Apple has announced the release for its new iPod Shufle, the third generation of the unit is now the smallest music player on the market at nearly half of the size of the previous model, and it is also the first music player to talk to you.
The new VoiceOver feature now gives users the option to hear the song title, artists and playlist name read aloud to them directly.
Greg Joswiak, vice president of iPod and iPhone product marketing at Apple, commented on the new release “imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names. The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists”.
The other impressive feature of the new model is the small size, measuring in smaller than a AA battery and holding up to 1,000 songs.
The size of the unit has always been the real differentiating feature for the Shuffle, due to the fact that it can be taken anywhere and with new even smaller size, the third generation Shuffle is bound to continue its strong reputation.
The 4GB iPod Shuffle will initially be available in silver or black and comes in at a RRP of $129.
Whilst on the topic of Apple, it has also been revealed that Apple’s App Store is set to become a US$1 billion business by the end of the year, according to analysts at Needham & Co.
With more than 27,000 downloads currently available and over 500 million downloads already recorded the estimate seems very possible.