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iPod shuffle comes closer to iPod pequeno reality

image Its capacity of 4 GB may not approach the multimillion-song capacity promised in the Saturday Night Live sketch featuring Fred Armisen as Steve Jobs. But the new iPod shuffle “paper clip” as it has been called takes the smallest MP3 from the pack of gum that the original iPod shuffle was to something more akin to a stick of gum. Yet Apple says the new shuffle will still get about 10 hours of battery life despite being half the size of previous models and that the former shuffle dock has been replaced with a short cable that has a USB connector on one end and a 3.5 mm jack on the other end.

To address two of the more controversial aspects of the new design, Apple has confirmed that in the very near future (perhaps hours) we will see third-party headphones and adapters that have shuffle controls built in. Second, as to why the English voice sounds more natural when synced from the Mac, that is the result of the text-to-speech capabilities of Leopard. Using any other language or even Tiger on the Mac will result in the more basic text-to-speech.