What I'm Wondering...

[Drooling Dog]

1. Does it have a "Lock" feature like the iPod does that keeps you from accidentally FFing, RWing, pausing, etc? I don't see one. if not, terrible oversight for something I'd only use for working out.

Autofill a specific iTunes Playlist to your iPod shuffle and roll.

How do you think it would get along with another iPod on iTunes? I use auto-sync checked songs only with my iPod. It would kill me if I had to give that up to accomodate a 2nd player.

I realize it's pretty early to ask these questions, since there probably isn't anyone here that has one yet, but these are the things I wonder about.

[smirf83]

apparently u lock it by holding the play button for 5 secs, then a led turns on. then unlock it the same way.

[jhollington]

Originally posted by Drooling Dog
How do you think it would get along with another iPod on iTunes? I use auto-sync checked songs only with my iPod. It would kill me if I had to give that up to accomodate a 2nd player.
This is a guess, but I would expect that it would work the same as any other second iPod would in iTunes.

iTunes treats each player separately, with separate options for that player. Changing the options for the iPod Shuffle wouldn't affect the settings for your main iPod. For example, you could use auto-sync checked songs only with your main iPod, and simply sync a selected playlist onto your Shuffle.

There would probably also be some iPod Shuffle-specific options (just like the iPod photo has a "Photos" tab, and a checkbox for Album Art). For example, I'm not sure that Sync Entire Library would even be available in the iPod Shuffle preferences.

[Drooling Dog]

Hmmmmmm.... Interesting, jhollington. Thanks for the guess.

What happens (with two normal iPods) the first time you plug the 2nd iPod in? Does it just start syncing everything?

[JYoung]

Originally posted by Drooling Dog
Hmmmmmm.... Interesting, jhollington. Thanks for the guess.

What happens (with two normal iPods) the first time you plug the 2nd iPod in? Does it just start syncing everything?

iTunes will treat the iPods as two different devices, each having it's own set of settings.

[Drooling Dog]

Thanks. Is it best to create two separate Windows users, or does it matter?

[jhollington]

That depends entirely on whether you want to share the same music library or not.

Two iPods under the same user account will share all playlists, ratings, and playcounts, and effectively sync the same music (or a subset of it, if set to sync only certain playlists or manually).

With two separate Windows user accounts, each library will be entirely separate, with it's own playlists, ratings, and playcounts, and it's own music listing. You can share the same physical music files in this case, but they'll have to be added to each library separately (so if you rip a CD, or download music, you'll have to import it into the other user account manually).

[canyonblue737]

Originally posted by Drooling Dog
Thanks. Is it best to create two separate Windows users, or does it matter?

Keep one user. For your primary iPod it will continue to sync all of your music (if you have it set like that which you implied) or whatever playlists etc. you have manual set and for your iPod shuffle it will autofill or sync manual playlists of your choice, all different from the orginial iPod. you set each iPod seperately but get to use the same base of songs, master playlists (from within iTunes) etc.

It is seemless and far more obvious when you actually plug it in then I could possibly explain, trust me it won't begin to be an issue.

PS: any new iPod you plug in for the first time defaults to autosyncing your entire iTunes music library (which you can turn off and go manual of course) but the new iPod shuffle defaults to a new thing, "autofill" which takes 512 mb or 1 gig of music from your library by random to fill it, changing out the music in full each time you plug it in. This too of course you can customize by changing some autofill settings (like using a playlist, rather than the entire library to fill from, or simply drag and dropping songs manually to the shuffle) or going manual.)