I’ll be taking a look at the packaging, unboxing the iPod shuffle, and offering my thoughts on the hardware and software bundled with the gadget.

Unboxing

Apple seems to be continuing down the road of shrinking packaging material, and the box for the iPod shuffle is really small. It comes presented with the shuffle center stage, containing a simple manual, 3.5mm audio to USB adaptor, and the headphones.

Initial Impressions

The first thing to note, as you’d expect, is that the iPod shuffle is absolutely tiny. I’m fascinated to see where the constant shrinking of the shuffle will ultimately lead to, and I don’t think it’ll be long before you’ll struggle to find it in your pocket. The build quality is also remarkable, with the aluminum construction feeling bulletproof.

As with the previous generation, the entire device is fashioned into a large clip. You can easily attach it anywhere, and it’s sturdy enough that I wouldn’t be concerned about it falling off when running. The top of the shuffle sports a small switch which toggles between shuffling tracks or playing music sequentially.

The headphones are (unfortunately) exactly what you’d expect. They’re standard iPod headphones, albeit with a new and sleek in-line track/volume controller. They have the same ‘rubbery’ feel as recent iPod model earphones, and offer the same reasonable level of comfort and sound. Don’t expect to be blown away, though Apple should be working on an adaptor to allow you to use your own earphones in the near future.

iTunes Connectivity

Connecting to iTunes is as simple as ever, and includes a few options which haven’t been present before. Upon connecting, you’re asked to register your iPod (with a nice new graphic to show the new shuffle in the lineup):

Registering the iPod Shuffle

When setting up, you’re asked if you’d like to enable VoiceOver. This works by generating spoken audio for the names of your tracks on your Mac (or Windows machine), before transferring them to your iPod along with the music. Because of this, you’re asked if you’re happy to install the VoiceOver desktop software.

Installing VoiceOver

This integrates silently into iTunes, and you don’t really notice anything is occurring. A short downloading status message appears, and then syncing music is handled as normal. You’ll be pleased to know that disk mode is supported as before, allowing you to transfer other files on the iPod. If you’d like, you can also set a volume limit and automatically reduce the quality of audio when syncing to fit more on the device.

iTunes Settings

Track Navigation & VoiceOver

There has been a decent amount of debate over how usable the headphone remote would actually be for skipping between tracks. I’d say it’s probably the least user-friendly interface that Apple has created for the iPod to date, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still function very well.

The annoying aspect of VoiceOver is that it isn’t the quickest method of navigating your iPod’s content. There’s quite a bit of waiting involved, and it’s tricky to skip through what is being read out. Not a problem if you have two or three playlists, but increasingly annoying as you add more. While the new computer voice in Leopard was noted as a decent improvement, I still think that artificial computer vocals have some way to come before they’re anything like the real thing. ‘Alex’ is perfectly coherent, but it’s a little odd to have your track information spoken to you by a digital voice.

Commendations, Complaints and Caution

On the whole, the size reduction and multiple playlist support do make the iPod shuffle a decent improvement. It’s brilliant if you’re exercising, and the controls do allow for simple track control without fumbling with the iPod itself. I’d really appreciate a way to use my own headphones with the shuffle, and look forward to some form of adaptor being released.

It is possible to trick the iPod, by setting the track and volume playing with the default phones and switching across to your own. Far from ideal, and doesn’t allow any subsequent control of the player. If you’d like to buy a better pair of supported in-ear phones, you can do so from Apple.

However, the general fact is that most shuffle owners don’t want to carefully select specific tracks to play; there’s been no way to do this in the past (even lacking multiple playlist support), so in many senses the new version is a step forward. I’ll certainly be happy with being able to use the new navigation method and appreciate the ability to flick through playlists.

Ultimately, the new iPod shuffle is a decent looking flash drive, backed up with a seasoned and fantastic piece of software — iTunes. The player has a few areas in which improvement is needed, but represents a solid advancement of Apple’s iPod device.

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I’m sure most of you have read, or at least heard of Getting Things Done by David Allen. He started a real productivity movement, and has millions of dedicated followers. He has excellent and practical advice for organizing your life and work, and there are a lot of tools available that you can use to take advantage of his recommendations… some specifically designed around his methodology. OmniFocus is one of them. At its core, OmniFocus IS “GTD” task management. Don’t worry if you don’t know what GTD is, fortunately you don’t have to know anything about it to become more productive using OmniFocus. For more information about Getting Things Done task management, check out David Allen’s website.

