In the world of Naruto, two years flew by unnoticed. Former newcomers joined the ranks of experienced shinobi at the rank of chunin and jonin. The main characters did not sit still - each became a student of one of the legendary Sannin - the three great ninjas of Konoha. The guy in orange continued his training with the wise but eccentric Jiraiya, gradually ascending to a new level of combat skill. Sakura became the assistant and confidant of the healer Tsunade, the new leader of the Leaf Village. Well, Sasuke, whose pride led to his expulsion from Konoha, entered into a temporary alliance with the sinister Orochimaru, and each believes that they are only using the other for the time being.

The brief respite ended, and events once again rushed with hurricane speed. In Konoha, the seeds of old strife sown by the first Hokage are sprouting again. The mysterious Akatsuki leader has set in motion a plan for world domination. There is turmoil in the Sand Village and neighboring countries, old secrets are resurfacing everywhere, and it is clear that someday the bills will have to be paid. The long-awaited continuation of the manga has breathed new life into the series and new hope into the hearts of countless fans!

© Hollow, World Art

There are several reasons. Besides the fact that he steep, Certainly. I’ve long wanted to tell you why I always carry this thing with me, and I finally found the right words.

Brevity is the soul of wit

Presentation of the 4th generation iPod shuffle in 2010

– the cheapest device in Apple’s range, and also the least functional. So, these two features make the player relevant even now. Less tinsel, more real benefits.

I sincerely believe that the latest generation shuffle has become the most successful iPod player based on the totality of all characteristics. For more than four years now I have not parted with him, although sometimes I forget for whole weeks, if not months. The player performs specific tasks, more than once helping out in the most boring moments. Maybe it's time for you to get such a thing?

iPod shuffle remains a great buy even now. Here are five reasons from my years of experience using it.

Reason 1. Virtually invisible

It is so tiny that losing it in your bag is a breeze. Occupying less space than a pair of earbuds, the latest generation of iPod shuffle simply doesn't count as cargo, and you won't notice it until the musical cravings strike.

The weight doesn’t lag behind – it’s insignificant, just nominal. 12 and a half grams. This is a weightless, invisible “portal” to the world of your favorite music.

Reason 2. Indestructible body

According to good tradition, iPod shuffle is packaged in an almost solid aluminum case. The choice of material here is determined not only by the corporate design, but also strength. Being a small device, the “shuffle” often falls out of sight and can easily fall on the asphalt, get under an arm or leg, fly from a height that is lethal for iPhones, and so on. Metal saves.

Over time, each player becomes covered with a set of microscopic traces of active life. Mine has a number of deep dents on the top end. If it were plastic, then there would be cracks everywhere, but metal doesn’t care. The simplicity of the design is advantageous here: in 99% of cases, the damage is purely visual and does not affect performance in any way, and the secrecy and micro-size of the device allow you to safely wear even a “killed” shuffle on yourself and not be ashamed. No one will see anything anyway.

Reason 3. Blind availability

There are five playback control keys on the front of iPod shuffle. You can recognize their location by touch, since the “ring” is raised above the body, and the entire internal area under it is reserved for a large play/pause key.

You can close your eyes, hang the player on a sports headband or in your pants pocket and control playback without even glancing towards the device. The ring of keys is felt through clothing, and each click gives clear tactile feedback. Even the fact that the player is not equipped with a display has been partly resolved: the round key on the end can be used to pronounce the name of a track, as well as to select a playlist.

iPod shuffle does everything that any player should be able to do, and nothing more. This is his strength.

Reason 4. Thoughtful design

Guess which music player is considered the most convenient and generally best for an athlete? That's right - it's an iPod shuffle. Reliable clip on the back of the case is an integral part of the device. The clamping force is enough to hook the shuffle onto a pocket, put it into the slots for the waist belt of jeans, and attach it to sports accessories and clothing in general. You can run, listen to music and not worry that the player will suddenly fly off, hit, break, and so on. And even if it “falls off,” it won’t go far: the headphone port is deadly tight and won’t allow the gadget to slip unnoticed onto the floor.

