To me, this is Apple’s stupidest/dumbest/lousiest/crappiest/most idiotic product in its 32 years of existence.

No controls = only Apple’s earbuds

This, to me, is the epitome of stupidity. You don’t allow your consumers to use their own preferred earphones because you decide to take away ALL THE CONTROLS, COMPLETELY.

The very fact that the iPod Shuffle is lacking this “feature” makes it completely inferior to every single other MP3 player on the market, both past and present.

Do they really think customers will be attracted to buying something which has no controls and which you can only use with Apple’s earbuds? For people like me whose ears just won’t earbuds to stick to them without falling out every 5 seconds, it’s impossible for me to use the new iPod shuffle. The fact that they’re probably going to release an adapter that adds a remote doesn’t help things because

• I hate using remotes, they’re just clumsy and gimmicky
• I HAVE TO PAY FOR IT

Think about it, I have to pay to be able to control my MP3 player, and not to mention in a way which I detest.

It’s smaller… WTF?

Seriously, did they think the previous iPod Shuffle was not small enough? To me the previous iPod Shuffle was pretty darn good, it was just the right size, felt solid enough, and had a clip. All you could ask for was more capacity, which Apple could add over time.

But come on, was there really a need to make it smaller? What’s the point, are people really going to get all excited over it because it’s like 1 or 2 cm smaller? I certainly don’t need it.

I don’t want someone talking in my ear

Basically, Apple came up with this “brilliant” idea that a robotic voice would read to you the title of your song. I used to own a shuffle and l-o-v-e-d it, and it never had this feature, because it’s completely unnecessary. The original tagline for the iPod Shuffle was “Life is Random”, which was perfect. The whole point was that you didn’t know/bother about what the title of the song was, you just enjoyed whatever music that started randomly playing.

There was never the thought going through my head that “damn, I wish I knew what this song was”, more often than not I already did because the songs I put in my Shuffle were all my top-rated songs which I listened to constantly.

All in all, I really don’t see the point in this new “VoiceOver” feature.

Imagine this conversation…

Customer: Oh this is interesting, what’s this?

Apple guy: This is our new iPod Shuffle!

Customer: Oh I see… wait there aren’t any buttons?

Apple guy: Yup, that’s right!

Customer: So it has a touch screen or something?

Apple guy: Nope!

Customer: Then how do you control it?

Apple guy: Using Apple’s earphones!

Customer: Oh, then what if I want to use it with my own headphones? How do I control it then?

Apple guy: You can’t!

Customer: You’re joking right?

Apple guy: No! What’s wrong?! Look! It’s SMALLER!

All in all…

Apple’s going down the drain if they continue to produce products like this. Honestly, when I first saw the story about how the new iPod Shuffle has no buttons, I thought it was an Onion article.

Oh the horror when I found out it wasn’t…