This is moderately old news as the world of technology goes, but for those of you who didn’t know or indeed didn’t care, Apple released a brand new iteration to it’s line of music players last week in the form of the smallest iPod ever.

The new iPod Shuffle is, well tiny, no lager than half the size of ones index finger and only 0.3″ thick. I have to say it is a very attractive piece of kit coming in both silver and black anodised aluminium.

The most interesting thing about the new shuffle however is the complete omission of any controls on the player itself, sporting only a power button and a headphone jack. The shuffle is instead controlled using Apple’s new headphone controls not too dissimilar to those found on the iPhone but with a few upgrades.

The new controls allow for volume adjustment alongside the controls we have already come to love. One big addition is the use of VoiceOver by which, in an attempt to circumvent it’s lack of display, if you hold the middle button on the headphones down the shuffle will speak to you and tell you what track your listening to, nice touch.

By all accounts this feature works very well and sounds natural too. It allows you also to select a specific playlist by Reading them out to you for you to pick one. There is one huge problem however. The shuffle is primarily aimed at those who enjoy a workout and it is indeed a perfect choice due to it’s amazing size and weight. However and this really is a dealbreaker of sorts. Put your hand up if you use apple’s headphones when at the gym… I didn’t think so. Plugging in 3rd party headphones automatically sets the shuffle playing music but offers no ability whatsoever for track selection or volume adjustment, good work apple.

Apple has stated that control adapters will be available to allow use of 3rd party headphones but a quick thought on this too. My headphones already have a long cable. If I plug these into a control adapter, where does this put my controls? Certainly not neatly by my neck but somehwere else rather more inconvenient.

The new shuffle is cheap at £59 (as far as Apple products go anyway), attractive and sports a great clip for the gym but the headphone issue may well be it’s demise.

Geek out.