Kibbles & Bytes Blog

This week Apple introduced an all-new iPod shuffle, available in silver or black. The new shuffle is half the size of the previous generation, but now has 4GB of storage. This means the new shuffle will hold up to 1,000 songs.

Rather than using a display, the new shuffles have a new feature called VoiceOver. VoiceOver makes the iPod shuffle “the first music player that talks to you.”

If you’re listening to a song and want to know the title or the artist, simply press a button, and VoiceOver tells you, without interrupting your music. Apple writes:

bq. “You’ll notice how smoothly and easily VoiceOver works. A lot of thought has gone into creating an iPod shuffle that not only talks, but says the right things. It all begins with iTunes and its seamless integration with iPod. iTunes reads your song information, then uses the new VoiceOver Kit to generate the announcements for the songs, artists, and playlists on your iPod shuffle.”

This is first iPod shuffle that can use multiple playlists, because VoiceOver announces their names, too. Previous shuffles could only maintain a single, undivided list of songs, podcasts, and audiobooks.

The volume controls for the new shuffle are located on the earbud cord. Apple says “with command central now strategically placed in this more convenient location, you can navigate your music–and activate the VoiceOver feature–without taking your eyes off your run, your ride, or whatever you’re doing.”

Moving the controls to the earbud cord has been slightly controversial. It does seem puzzling to do this, but we’re eager to try it for ourselves. It might make the shuffle even more streamlined.

The iPod shuffle continues to feature a strong clip, so you can easily clip it on. You can use the iPod shuffle as to stores data as a USB flash drive.

The new shuffle has up to 10 hours of playtime when fully charged. It only takes about three hours to fully charge the battery; it’s 80% charged in two hours.

To use the new shuffle on a Mac, you’ll need a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later, and iTunes 8.1 or later (“free download”:http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview/)

On Windows you’ll need a USB 2.0 port, Windows Vista or Windows XP Home or Professional with Service Pack 3 or later, as well as iTunes 8.1 or later (“free download”:http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview/)

The iPod shuffle includes the new Apple Earphones with Remote, iPod shuffle USB cable, and a handy Quick Start guide.

The new iPod shuffles cost $79.99. Check em out here:
“4GB Silver”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/73381
“4GB Black”:http://www.smalldog.com/product/73380

There are hundreds of relatively unpublicized features hidden in every version of Mac OS X. Some of these features are neat-but-frivolous, but many others can quickly become indispensable. We share these hidden features every week, calling them “Mac Treats”.

Here are my top three indispensable Mac Treats. I use these almost every single time I use a Mac. Note that the first two shortcuts refer to the “Command key”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_key. This is found to the left of the spacebar on Mac keyboards. On older keyboards and laptops it’s often stamped with an Apple or an icon that looks like a little four-leafed clover.

1. Command-Tab is an essential Mac shortcut. It allows you to move very rapidly from one open application into another. Simply hold down the Command and Tab key at the same time. You should see a large bar in the middle of your screen showing all open applications. To jump between the foremost application, simply continue holding down the Command key while tapping the Tab key.

Other shortcuts can be combined with Tab-Command. For example, you can use Tab-Command to quickly cut and paste text between applications (as long as they are running) such as TextEdit, Word, Pages, Mail, etc. Or, you can instantly quit applications by shift-tabbing to the application you want to quit, then (without letting go of the command key) use the Command-Q shortcut. I often use this combination to quit applications.

2. Spotlight was introduced in Mac OS 10.4 Tiger and was significantly improved in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. I use it daily to quickly find files on my Mac. I typically want to open the file I’m searching for, but sometimes I only want to know where it’s stored on my Mac’s hard drive. For example, I might want to find a file without opening it so I can email it, or put it on a flash drive, burn it to CD, etc.

Here’s how to easily find a file in Spotlight without actually opening it. First, enter the filename (or type) in the Spotlight search bar. Once the results appear in the menu, hold down the Command key, then click on the file. This will close Spotlight and open a Finder window showing where your file is stored.

Or, if you do want to keep Spotlight open, click on the file in the Spotlight menu, and press Command-R. This will open a Finder window with the file selected, leaving the Spotlight menu open.

3. Quick Look is one the key features of Mac OS 10.5 Leopard, but many Leopard users don’t know it exists. Quick Look allows you view the contents of a file without opening it, and with a single click of the Spacebar. Quick Look works with nearly every file format on a Mac (images, text files, PDF documents, movies, Keynote presentations, Mail attachments, Microsoft files), and can be “extended”:http://www.quicklookplugins.com/ to open even more file types than supported by default.

To use Quick Look on Leopard, simply click once on the file you’d like to look at and press the Space bar. You can flip through multipage documents, watch videos (even in full screen), scroll through photos, and even examine entire Keynote presentations.

_Dear Friends,_

We are well into one of Vermont’s “shoulder” seasons, mud season. While the ski areas are still open, the snow is melting with the warmer weather and sunshine and so is the mud and ice on the dirt roads. With ruts and washboards, the back roads are getting pretty bad. The road crew up by my place even put a “muddy roads”:http://blog.smalldog.com/images/1049.jpg sign up at the start of my dirt roads.

I go through the worst muddy road as soon as I leave pavement. The official name of this road is Fuller Hill Road, but those of us that live here simply call it the “Cold Road” because it is shaded by trees on both sides and is usually the last road to thaw. After that it is the trek up Prickly Mountain road which can get very gooey. When Small Dog Electronics was still headquartered at my house we had one of the worst mud seasons ever and the only rig that would make it up the hill was the Chevy Blazer that we used to ferry Macs from the warehouse to my house for configuration and shipping.

With the sunny days and the cold nights, the sap is running in the maple trees and sugaring is well under way. If you have only had Aunt Jemima syrup, you owe it to yourself to splurge and get some genuine pure Vermont maple syrup. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make a single gallon of syrup. When I lived up in northern Vermont, I would do some sugaring.

I had a big Belgian workhorse and we would hook her to a sled with a big gathering tank on the back and then slog through the knee deep snow to gather the sap from the buckets hung on the trees. My horse would drag the sled to the make-shift sugar house where we would spend all night boiling the sap down. While Grade “Fancy” syrup may look the best with its golden color and clear texture, we go out of our way to find Grade “B” because of the stronger maple taste.

Apple surprised everyone with the introduction of the new 4GB iPod shuffle this week. This is the smallest music player ever and with the 1000 song capacity it is a real breakthrough product. The new iPod also features VoiceOver that will speak the names of songs and artists and even playlists. They moved the iPod controls to the headphone cord and if you are using Apple’s earbuds, this is a very convenient way to control your iPod shuffle.

While the iPod will work with third party earphones, you will lose control of most of the features including VoiceOver and volume controls. It is inevitable that Apple and third-party sources will introduce alternative earbuds that incorporate the shuffle controls and/or adapters to allow the use of other earphones. This shuffle is going to be a big hit for Apple, but I am keeping my 2GB shuffle until the headphone situation is resolved!