Taiwanese company Luxpro Corp. is showing off an iPod shuffle clone called Super shuffle at this week’s CeBit trade show in Hannover, Germany. From the front, the device is physically identical to Apple’s iPod shuffle, straight down to the control pad and white earbuds. It touts features the iPod shuffle lacks, however, including an FM tuner and a voice recorder.
Luxpro says the Super shuffle is compatible with Macs and PCs and capable of playing MP3s, WAV files and Windows Media Audio (WMA) files — including those WMA files that are protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. Made in 512MB and 1GB capacities, the device features a USB 2.0 interface to connect to a computer, same as the iPod shuffle. Even the company’s banner ads at CeBit are similar to Apple’s, according to reports, straight down to silhouetted figures wearing the device.
Luxpro’s Web site shows that the Super shuffle’s dimensions are almost identical to the iPod shuffle as well: It measures 25 x 85 x 9.7 mm, compared to 25 x 84 x 8.4 mm for the iPod shuffle.
Beside the modest difference in depth, the main physical difference between the iPod shuffle and the Super shuffle is on its back. Where the iPod shuffle sports a single slider to control whether songs are played in order or shuffled, the Super shuffle features two sliders side-by-side. One slider appears to control power, while the other changes music playback, FM tuner and voice recording controls. Pricing was not available.
Apple had not responded to MacCentral’s request for comments as this article was published.