<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> The iPod Shuffle (stylized and marketed as iPod shuffle) is a digital audio player designed and marketed by Apple Inc . It was the smallest model in Apple's iPod family, and was the first iPod to use flash memory . The first model was announced at the Macworld Conference & Expo on January 11, 2005; the fourth - and final - generation models were introduced on September 1, 2010 . The iPod Shuffle was discontinued by Apple on July 27, 2017 . </P> <P> Released on January 11, 2005 during the Macworld expo, the first - generation iPod Shuffle weighed 0.78 ounces (22 g), and was designed to be easily loaded with a selection of songs and to play them in random order . According to Apple, owners of existing iPods had often left the music selection to "shuffle", and the new iPod Shuffle was a way of implementing that in a much more cost - effective fashion . It relied on the use of an "autofill" feature in iTunes, which selected songs at random from a user's music library (or from a specific playlist) and copied as many as would fit into the iPod Shuffle's storage . The first generation could hold up to 240 songs (1 GB model, based on Apple's estimate, of four minutes per song and 128 kbit / s AAC encoding). It used the SigmaTel STMP35xx system on a chip (SOC) and its software development kit (SDK) v2. 6, a flash memory IC, and USB rechargeable lithium cell . The STMP35xx SOC and its software was the most fully integrated portable MP3 playback system at release time and SigmaTel was Austin's largest IPO (2003) capturing over 60% of flash based MP3 player world market share in 2004 . In 2005, peak iPod first - generation Shuffle production occurred at a hundred thousand units per day, at the Asus factory . </P>

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