How OmniFocus is Different

OmniFocus categorizes your to-do items in two different ways, projects and contexts. At first this may seem to waste time, but once you get in the habit you’ll find that it’s amazing how simply you can manage your to-do’s this way.

Projects
Just as they sound, projects are anything with a desired outcome. You can probably think of many projects right now if you try. Everything from “file taxes” to “go to the beach” is a project. You’ll have projects related to work, and projects in your personal life.

Contexts
Contexts are where or how you get things done. To write an article, you might need to be at your computer. To file paperwork, maybe you’d have to be at your office. To call a client, you’d need to be around a phone. Contexts associate actions with the context in which you’d perform them, so you can group actions by where you will be or what you have access to.

OmniFocus for Mac

The desktop application is a fairly straightforward but there is a great video tutorial on the OmniFocus website and a quick reference card you can download. The home screen is comprised of a menubar at the top, projects or contexts in a sidebar on the left and tasks on the right. When OmniFocus opens it returns the context or project you were last viewing before you closed the program.

Inbox
The inbox is the “home screen” of OmniFocus. Here any uncategorized tasks without a context will be waiting on you to categorize them. This is similar tot he GTD inbox in that it’s just a temporary holding bin for tasks you need to record quickly. You should go through the inbox regularly and give each task a project (even if it’s miscellaneous) and a context.

Quick Entry Shortcut
One feature that I absolutely love about OmniFocus is the quick entry shortcut. The shortcut lets you quickly enter tasks, even when OmniFocus isn’t the frontmost application.

Email Entries
You can email yourself tasks when you’re on the road, and OmniFocus will grab them and add them to your inbox. I tested the feature and it works well, but since I use the OmniFocus iPhone application, I don’t really have a use for it. Blackberry or Treo owners will find it’s a lifesaver though.

Backups
OmniFocus might just be a little OCD when it comes to backing up your information (which is a good thing). It seems by default OmniFocus backs up your database twice daily and when you close OmniFocus. If you open OmniFocus several times a day, you can easily rack up half a dozen backups in a day. Of course, this is better than losing tasks you’ve entered due to a software or system crash.

OmniFocus for iPhone

I’m surprised that over a year after it’s initial launch, the iPhone still has no ability to sync iCal tasks. When OmniFocus released the iPhone application, I immediately purchased it even though I had never used the desktop version. I had already tried several free (and a couple paid) task management applications from the App Store and none of them worked well for me. After looking at the information on their website, and knowing it was built around GTD, I was comfortable spending $20 on a quality GTD task management system.

The iPhone application is simple, easy to use and has some great iPhone-centric features.

Adding New Tasks
Adding new tasks is the best feature of the iPhone application, and the one that will likely be the most used. When you’re in the car or eating dinner at a restaurant and suddenly think of something you need to do, what do you do? Take out a napkin or scrap of paper to write on? Then what? A week or two goes by and you lose the scrap of paper containing the note, forget completely about the task and only remember it when it’s almost (or already) late. Adding tasks in OmniFocus for iPhone is extremely simple, and the new task button is on the menubar in every screen. You can also attach a voice recording or photo to the task, which is a very handy feature. You can give the tasks a context and project or just let them sync to your computer and organize them later.

Location Aware
You can associate contexts with geographic locations. Office and home are two excellent examples, but you could do many more. Then just hit the location icon in the menubar to find all the tasks near your current location.

Syncing
To sync with OmniFocus on your Mac, you have to have the latest “Sneaky Peek” version, which you can download on this page. The full upgrade from 1.0 to 1.1 will be a free upgrade, so don’t let that keep you from purchasing OmniFocus. I’ve found the “Sneaky Peek” version to be very stable. It seems the only changes over the stable version of OmniFocus 1.0 is the iPhone syncing.

Conclusions

I have found few flaws in OmniFocus. I’ve managed to get it to crash a handful of times but that’s not really any different from any other application on my computer. I crash Firefox 2 or 3 times a day so I can’t fault OmniFocus too badly for crashing 2 or 3 times in the month I’ve been using it. I’ve used it day-in and day-out.

If you need better task management and want something that will work both on your Mac and iPhone, I highly recommend OmniFocus. My only caveat is the price. At $80 for OmniFocus, the $20 iPhone application hurts a little. I wish they’d give the iPhone application to registered users of OmniFocus. It would probably increase sales of the desktop client (and $80 is better than $20!)

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