Reason 5. Sound and time battery life

You don't have to expect "audiophile" sound quality from the iPod shuffle. But what we have is more than satisfactory for me and millions of other owners. There is a chip inside Cirrus Logic CLI1544C0, which was also used in the boxy 6th generation iPod nano. The music sounds lively, with a slight emphasis on high frequencies, and due to this, it rocks “cheap” plugs unusually well, as well as especially bassy models – including Beats.

With its ridiculous size, iPod shuffle plays up to 15 hours on one charge. The actual operating time of my four-year-old player is about ten hours, but this is enough for any trip or a busy city day. The shuffle must be charged through the headphone port using the miniature cable included in the kit. It’s better not to lose it :) You won’t listen to music, but the charging time to 100 percent is short - 2-3 hours, you can be patient.

Always a relevant thing

How does the iPod shuffle fare in the age of smartphones, talking assistants and smart watches? In short - Amazing. When buying this player, you clearly know what you want from it, and therefore you will be satisfied with the purchase for many years to come.

Of course, there is also a drawback: the amount of memory. This is not a universal device for playing music: two gigabytes will not allow owners of large collections of tracks to turn around. This is where iTunes comes to the rescue, allowing you to “compress” music before sending it to shuffle, saving free space on the latter.

Even me, with a media library of more than a hundred gigabytes, lives well in the company of shuffle. I upload there the latest music from the playlist of recent purchases in the iTunes Store: it takes a maximum of 15 minutes to completely replace the entire contents of the player, and the “fresh batch” of music lasts for another two weeks until it gets boring.

iPod shuffle is always with you, does not require food, does not attract attention and does not interfere with your life. It's not even a gadget, but a tool that solves a problem. Simple, indestructible, reliable tool listening to your favorite music in any situation. That is why I sincerely recommend it for purchase. And it's also guaranteed good gift for any person on Earth.

• Dimensions: 42.5 x 17.5 x 7.8 mm (including clip);
• Weight: 10.7 grams;
• Memory capacity: 4 GB;
• Operating frequencies: from 20 Hz to 20 KHz;
• Supported formats: MP3 (8 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store, M4A, M4B, M4P), Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4 ), Apple Lossless, WAV and AIFF;
• Battery life: up to 10 hours;
• Full charge time: about 3 hours (2 hours to 80%).

Introduction

As you probably remember, the Apple iPod line consists of four types: iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod classic and iPod touch. The smallest of them all, the iPod shuffle, was updated just recently on March 11th and has quite a few changes over the previous model. This is already the third generation of the player, the smallest. Looking at the previous generation iPod shuffle, it seems like it’s possible to make the player even smaller? It turns out that it is possible, but for this it needs to be radically changed.

Obviously, small players have one big problem - controls. Technically, a battery, a chip, and a headphone jack can fit in a very compact case, but you can’t make the buttons as small. More precisely, it is possible, but here the question of user convenience already arises - and then the manufacturer must find a certain balance between dimensions (the smaller, the better) and the control unit (the larger, the better, within reasonable limits).

In the previous iPod shuffle, as we remember, the controls were on the player itself - the central button was responsible for play/pause, and 4 keys located in a circle from it were responsible for adjusting the volume and switching between tracks.

If we look at the new iPod shuffle, we will not find such buttons on it. Apple has decided to transfer controls from the surface of the player itself to the headphones. But let's explore first appearance the player itself.

Appearance

As you can see, the player is made of aluminum, there is a mirror clip on the back, and under it there is information about the player, serial number and other information. All controls on the player itself are located at its upper limit and are reduced to one selector with three positions (off, sequential playback and random shuffle playback). Nearby is an LED status indicator, and next to it is a headphone jack. Please note that there is simply no way to make the player thinner - the headphone jack does not allow it.

The second generation iPod shuffle came with a long cable with a USB connector on one side and a small dock on the other side. Now Apple has decided to abandon the dock, and made the cable very small - literally a few centimeters. Keep this in mind, it may be more convenient for you to buy a USB extension cable.

