New iPod shuffle, new iTunes: Twitter users underwhelmed

By Rich Trenholm on 12 March 2009, 5:37pm

vincentthacker The new Shuffle is irrelevant to my interests.

Apple parachuted a redesigned, 4GB iPod shuffle into stores yesterday, to a somewhat mixed reaction. While it's wonderfully small, the new control method had us scratching our heads. We turned to the impeccable cultural barometer that is Twitter to see what our followers thought...

FreshPlastic Sounds rubbish to me, sure they'll be loads snapping 'em up though!

Ooh you cynic. It hasn't escaped our users' notice that the new shuffle is, let's face it, quite pretty:

aaranj2009 Just been in liverpool apple store. None there to try out. Looks alright on the pictures though.

calz88 ipod touch is still the best ipod alltho it does look a little bit cooler then the older ones

Not exactly overwhelmed, then. Most of the reaction was to the new method of controlling the shuffle through the headphones -- with everybody spotting the obvious flaw straight away...

boowiki awful. Apple earphones will be terrible.

Smithy1783 It's the headphones that will put me off - great functionality aside, they are just uncomfortable and not as good as my Sennheisars

rogerandre If your stuck with Apples useless headphones, then I presume there is an adapter available for pluging into the Hi-Fi?

Good question. We'll ask the fine folks of Apple when we see them. iTunes also got an 8.1 update. What did our Tweetpeeps think?

jrtapp iTunes 8.1 - 80 mb for what?

Deepfour How about " Can you spot the difference?"

Not every response is negative, however:

TekMunch I have to say the new itunes 8.1visualizers are nice but I still need some time to play with it.

Play away. Meanwhile, it seems the shuffle is fine for those with simple needs:

MichaelJRussell perhaps it's my tin ears or my tone deafness but I've stuck with apple stock phones and been happy. Mostly listen to podcasts though

Some Tweeters have even simpler needs:

EgoPimp Can i program it to tell me it loves me? If so, bargain.