Dan: I have had an iPod nano for the last two years and unfortunately I have now lost it. I am the kind of person that lives and breathes music. I need it or else I can’t walk to class basically. My mom knows this about me and replaced it with an iPod shuffle. It was such a caring gift and I cannot get enough of it. It was only $50 and it puts my old nano to shame. It is tiny and has a clip so that you can attach it to your pants, which is really handy because a lot of work out clothes don’t have pockets. The basic one that I have has 1GB worth of space, which is approximately 240 songs. If you wanted more space you can spend $69 and have 2GB and approximately 500 songs.

I absolutely love my iPod shuffle and it goes everywhere with me so easily. The one and only downside to the shuffle is that it does not have a screen to display information about what you are listening to. It does not bother me at all but to some people it might. How you put music on it is through making play lists as if you were burning a CD for the car.

One thing that you must consider when getting an iPod shuffle or any Apple product is the battery life. Both Grace and I have had battery issues with our Apple laptops and the same can be true with any other Apple product. Make sure that for the first few uses (preferably all the time) you use it from full 100% charge down to 20% or below and then back to 100%. If you only use it a little bit and then recharge or have it recharging excessively once it is at 100% you are effectively draining the battery and killing its overall battery life. You want to make sure the iPod shuffle you give as a gift or get for yourself lasts as long as it can.

Grace: Dan, you beat me to this gift idea!  I currently own a video iPod and I love it so much!  However, it would be really nice to own an iPod shuffle because I only really listen to a few songs and it seems silly to bring my full sized iPod everywhere.  It’s not horribly expensive and is really useful!  Also, it’s a really great gift idea for an older adult who may have trouble using technology, like my grandmother.  She is not technologically savvy, but she has no trouble at all using her iPod shuffle.