The USB connector conveys the dimensions of the player well

Control

Now let's move on to management. On the headphones there is a control unit of three keys - a recessed central key that performs various functions and the keys above and below it are volume control.

A short press on the center key pauses or resumes playback. A double short press allows you to go to the next track, a triple press - to the previous one. With a long press everything is much more interesting. As you probably remember, previously iPod shuffle did not pay attention to the presence of playlists - it played all the songs sequentially, and the user could only move to the next and previous songs, gradually finding the desired track.

VoiceOver (voice selection of playlists)

Now you can move between playlists. But how - because there is no screen in it? Apple made the player talk. That is, of course, if you tell him the name of the playlist, he will not understand you, but he can list all the available playlists and you will select the one you need. This feature is called VoiceOver and it works as follows: first, in iTunes, you activate the VoiceOver function (in the player section) and select a language. Of course, audio fragments with the names of songs and playlists are generated not by the player itself, but by iTunes, which, in turn, synchronizes this data with the player. So once you activate VoiceOver and sync, you can take advantage of the new feature.

If you press and hold the center key while a song is playing, the volume of the current song decreases and the player tells you its name and artist. After that, if you continue to hold down the center key, you hear a short beep (now release) and iPod shuffle begins to pronounce the names of all available playlists. As soon as you hear the name of the playlist you need, press the center key once and you will proceed to play it. If you don't press anything, the player will continue playing the original composition. If, while playing a list of playlists, you decide to simply continue listening to what you were listening to and not select another playlist, press the center key a little longer than to select a playlist.

All this is done quite conveniently - after you try VoiceOver a couple of times, you can easily remember all the controls (it’s difficult to get lost in three buttons, two of which are only volume control and nothing else). So, in general, I really liked the controls - transferring the buttons from the surface of the device to the headphones now allows me not to think about what position the player is in and which button needs to be pressed (which I often had to do with the second generation iPod shuffle), and in general, all the controls are intuitive It's clear. Having studied all the control options indicated on the official website, we were disappointed that there was no rewind function, this is especially true, for example, for long podcasts. It turns out there is, and it is also controlled from the central key - to fast forward you need to make one short press and press and hold the central key (release when you find the desired fragment), to rewind it is identical, but you need to make two short presses and hold on the third center key. So control, despite the seemingly low functionality small block on headphones, you can safely give a high rating.

The decision to transfer control to headphones carries a disadvantage for those users who are accustomed to using not standard Apple headphones, but connecting others. They will have to purchase headphones made specifically for new iPod shuffle (either from Apple - it produces not only regular ones, but also additional ones), or from other manufacturers.

Unfortunately, we were unable to test the sound quality in the player due to the transfer of controls from the player to the headphones and the player's features. The testing method involves connecting the player's audio output to sound card, but the thing is that to launch the desired audio file we need to connect the headphones, select the test file and start playing, and then take out the headphones and connect the player to the sound card. So, the whole problem is that when the headphones are turned off, the player is paused and playback can only be continued with branded headphones.

The battery life of the player, according to the manufacturer, is up to 10 hours of continuous music playback. We can safely say that Apple is not exaggerating these figures - during our test the player worked for 13 hours and 35 minutes. The volume was set at a level above average, sometimes switching between songs and playlists, and rewinding. The time to fully charge the player was 3 hours 6 minutes.

Uploading about 1 GB of music and podcasts (MP3, with different bitrates) takes about 6 minutes. The player can traditionally be used as a storage device (flash drive). The average speed of copying a gigabyte file is 5 minutes 10 seconds.

iPod shuffle 3G is available in two colors - silver (as we tested) and black. The capacity of the new product is 4 GB. The cost in the US is $79. In Russia, at the time of publication of this article, the cost of the player was about 4,000 rubles.

Next generation (third).
It's still one of the smallest mp3 players on the planet.

