Please choose the appropriate forum for this topic. Thank you. Just a quick note to say how impressed I am with my shuffle. I exposed it to some extreme (unintentional) testing when I left it in a sweater pocket, forgot about it, and put it through a washing machine cycle.

Then a tumble drying cycle.

When I found it, it was understandably very wet and very dead. I was understandably very upset.

After a brief period of mourning (and giving it time to dry out), I decided to resurrect it. I plugged it into the back of my PC and got nothing. I cried, but I was philosophical - it was a harsh lesson learned, I must learn to be a more responsible iPod owner, etc.

Just as I was about to unplug it from the USB, the USB device icon popped into view, then disappeared again. A sign of life! I took the shuffle out, cradled it, nurtured it, and tried again. At first, the computer seemed reluctant to recognise it, but soon it was recharging happily.

I took it out a few hours later, and lo! It works! It hadn't even deleted any of my songs!

The battery life had been diminished somewhat, but over time that has slowly increased.

I am a happy happy man. Hats off to Apple for creating such a robust and incompetent-idiot-proof little machine. As stated in the title, I would not recommend trying this test at home, but I post this as note of hope to anyone foolish enough to put their shuffle in the laundry. All may not be lost. Also, I needed to get it all out, as I was boring friends and colleagues alike with my tale of woe and joy.

I'm sniffing the tears of happiness away as I type. Long live the iPod.

You're lucky it survived, usually they don't make it.
Just don't do anything like that again!

Curses, I too have joined this field of research. Shuffle has only been out of the wash for 20 min. In a day or two I'll try it out and post to this thread. I feel like for such an investment in science (har) I must at least document my sorrow so that my Shuffle has not died for naught.

stupid me.
dave