I was about to post a comment about how any review that contains the disclaimer “I haven’t touched or seen the new _____ in person” is patently absurd. I was also going to point out that other manufacturers have already committed to adapters or compatible headphones — killing the argument about being “locked into Apple’s earbuds.”

And then I noticed the date of the posting — April Fool. No wonder it’s such a useless piece of opinionated trash. Don’t I feel silly for almost falling for it!

It means all the music you bought from them at ITMS only plays on Apple devices. It guarantees as long as you’ve purchased music from Apple you will never switch to a new portable player.

But, re DRM – Apple is powerful enough to simply say “no more DRM” and thing *would* change, and quickly…

As for DRM, that was imposed by the music labels, apple had to include it to gain their trust and content. Whom should we blame in that case?

Please, please, check it out in person.

It’s gorgeous.

The only valid point you have are the proprietary headphones. Yes, if you have Apple-incompatible ears, you’re currently SOOL. But adapters are underway. Then again, moving the controls to the headphones makes a lot of sense — I can drop the shuffle somewhere on my person, and don’t have to fish it out to adjust volume or change a track.

All the other, non-issues. It’s easy to control — if you figured out all you Mac controls, you can do that, quickly. And it’s tiny. I was surprised how small it was. Pictures cannot convey the diminutive size.

I was not a shuffle person. Never liked the old ones. But I did buy this. Because, it does all I want it to do, quite elegantly.

And my ears are about 90% Apple earbud compatible.