From shuffleboard to iPod Shuffle

My Dad turned 80 recently and in addition to his neat new notebook I thought I would get him an iPod.

He walks quite a bit, does some gardening, but I wanted to get him something he could just "click and go" without much hassle.

I bought an iPod Shuffle for $99. The 512Mb version holds about 120 songs, which would be quite a few for him. I had to mail order it from Apple.com as the retailer in my town was out.

The Shuffle is very light - you barely feel any weight, and it has a big forward arrow play button in the middle. Click the top and bottom of the play ring increase/decrease volume, and click the left and right of the play ring to forward and go back a tune. Easy.

Pop it into the USB port of your computer and it charges and syncs. You can use the AutoFill feature of iTunes to select 120 or so songs out of your library to fill it up.

One caveat was that my intention was to put some sample tunes on there for him so it would play right out of the box. However, when I synced it with his new installation of iTunes on his notebook, the songs on the iPod were wiped out. In order to give him these samples I needed to get the songs onto his PC's iTunes first, then sync it to the iPod. Minor hassle.

Comments

[John Menkart]

So I'm on the edge of my seat. Did your Dad Like it? Where did he actually use it?

[Digital Dad]

Yes, he liked it quite a bit. In fact he had visited an Apple store a few weeks prior and was impressed with all of the cool stuff, so the Shuffle was the right ticket.

I'm not sure if he has actually bought an iTunes songs yet, or even ripped his own CDs, but that's the next step.