Do the iPod Shuffle

I've shared with you my iPod Nano woes, haven't I, Gentle Reader? How I was burning through an iPod a week from late February to mid-March?

Well, guess what--the latest Nano bit the big one Friday. I took it in Saturday for a replacement, and for the first time, it showed evidence of water damage. Yeah, gee, imagine that happening since I sweat like a pig when I run with the damn thing strapped to my arm in a case that does only a passable job of keeping moisture from the device.

I learned while at the Apple store that I could trade in a dead iPod for a 10-percent discount on a new one, but I wasn't prepared to shell out $140 or so for a new Nano. I mean, why when I'm bound to damage the thing sweating the way I do? (Damn those biological necessities! Must get myself Botoxed so I no longer sweat.) And finding a better armband wouldn't solve the problem either since I've searched and searched for something that's designed the way I need an armband to be designed. (And no, Gentle Reader, this situation doesn't call for me to get entrepreneurial and design my own case. I suck when it comes to that stuff.)

Resigned to just using my old red Nano until it bites the dust again (I'd discontinued its use, you may recall, because I was sure I'd corroded the headphone jack with my biological productions), I loaded this week's Target circular this morning with a mild curiosity of whether the store was running any kind of iPod specials. Sure enough, this week you can score an iPod Nano with a $15 Target gift card, which reduces the price to about the same cost of a refurbed current-generation iPod Nano from the online Apple store. Target was offering a similar offer for the 2 GB Shuffle model, but for me to use a Shuffle, I'd have to more than halve my gym music collection, which didn't appeal to me at all.

Perhaps, I mused, I'd best just bite the bullet and pick up a new Nano and be done with it--and get the extended warranty.

While at Target, though, I made a discovery: the new third-generation 4 GB Shuffle. Yes, a 4 GB, which is ample space for my 700+ gym music collection. And the nifty clip-on design of the Shuffle just might allow me to put it in a place on my person wear it might be somewhat safer from my sweat than a Nano shoved in a Spandex and neoprene armband would be. It's cheaper than an 8 GB Nano, plus I wouldn't have to buy a new armband since my current one wouldn't work with the fourth-generation Nano, which went back to the long rectangle form factor of the second-generation Nano!

The 3G Shuffle is, I have to admit, kinda cool in that Apple geeky way. It powers through the headphone port (amazing!), and the only other control is to turn the thing off, to switch it to play the songs loaded in order and to switch the sucker to shuffle. Volume control, playing and pausing music and skipping forward and back through the music queue are done from a set of buttons on the headphones. Of course, this design doesn't allow you to switch out headphones, so it's a good thing I returned the headphones I'd bought myself as a congratulatory gift when I hit 1,000 miles logged. Then again, I'm screwed if I hate the buds that came with the Shuffle--but they're just like the ones that I've been using. Not perfect, but they work well enough.

Will I use the VoiceOver feature that's already been lampooned on that there Internet? Hell no! I don't use the voice feature on the Nike+, so why the hell would I let this voice interrupt my music?

Anywho, I can't wait to take my Shuffle for a run at the gym tomorrow. I just pray I can remember how to use the controls on the headphones....