The traditiona unboxing song is on. My Shuffle was delivered today and I am unpacking it right now. So this is live…
Opened the brown delivery box, which is also smartly folded in the inside to stabilise contents. Took out the surprisingly heavy and surprisingly small iPod Shuffle box. Now I lift off the sticky foil on top which keeps the packet cloised and has a nice little arrow showing what I have to do. Pure packaging (and interaction design) goodness. It lifts off without any glue remainders, except of the end (d’oh) but luckily you can scrub them off with the finger so that the box is now clean and non-sticky – just like I like it. Folding away the front cover wich surprisingly folds downwards because of the tape there. I’d actually expect it to swing open to the right. The Shuffle is fixed neatly with some plastic and pulling it lifts the inner wall off… smooothly. :) Taking off the plastic clip reveals now the real aluminium backside with the Apple logo, “iPod” and my laser engraving. The feeling texture is pure beauty. Changing track to Strauss’ “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”. First impression of the Shuffle itself: The clip is on the wrong side and the sliders I expected on the top, but I guess it is designed for when being clipped, which then will have the hinge on the right hand side, but which still forces me to clip it to the left. Apple, can you make two models that are inverted so that you can choose? :) Changing track to Verdi’s “Triumphal March”… But I love the buttons – while the sliders are really cool but feel a bit cheap – the buttons are great. I love the feel of the white ring on the front, slightly matte and not too shiny, perfect match to the Aluminum and combined with the curved surface it gives the whole front a great mixture of shadow and light. Ok, continuing to unbox, opening the paper folder to get to the quick guide in Danish, Swedish and Finnish… (according to the sticker on the grouping) but a look on the nicely feeling paper reveals that it is actually Norwegian and not Danish. The obligatory Apple stickers are also in there… maybe I should wrap my iPod in one of those. ;) The quick guide actually sports my laptop… nice work Apple! Even though I have some issues that you have access to the information about which hardware I have bought, I like the fact that you print my system so that I know exactly where to plug. ;) Then the ear plugs with their rather short chord but a good feel in the ear and rubber at the proper spots but the print on the hidden (wrong side when looking for it) side – but the shape should help there.. And finally the dock… with a good clip to keep the cable clean, but I’d prefer second one (or a shorter cable). Quickly tested all buttons and blinking from the guideline and all works fine and is intellegible except of the volume… and the light is definitely on the wrong side if one should see it while using. So I now plugged it in and iTunes brings the EULA, agreeing to that and then naming the pod “Óðrerir” (unfortunately I could not engrave that as well. :( And then switching off AUtofill and going through the iPod setup and registring. Ok, the unboxing is hereby complete, next is just filling and loading the little bugger. Sound! I need sound again…. let’s see for something suitable. Grieg maybe?
Hey, congrats! But – do you have USB 2.0 or how long takes it to fill de iPod?
Greetz from AI!
No, I still have UBS 1.1, which was one of the big concerns in my shopping decision (see old post). Then it took me 30 min. to fill the whole iPod Shuffle. This time I also converted the tracks to 128 bit AAC, which takes then even longer. I was actually surprised because I hoped that if USB is the bottleneck, my computer should at least convert the tracks faster than USB transferring. Well, but what I did was to put like 10 really good albums on it and I won’t synchronise it that much. I use it so far mostly when walking to work and home, which is like 2 times 30 min per day. So no problem of getting tired of the music on it so far.
For you, I actually would recommend to get the biggest (80 GB) iPod and just put all music on it, that’s then like 40h of one-time syncing but you get free space and no further problems. ;)