Characteristics:

• Capacity - 4GB
• The player controls have moved to the headphones
• Colours: steel and black
• New navigation system "VoiceOver"
• The battery will last for 10 hours of music
• Price: $79

From what's new:

The player has become even smaller compared to the previous generation Shuffle:

Oh... where are the buttons? UFO? No. The control “moved” to the headphones. Now all operations with the player can be carried out without taking it out of your pocket. But on the other hand, the ability to use your headphones with Apple’s new product is not possible. Lost? Buy new ones.

But with the new VoiceOver technology, you no longer have to feel disadvantaged by the lack of a screen on the player. At the first request, the player itself will “tell” all the necessary information: artist name, song title, playlist name, etc. Moreover, there is no need to worry about pronunciation - 14 languages ​​are supported. So the title of the track in Czech and Japanese will be pronounced correctly. By following the link a couple of lines above, you can learn more about VoiceOver. But... Among those 14 languages ​​there was no place for the Russian language... It’s a pity...

Oh yes, on the site you can watch a “Guided Tour” with a nice girl who will explain everything to you (in English, of course).

Well, I’ll say it again that the price of the new product is $79. And the previous generation Shuffle can be purchased for $50.

Surely many of the readers have a good idea of ​​what an iPod Shuffle is and what it comes with. These are the most inexpensive iPod players, as simplified as possible, but at the same time with an interesting design and features, the main emphasis is on the ability to play music in random order, in addition to standard playback of songs. Basic distinctive features These models lack a display, miniature size, and small memory capacity. At least that was the case for the first two Shuffles. You have to understand that the release of such a player on the market was a big experiment, because simplicity is simplicity, but will people buy this “pack of gum” without the opportunity to see what tune will play next? As practice has shown, consumers were not at all against it and even for it. After the first, plastic Shuffle, an aluminum model comes to the market, half the size. Charging via a 3.5 mm jack, the player becomes much more beautiful and attractive, and all by getting rid of the USB plug. In order not to be unfounded, I will say that I had all Shuffles, and these players are attractive precisely because of their simplicity, and the second generation was still interesting to use, attaching it to a watch strap and running the cable in the sleeve. But there was also something unpleasant, of course: if the first generation “shuffle” just needed to be plugged into a USB connector, then the “second” one needed a cable with a stand, this is not very cool. In addition, we must not forget about the great role of the Shuffle as a “switcher” instrument; psychologically, the price of this small piece of the big apple is very comfortable; many people buy the Shuffle precisely because of the price and big name. Like, well, it’s fashionable. They get acquainted with iTunes and the simplicity of the product, think that maybe it’s worth trying Nano or Touch, and then the MacBook is just a stone’s throw away.

In short, the “third” Shuffle makes that impression. It’s as if the developers got together and started thinking about what else they could throw out of the case to reduce the size. But just do it in such a way that a new, cool “trick” appears. We thought and thought and got rid of the controls on the body. And, in theory, this particular player should be called Nano because of its size. So, the controls were moved to the included headset, plus they added a “feature” - voice prompts. But first things first.

Design

As almost always, the appearance of the product can fascinate not only Ellochka the cannibal, but also a seemingly normal person. A very, very small thing, very, very nice, very thin, compact and elegant. I asked for a black sample for review, and there is also a silver one. No fingerprints are visible, the assembly is excellent, no squeaks, no problems. This thing is truly weightless, you can see it in comparison with the “second” Shuffle. At the top end there is a connector for charging and connecting headphones, and at the back there is a metal clip. I wouldn’t call it comfortable, there is a cutout where you need to press, the pad of your finger gets caught in it, it’s not very pleasant, the edges are sharp. The fastening is secure, the “clothespin” moves tightly. The physical dimensions look like this: 45.2 x 17.5 x 7.8 mm, the Shuffle weighs just over ten grams. You can easily lose it in your pocket.

A little about the packaging: it is still a plastic case in which the player, headphones and charging adapter are neatly folded. There are also instructions. The box is small, quite neat.

