buzznovation: Shuffling...off to Buffalo...

When I first saw the Apple Shuffle, I thought to myself, who would bother. Why would you bother with say 512 Megs, when you could buy a real iPod for a couple hundred bucks more. I also thought to myself that without a screen to read the Shuffle was doomed. A while later I realized that I couldn’t read the screens on the little flash drive MP3 players that I had seen, so a screen wasn’t a big deal.

I then realized that when I was traveling, that smaller and lighter was a much better idea.

Trying to buy one was another matter. I was in Seattle when I got the urge, and to quote my friend Doc Searls, “invention” became “the mother of necessity”. I made three trips to one Apple store, and three trips to another. No luck, finally I got smart, and went in, found a nice young woman and begged my way onto the Shuffle will call list. Two days later I got the call, tried to pay using my Visa card. No luck, I was given 50 minutes to show up as they had a long list of people standing in the call list line.

I hustled over and bought a couple. Gave one to my friend’s wife who had put up with me for ten days. She was thrilled. We loaded them up with songs and I haven’t looked back. I have flown on three different flights since. Music has been sensational, no issue about power, and the Shuffle fits in the same case that came with my Etymotic ER-6is.

I heard from someone that Apple has sold 2 million of them since their release. I am surprised frankly they haven’t sold more. Probably because they can’t supply the demand. Dynamite little device. Right now I am sitting in an airport listening to Norah Jones, oblivious to the noise around me, and sipping WiFi from the Crown Room.

Too bad there isn’t a cocktail waitress nearby…and the case for my ER-6is holds both the earbuds and the Shuffle. It doesn’t get much better.