[Dyvim]

While I don't really get all the uproar over the new shuffle and agree with your "If you don't like it, then don't buy it" mentality, I do think Apple has gone a little far with the chip thing. I understand that the controls are in the earbuds. I actually really like the remote controls on my iPhone earbuds (which lack the volume controls). But they didn't have to put in a requirement for an Apple authentication chip. Note that even my Apple-made iPhone earbuds with mic and remote won't work with the shuffle (sure they don't have volume but the action button should work for play\pause\prev\next\etc). This is different than what happened with the iPhone: headphone makers were required to produce adaptors or new headphones to include the iPhone mic\remote feature, but they didn't have to license an Apple chip to do so. This time apparently they will have to license this chip and said cost will be past on to consumers. I see no reason why relatively new headphones made last year for iPhone shouldn't work (minus volume control) with the shuffle- if they had an inline volume slider, then you'd have volume control too, but they won't. Anyway, on that level, it's hard to see this move as anything but yet another cash grab by Apple.