Apple employees were lucky enough to get a free second generation iPod shuffle; I picked mine up yesterday, and instead of tearing into it as I otherwise would, I decided to do an “unboxing“; I took a few pictures as I took the shuffle out of its case. The iPod is so small, there wasn’t much to unbox. (Also, apologies for the bad lighting. Maybe I’ll do a reshoot.)

The thing is impossibly small. I clipped it to my earlobe and felt no pain (in fact, I almost didn’t feel it at all). As I was writing this entry, I actually lost the shuffle; it slipped under my toss pillow while I was on couch; I did eventually find it.

I figure a bunch of these will get damaged in the wash and lost between couch cushions. Apple is going to make a fortune selling replacements. If there was money to be made selling insurance for these tiny devices, I would.

I’ll report back soon after I’ve used the shuffle for a little while. Stay tuned for my review.