I bought my wife an iPod Shuffle for her Christmas this year (as part of her new year’s resolution to exercise more – we’ll see how long that lasts!).
Now, I’ve taken a picture of it next to a 20¢ coin, for size comparison:
Maybe it’s just me, but paying $110 (that’s AU $) for something no bigger than a 20 cent coin – I feel like I’m no longer getting my money’s worth. I mean, sure, there was a lot of engineering effort that went into making it so small, and fitting 1GB of songs in there is no mean feat, but I like some meat for my money!
I wonder just how small they can make these things, though. I mean, the real limitation is the buttons – you can only make buttons so small before they’re impossible to press. But then, you could replace the buttons with voice commands and your limitation becomes the connectors – too small and they’ll break too easily. So replace the headphones and USB with Bluetooth, and you’re just left with the battery and recharging the device as your limiting factor. With a device so small though, you could probably go with some kind of kinetic recharger (like you find in watches), assuming it can be made to power a Bluetooth transceiver. Or maybe magnetic induction, but again, there’d only be so small that you can make one of those.
You quickly run into a problem, though. Too small, and the damn thing is too easy to misplace! I reckon even the iPod Shuffle is pushing the limits there. You’ve pretty much got to keep it in its little USB cradle (when not clipped to your shirt or whatever), or you’d never find it!