Imagine being so angry at your $59 iPod Shuffle conking out, that you’d file a lawsuit against Apple. He must have a serious lack of shame too, as his reason for the Shuffle breaking? It wasn’t immune to his sweat. More

If you’re even thinking about buying an Apple product, wait until after you’ve read this guide to product cycles and refreshes. It’s not always a good time to buy—and now might be an especially bad one for some. We’ve taken a good look at the handy Buyer’s Guide over at MacRumors and given you some background and our own recommendations for safe shopping. Enjoy, and try not to throw too many elbows out there. And don’t worry! If you hate all things Apple, we’ve got you covered here . iPod Shuffle Whether a major revamp or a new selection of colors, Apple has updated Shuffle twice a year, like clockwork, every year since 2006

While leaving video out of the iPod touch had everyone up in arms, nobody expected Apple to add a camcorder to the shuffle. Leave it to the Chinese to fill that enormous void with the Mini MP3 DV Cam. Of course, even the miniest of mini camcorders cannot be crammed into the shell of an existing shuffle, so Xiangyun Industry Co did the sensible thing and sacrificed the music player to focus on transforming the device into a spy camera . Features include a 1.3 megapixel sensor with VGA resolution and the ability to capture 1,280 x 960 still photos. Not bad for $15-$30, but you are going to need to outfit an entire spy ring if you want to get your hands on one

Some think the button-less iPod shuffle is just okay , and others see it as near-unusable, impractical and irritating. The Scosche TapStick adds buttons and supports normal headphones, in case you hated the shuffle but for some reason bought it anyway. The TapStick is a case that moves the awkward headphone-based controls onto the front of the gadget where they belong, which in turn frees up the headphone jack to use any pair of ‘phones you choose, not just the ones Apple packages in. In effect, while these features make the shuffle easier to use, they also remove everything that separates it from previous-gen shuffles. The TapStick also costs $39, half the price of the shuffle itself, and for that combined $120 you’ve got yourself a player with no screen, incredibly basic controls, the worst sound quality in the iPod family, and you’ve lost the slick look of the uncased shuffle. You could double your memory and get a far more feature-packed player in the 8GB iPod nano for only $30 more! This might just be a lipstick-on-a-pig situation.

This is the HiPhone Nano N3 +, a 2.8-inch touchscreen based with swivel screen cellphone. It’s a Chinese clone of an Apple product that never happened, but which actually looks like it could have happened. Sure it’s not perfect and it lacks the finesse of Apple’s designs—and I shiver thinking about the software this thing packs—but look at it. There are MacBooks in there. And iPod nanos and even part of the old iPod shuffle in that internal ring—not the one Heather tried to swallow

The Kindle 2 and new iPod shuffle both feature new text-to-speech modes. So how well can the duo read the opening scene from Bladerunner? As you’d expect, not all that well. However, we’d give the Kindle 2 an enthusiastic one-clap for its moments of natural-sounding cadence. The Shuffle, on the other hand, was streamlined-mediocre.

The Kindle 2 and new iPod shuffle both feature new text-to-speech modes. So how well can the duo read the opening scene from Bladerunner? As you’d expect, not all that well. However, we’d give the Kindle 2 an enthusiastic one-clap for its moments of natural-sounding cadence. The Shuffle, on the other hand, was streamlined-mediocre. [ DVICE ]

The $8.99 ChocoShuffle looks delicious, turning your new iPod shuffle into milk chocolate, white chocolate or…some sort of strawberry chocolate. But buyer beware. It could happen on a deserted island, or it could happen on a particularly long wait in the subway. Either way, it’s only a matter of time before, in a moment of extreme hunger, you eye your MP3 player for snacking. As your teeth penetrate the tasteless silicon shell, you’ll find the aluminum center to be ever so harder on tooth enamel than nougat—a point to which your dentist will concur. Plus you’ll still be hungry

When iSuppli recently reported that the parts and packaging of the iPod Shuffle 3G cost only $21.77, a mere twenty-eight percent of the unit’s retail price, PMP Today asked a most reasonable question: Where are the new Shuffle KIRFs ? According to Business Week , Samsung is making a killing on these things, supplying not only the unit’s ARM-based processor ($5.98), but the storage ($6) on at least a few of the units as well. The lithium ion battery, described by iSuppli as “the smallest we’ve ever seen,” has an asking price of $1.20. As for things like capacitors and resistors, they’re being described as “about the size of a grain of salt” and cost fractions of a penny each. Of course, none of this takes into account things like paying engineers and designers, and royalties paid to patents owned by other companies. Not that the KIRFsters of Shenzhen worry about these sorts of things

According to a new teardown report by iSuppli, the $79, third generation iPod shuffle costs Apple a total of $21.77 to build and box. Here’s the cost per component: Main Processing Chip (Samsung) $5.98 4GB Flash Memory (Samsung) $6 Lithium Ion Battery (Smallest iSuppli had ever seen) $1.20 Various Capacitors and Resistors (Smallest iSupply had ever seen, a grain of salt a pop) Less than a penny each The prices of the headphones, body and case were unspecified, but apparently those components make up the other half of the shuffle’s component cost to Apple. And with the build price at just 28% of the sale price, the shuffle should be Apple’s most profitable iPod ever, even if iSuppli’s report doesn’t account for expenses like R&D. [ BusinessWeek and image ]