To ad my experience to the list:
The Christmas 2005 Ipod Shuffle just plain doesn’t work with Windows - either that or batting 0 for 3 is the norm…
My Nephew brought over his brand new Ipod Shuffle this evening, having been unable to get any of the songs he purchased to play on it using his dad’s PC. He really wanted to hear those songs. So I spent the next 5 hours trying to make this work - I have over 20 years in the software industry, and knowing Apple’s reputation, I figured this shouldn’t be a problem. Well, two Windows PCs and a visit to the local Appple store later, I can confirm that the device is 100% compatible with the Apple at the local store (i.e. it is not defective), and 0% compatible with both the Windows XP machine and the Windows 200 laptop at my house; This device has not yet played a single note of a song purchased on a Windows machine. Do you suppose we’ll get our money back?
We would not appear to the only ones having problems. I see quite a bit of traffic on the discussion board at Apple about this, offering various remedies such as using an OLDER version of the software and meticulous ordering of operations under windows:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=282229&tstart=0
I’ve tried these various remedies, but not successful. In any case my patience has become exahausted, and my nephew has to leave.
My conclusion is that the Apple folks simply should not have put this product into the market, as they’re attention is elsewhere, and they clearly don’t have the bandwidth to bring it to the quality level expected of their brand. I’ve advised my Nephew to return the device and buy something else to his liking. It’s a real shame Apple has decided to stretch itself too thin on this matter; I have always enjoyed Apple’s groundbreaking efforts in user interface technology; I’ve been sadly disappointed in this first exposure to their line of consumer electronics.
Doug Fults