By Katie Marsal

Published: 06:50 PM EST (03:50 PM PST)

Interface: two steps forward, two steps back

More often than not, it's exercisers that most often call out for remote controls for their music players, but Apple has always approached this in a roundabout way with the iPod shuffle. Instead of producing a remote, it just made the player small and wearable enough that it could sit where the remote would have been.

With the third-generation model, Apple made the remote necessary, but didn't really need to do much homework as to what it would use. Minus the obviously rather unnecessary microphone, the new iPod's default controls are a near-exact duplicate of the in-line remote that comes part of official, optional replacement sets, including the high-end iPod In-Ear Headphones. They even share the same controls: a single click plays or pauses, two and three clicks skip forward and back, while dedicated volume buttons sit on either side. A slight change is the addition of fast-forward and rewind by holding the clicker at the end of the forward and back commands.

If nothing else, it's extremely convenient. The iPod no longer has to sit in an easily reached location, and it's less likely to disorient listeners who may find the controls upside-down if the player is worn differently than usual.

The new iPod's centerpiece, though, is the addition of an additional control scheme dubbed VoiceOver. A single click-and-hold will speak out the track title, while holding it down until a tone is played lets you pick from playlists as their names are read aloud. It's an odd choice, but it does make for the first screenless music player that can still hold multiple playlists, podcasts and even audiobooks. That's more than a little relieving to owners of previous-generation models (yours truly included) who've been forced to change sync preferences every time they want a different mix or to listen to spoken-word audio.

Even so, it quickly becomes evident that the remote-only and VoiceOver controls together feel as much like regressions as they do steps forward. Bluntly stated, the remote actually makes things more complex, not simpler: what almost always took one click with the second-generation model now takes two or three clicks. Using these controls will be familiar to most any iPhone owner or to anyone who's bought one of Apple's newer headphone sets since September, but Apple's own elaborate control map shows that its attempt to be clever has partly backfired.

VoiceOver is also awkwardly implemented. Since Apple insists that the iPod say the complete track title before switching to playlists, you're forced to wait longer than you'd usually like. It simply feels arbitrary. Most users already know what songs they have on their iPods; why feel compelled to remind them every time they want to hear an exercise mix or a favorite album?

Moreover, the interface as created isn't very intelligent in coping with podcasts. Rather than give each podcast its own virtual playlist, Apple lumps all of them into a single "podcasts" section and treats them like songs; you either play them in the order established during sync or play them shuffled. The system makes it impossible to hold more than one episode of a given podcast and discourages placing any more than one podcast on the iPod at a time. The software designers didn't even have the courtesy of stopping playback outright at the end of a podcast, as it invariably loops back to the beginning of the first podcast stored on the player.

As such, the iPod shuffle still ultimately feels like a simple, all-or-nothing music-oriented player first. While it provides some relief for those with more complex listening tastes than "completely random," it introduces a significant (if sometimes forgivable) nuisance and still doesn't really solve the problem of juggling multiple listening formats. Those most likely to enjoy it the most are those who use it like the random jukebox first- and second-generation players, which somewhat defeats the point.