifi enabled, can run most iPhone applications, can hold all your musit (32 gigs for the largest capacity), elegant design and user interface.
It's rather expensive, though, so save your pennies.

@zandar: Very true- my dad uses the previous generation Shuffle to listen to podcasts - I can't see him "upgrading" to this thing if it breaks and to be honest he'd probably say that the Nano is too complex- so they did exclude one type of buyer with these product decisions.

This is the same thing that Apple did with the iPod dock connector. It used to be just their propietary port and thousands of small-startups made their accesories based on it.

Then Apple started to embed a chip into the iPods that would only recognized "approved" dock connectors. This meant the accessory maker had to get a special "chip" from Apple that they would include with their accessory to ensure compatibility with the newer iPods.

Apple is now just going down the other end, I guess this means all the future iPods will have this feature too and we'll b seeing "Apple approved" headphones logos on other brands one day.

@Andi Lee: You can guarantee that it will. Apple got their cut on all media sold to iPods by forcing you to use iTunes, now they have a way of forcing a cut on all hardware accessories for the iPod.

Sadly, people will still buy it because it's 'Apple'.

Radi0logy I couldn't have said it better....I had never owned an Ipod before (And Never Will Again).I bought two for Christmas for my daughters. What a NIGHTMARE !!! All of our songs were already downloaded onto Window Media Player. Since I did not have Itunes on my laptop we were unable to transfer songs over to the Ipod.(They wanted us to pay for all the songs we wanted to put on our Ipods also). And Yes they are the Ford of all Listening Devices. Needless to say, I returned the Ipods and went faithfully back to MP3.

you're suprised? Apple lives and breathes DRM, with locked down hardware, attacking all who try to make hackintoshes, ect. For some reason Apple thinks if one hardware manufacturer makes a "crappy accessory" the entire product gets muddy...Apple is, weird.

@lincolnstein: "The world ends not with a bang but a whimper", a great man once said. They may have started the MP3 player revolution but they won't end it. Look to a company like Sansa to do that. I have a Sansa 8GB MP3 player that is slightly larger than the shuffle, with OLED screen, and a clip built in. Sansa clip 8GB for $80. Way better than the shuffle or nano and does audio books and costs the same as the new shuffle. Buying a shuffle over this, you would look like a huge idiot.

Apple's players have really gone downhill. Not to mention that iTunes is the worst media software ever. I couldn't manage to get any version of iTunes to work on a PC, it always crashed. Their hardware is shoddy and cheap as well. I mean hundreds of dollars for something that feels "made in china" is not my idea of quality. I'll take a zune over it any day.

@ryaninc: This is especially true of those who whould buy the shuffle. Runners spefically.

I lost my iPod 2 weeks ago.Doubt Ill be replacing it with news like this.

Besides,pretty much every newer cell phone/Kindle/digital recorder has MP3 playback now.Ive managed just fine with my BB Curve , and wont be rushing to spend $150+ on something that my phone can do for far less money.

The blind leading the blind...LOL

In other news, try connecting an iPod to a computer. You have to buy a rather expensive cable because the iPod no longer has a standard Firewire or USB connector. Of course there's no good reason why an iPod dock cable has to cost $17. Apple's just greedy: they make the iPod so it requires this special Apple cable, then they charge through the nose for it.

y'kno, in amidst all the bruhaha about the proprietary headphones, the horrible mess that is iTunes, and Apple's general lack of consumer friendliness regarding their latest incarnation of the iPod, one thing seems to keep getting overlooked: the only way to determine which song is playing is to either recognize the track, or have the unit's voice over active. I dunno about the rest of you folks over here, but I consider myself an audiophile. If I'm listening to music, I WANT TO HEAR THE MUSIC not some digitized voice over the track. I enjoy hearing the opening bars of 'imagine', or the first few words of whatever audiobook I'm listening to, and if the only way to identify the track is to have Fred(remember when Mac named their voices?) tell me what it is, I'll pass and stick with my network Walkman.

We knew there was something wrong with the company when we had to pay for the first software upgrade. I bought my son the Original IPod Video, when they came out, a few months later he is on ITunes and sees there is a software upgrade available, fixing the bugs in the 1.0 software he had... AND IT WOULD ONLY COST HIM $9.99 to have the buggy system fixed to be what he expected to have paid for originally. A software download, the way it should have been, they should be paying us to fix it. If it were a car, there would have been a recall and they would have been required to fix it.
We caught on quick, new colors, new features, new prices...for items that should have been included from the start! Apple is counting on the gadget upgrade group of people to drive it's company profits. What did they do with the IPod touch, released it with 8 gigs, then 16, then 32. Then they released the second generation that comes with a Microphone. no upgrade program for existing users, you have to spend $229 for these "MINOR" upgrades. you will never see an IPOD with an SD card slot, because you wouldn't need to buy another IPOD to have more memory! I betcha they have the IPOD touch and new NANO already to go, filling warehouses just waiting for their profits to drop! You can never have the newest, non bug-ridden, fastest IPOD, they only release the low grade and then make you pay FULL price for minor software/hardware upgrades, that most companies would give you for free. They design the top of the line system, then remove stuff for the release version. They have the worse business model (for customers) in history!
Look at their site, tons charts to explain which version of which model you have. They change constantly!

@B: Yup.
And 98% of iPod Shuffle owners use the buds that came with the beast.
For those that are likely to use after-market parts, so to speak, are owners of the other, more fully-featured models.

The people whining the loudest, on the other hand, are those that never intend to own an iPod. Ever.
And who think turd-brown makes the perfect accessory.

@ryaninc: Care to back that statement up with more than just a fanboi's perspective? That's like saying the average mac user is perfectly happy with a one-button mouse. Nuts to that.

@narq: You and MMM "the Sansa interface is kind of clunky and not so easy to use. It's definitely not particularly elegant" SOAP, below, need to meet in a dark alley and hash out your differences. Either your aesthetics blow, or his. :)

Sure, *I'm* interested in this, but I'm far fromt he target market for shuffles. I routinely give them to older relatives, older coworkers, etc. The old shuffle is as good as it gets for people who just want to listen to music but don't even know how to set up a play list. If I gave one of these out to my aunt, she'd try to plug in her old head phones (earbuds disturb her) and wonder why it doesn't work.