The thing seems to have a wow factor, but you need to understand that it is so small - those around you may simply not notice it in your hands. Although they may notice a clothespin on the shirt. And you will answer them with feeling the question that was not asked out loud - yes, this is it, the new Shuffle. All jokes aside, I personally think the player is a very utilitarian thing for everyday use. And I would say the main purpose is sports, a player for two to three hours of fitness or for a morning jog. The inability to break it is very attractive. At the very least, you need to make a remarkable effort.

Control

There is a small sliding button on the body that turns on Shuffle, with its help you can activate random playback mode or playback in order. It is clear that this is only a small part of the control; all other functions are transferred to the remote control. Let's talk about him.

So, we have the usual company headphones with a remote control, volume keys, and a button in the middle. But, in general, this is just the beginning, there is no music in the player yet, right? In general, to work with Shuffle you will definitely need iTunes program 8.0, it will not sync with lower versions. Afterwards you will need to download the so-called VoiceOver Kit, iTunes does everything itself, you just have to click. After installation, you will need to select the language in which the player will speak to you. I note that the main purpose of VoiceOver is the following: the player will inform you about the title of the song and the artist; to do this, you need to press and hold the center button. The function can be disabled if you do not need it. I checked the work with compositions named in Russian, the player says something strange, I still don’t understand what it is. But there are no problems with English names. Interestingly, the voices that pronounce names and other information differ depending on whether you synchronize the player with a PC or Mac, in the first case it is male voice, rather indistinct, but with native computers the voice will be female, pleasant. I'm afraid that when synchronizing with Linux, if possible, the player will say “boo-uh”.

In short, you can get lost in management. In principle, if we talk about simple things, then everything is clear. One press on the central button of the remote control is Play/pause, two presses go to the next track, three presses go to the previous one. Press and hold the button and hear the name of the song. Press and hold until a beep sounds - we hear the name of the playlist. You can also use the volume buttons to select the desired playlist and go to it. Audiobooks each come as a separate playlist; if there are podcasts, the player also recognizes them separately. There is rewind within the composition. Finally, there is an extensive manual that you can read on your own to understand the full depth.

But the depth actually turns out like this. So I go for a walk and take my player with me. There is a remote control hanging from the cable, which is easy to access; you don’t have to take anything out. You get used to the controls after an hour of use, and the suspicion begins to creep in that you haven’t seen anything more convenient, the main thing is that the tags are filled in properly. It's easy to create playlists for running, walking, and stress management and then quickly refer to them. In the end, there is also a playlist called All songs, that is, all songs outside the playlists, especially for quickly downloaded and quickly downloaded favorite songs. Listen, buddy, no problem. The simplicity of the solution is captivating. Drug.

Another cool thing is that if you quickly turn the player on and off, a voice from the car will tell you how the battery charge is. Battery full, battery low and so on with percentages.

We must not forget about indicator light, which is located between the connector and the button. It can signal you about a bunch of different things; Honestly, I’m not at all interested in understanding this. Everything is in the instructions, link above.

Music

Literally after the announcement of the player, alarming rumors spread across the Internet, saying that the new headphones for Shuffle have a special microchip, and companies that want to make accessories for this player will have to use it. And really, if the old Shuffle could easily be connected to a car with a 3.5-3.5 mm cable, then what about the new one? Control is on the headphones... There is something to think about, in short. This is not the first time for Apple to play different games with accessory manufacturers; let’s remember the recent interesting thing with the connector of the first iPhone, when not all headphones could be used only because of the design of the connector. Let's remember how consumers reacted strongly to this, and let's remember how many different headsets, attachments, and additives saw the light of day thanks to this feature. Like in The Fifth Element, Mr. Zorg breaks a glass, and robots immediately fly in from everywhere, movement begins, and so on. It seems to me that Shuffle is just a testing ground for VoiceOver and microchips in headphones, that is, smooth preparation of accessory manufacturers for the fact that they will have to be friends with Apple on this topic. In the sense of buying technology or something else. Otherwise, no matter the hour, VoiceOver will penetrate both the iPod, the iPhone, and even the Mac, and you can simply miss the happy moment. In the sense of not giving consumers quality accessories from a third-party manufacturer.

