The new iPod shuffle isn’t out until October, but when it does show up at an Apple store near me, it’s going to have some questions to answer. At the top of that list is where the heck is the USB connection? We know it’s there because it’s mentioned in the specs Apple provides.
From looking over the pictures on Apple’s site (including the 360° QuickTime VR shot, I can see that the new “dock” cable has a minijack plug, but that’s the only connector in evidence there or on the new shuffle itself. Which only leads me to conjecture that they’re using the minijack connector for data as well (“Stereo minijack” is also the only port listed on the specs for the shuffle). I don’t know enough about engineering to know if that’s possible; perhaps some of our more enlightened readers can fill me in.
Update: Cheers to reader Akurin below, who points out the following text on Apple’s shuffle features page (teach me not to read every single page): “iPod shuffle’s headphone jack does double-duty as a dock connector. Flip iPod shuffle upside-down and drop it into the included dock. Then connect the dock to your Mac or Windows PC via USB for a quick sync and charge. And if you’re away from your computer, you can charge on the go with an optional USB adapter.”
Um, no, the new shuffle has a dock connector on the bottom, just like the other ipod models, therefore requiring a dock-to-USB cable...
yeah, some mp3 player like the mpio-FL200http://www.amazon.co.uk/MPIO-FL200-Silver-Necklace-Player/dp/B0002IWYAY) use it
@ Joshua: Um, no, the iPod shuffle does not have a dock connector.
maybe the data and sound are sent thru mini jack, while the battery is charged like the sonic care toothbraush...
The plug on the shuffle dock has 3 divisions (4 contact points) compared to the usual 2 (3 contact points) for a stereo headphone jack. So presumably the 4th contact point is used to signal the presence of the dock and switch over the circuitry to USB mode.
"Headphone jack
iPod shuffle's headphone jack does double-duty as a dock connector. Flip iPod shuffle upside-down and drop it into the included dock. Then connect the dock to your Mac or Windows PC via USB for a quick sync and charge. And if you're away from your computer, you can charge on the go with an optional USB adapter." -Taken from Apple's site, http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/features.html
If you look carefully at the dock, there's an extra ring on the plug in the dock that wouldn't be needed for stereo. Once the mini detects that it's not a headphone, you've got 4 pins for USB.
Yeah I guess my comment where I said, "Oh I'm an idiot and you're right" didn't get approved ;)
my bad...
Dan, Dan... if only you'd listened to the latest Macworld podcast, you'd have known this ;-)
To be fair, despite the lying time listed above, I wrote this post at around noon eastern today, about 4 hours before the Macworld podcast. :) I'm still honing my seeing into the future skills, but this blog is going to kill when I get them all set.
That said, I did enjoy hearing your dulcet tones along side Messrs. Breen and Snell on the podcast today. :)