Shuffle how does it work

It weighs only 0. It's marketed by Apple as "wearable," since it's built with a clip on the back so listeners can wear on sleeves, collars or belts. So how does an iPod Shuffle work? What does it look like on the inside? And just how random is iTunes? Shuffle over to the next page to find out. Although an iPod with or songs might not sound so impressive from the start, you have to consider the size of the iPod Shuffle -- it's about as big as a quarter.

The iPod Shuffle stores music using a USB flash drive, the same kind of technology you find on portable memory sticks. They're especially handy for people on the run or listeners who like to switch up their playlists often, because flash drives are easily removable and rewritable.

When you open up an iPod shuffle, the first thing that might stand out to you is the battery located on the back. It's a special type of rechargeable battery that's similar to the kind found in a laptop computer , because it uses lithium to carry electricity back and forth -- a lithium-ion polymer battery.

A lithium-ion polymer battery is still different from a regular computer battery in that it's much smaller and lighter and has less of a chance of overheating even though some iPods have reportedly caught on fire. The battery of an iPod Shuffle is connected to a printed circuit board PCB , which holds together all the different parts of the inside of the device. Below the battery is the flash memory chip, which stores all of the iPod's music.

The front of the iPod looks a lot different. That's where you'll find the microprocessor , which controls the iPod's functions and randomly selects the songs you listen to. There's also the circular area that take up most of the front, which has five tiny buttons four on the outside, one in the middle.

These are the buttons you press to choose songs when the iPod isn't taken apart -- the left and right buttons skip or replay songs, the top and bottom buttons the plus and minus signs on the outer case adjust the volume and the center button plays or pauses the music.

There's a hole on one side for a headphone jack, and the other side has two switches: one that turns the iPod on and off and another that turns the Shuffle mode on and off. The Shuffle also uses a feature in iTunes called "AutoFill," which automatically chooses songs at random and puts as many as will fit onto the Shuffle's flash drive. For those of us who like to make our own playlists, that option is also available, and you can pick and choose songs you want to upload, too.

So just how random is the shuffle capability on an iPod Shuffle? Even before the device debuted in , people have wondered about the shuffle function on iPods. Many complain that what they hear from their MP3 players isn't random at all -- every time a new playlist is generated, the iPod seems to pick the same songs by the same artists from the same album.

It's almost as though the iPod has its own favorite songs. When you turn on shuffle the first time, the songs will keep playing in the same order, over and over, unless you choose to reshuffle them. Some individuals may notice the same artists coming up again and again, while others will observe songs that sound similar being played back-to-back.

Still, others believe in a conspiracy that Spotify has made deals with certain artists to ensure their songs play more often. Spotify has denied any of these allegations, and actually, there is a much more likely explanation for why we see these conspiracies. Humans are always looking for patterns and designs in order to make better sense of the world. The truth is you should chalk these instances up to coincidence. For example, a certain song could be played every time you put your playlist on shuffle, simply because it has as good a chance as any other song of being played.

That means that if a playlist repeats artists, songs or genres then it feels wrong. But there is an equal chance that songs will come close together as there is that they will be far apart. Some angry users even proposed conspiracy theories, such as the idea that record labels had struck deals with Spotify so that their artists would be played more than others.

But the company has been working hard to make Spotify feel more random. Artists or genres tended to appear next to each other, giving the sense of the playlist being unfair — even though it is likely that different artists will bunch up as that they will be evenly distributed throughout. Instead, Spotify designed a new algorithm that distributes artists and genres more evenly.