In general, this is not what this is about. We are dealing with the company’s regular headphones, which, in my opinion, work quite well with the company’s equipment. The sound cannot be called ideal or very good, it is average and normal. Accordingly, Shuffle sounds exactly the same - normal, but nothing more. Testing the second “shuffle” with these headphones showed that in terms of playback quality new model slightly better, louder, cleaner, the difference is noticeable, but not particularly significant. For an unassuming listener it will be more than suitable (and these are the majority of listeners), but an audiophile will feel sick. I’ll note something else: the included headphones seem to be shorter than those that come with other equipment, maybe not by much, but shorter. Apparently, this was done specifically for the convenience of wearing the Shuffle, and this is the right move. Please note that the headphones form almost a single unit with the player body when connected.

Nutrition

The kit includes an adapter for a USB connector, at the other end there is a seemingly typical 3.5 mm connector. In fact, of course, he is not typical at all. You can charge the Shuffle from a laptop or computer, or use an AC adapter, for example, from an iPhone. As stated in the product specifications, a full USB charge will take approximately three hours, with network adapter Charging occurs in one hour and forty minutes. It is preferable to do just that. The stated operating time is ten hours, my player was brand new, so a banal strength test with random playback at full volume is not entirely indicative. But, nevertheless, eight hours and thirty minutes. Give or take a few minutes. The result for a fresh battery is good, here you need to take into account the size of the device. Accordingly, I think that these are more than normal indicators.

Memory

If earlier we saw a variety of Shuffles, there were versions with 512 MB, and 1 GB, and 2 GB, but now there is one model - with four “gigabytes”. The only differences are in the body colors. Four gigabytes is good. This allows us to easily stock up on an acceptable amount of music and add to the collection as needed. Synchronization is fast, selecting and transferring songs to iTunes, I noticed that they almost instantly appear in the player’s library. Faster than the second generation Shuffle.

Naturally, you can use a certain amount of memory to transfer files; all this is configured in iTunes.

And by the way, it came out just yesterday new firmware for the device, correcting minor errors. Probably related to VoiceOver.

conclusions

Apart from admiration for the arrogance of the company, I personally don’t have any other emotions. This is a great thing that is great to give to someone or buy for yourself when you have some burning money lying around in your pocket. As a player, the Shuffle is good for the gym, running, and it is also suitable for those who use the player occasionally. It is also suitable for getting acquainted with the iPod in general, that is, for beginner “switchers”. Regarding the controls, voices in the headphones and the inability to use the player with your favorite “ears”, I have nothing special to say - this is all very cool, however, it seems to me that we are seeing tests of some new ideas from the company, which could well be implemented in “adult” iPods . Marvel, test reader, how great they work.

But all jokes aside, I liked the device. All of this voice stuff is easy to learn and gives a new rhythm to use. It's very easy to come to terms with the fact that you can't change headphones. You can even believe that the sound here is great, and it seems so if you use normal compositions. Grace directly. All that remains is to be amazed once again at how people’s heads work in the company, when they manage to come up with something new year after year, even in relation to such simple things. True, there is a double feeling here: on the one hand, you were cheated, on the other, your life was simplified. For some, the need to use iTunes 8.0 will become a stumbling block (you need to download many, many megabytes), while others will not be afraid of using only the included headphones. It's up to you, of course, to decide. But the price will also matter; it is not yet clear how much this model will cost in Russia, I assume that it will cost about three thousand. And for this money you can buy something else, for example, a Sony Walkman from the E series. Even if there is less memory, even less image charge, but playing Sonya music will be a hundred times better. Plus, no problems with headphones, synchronization, and so on. But it's not that fun to use - it's not fun or interactive. Are they really needed? I think it’s time to stop and give you the opportunity to independently determine for yourself the degree of need and interest of this player.

And, of course, it will be interesting to discuss the new Shuffle in the forum.