New colored iPod shuffles come with new earbuds (with photos of all five colors)

Users have been asking for it, third parties have been trying to help users simulate it, and now Apple has finally done it: as of today the Second Generation iPod shuffle is available in a choice of five colors.

Price, capacity, body style, and interface have remained the same, but there are a few changes. The first and most noticeable, but likely to have the least impact, is the removal of the neon green lettering from the packaging in favor of the standard silver similar to that of the Second Generation iPod nano packaging (only the (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition features package lettering that isn’t silver).

But the more substantial change, and one that’s likely to leave recent 2G shuffle purchasers howling, is the fact that Apple is now bundling the new-style earbuds with the new shuffle. They’re still white, of course, and their custom cable length is still as short as the original 2G shuffle, but the buds now feature the new-style shape and more importantly, the improved audio quality. The bundled cable/dock combination remains unchanged.

Interestingly, while the new colored shuffles feature a nearly wholesale color swap which includes both the inside and outside of the built-in belt clip, the bottom switches (and their labels) are still silver. And more noticeably, the frontside controls are still labeled with the same shade of silver found on the original 2G shuffle. However the word “iPod” and the Apple logo on the back are now closer to white than the original dark gray.

Apple is claiming the same twelve hour battery life as before, and although we’ll be testing to see if an increase has been slipped in on the sly, we doubt it. Aside from the color changes, these shuffles appear to be physically identical to the original silver one. While we don’t expect too many users of current silver shuffles to immediately go running out to replace it with a colored one, the color choice should help entice users of the original First Generation shuffle to consider upgrading, as well as tempting users of larger iPods to add a colored shuffle as their second iPod.

Interestingly, Apple’s atypically low-key rollout of the new shuffles today might have been a bit too low-key, as the employee at the local Apple Store replied that since “no one knows they exist yet” the store had only sold three colored shuffles that day, noting that iProng was purchasing more colored shuffles than all of the day’s other customers combined. Despite the fact that the four new shuffle colors were stacked prominently behind the register in quantity, none were yet on display in any of the demo areas.