Apple’s new Shuffle is a candy gadget. It’s bite-sized and eye-catching with a seemingly consumable appeal. It feels weird just having one in hand, as if I’ve plucked it from a bowl at the company’s reception desk or stolen it from a secret stash in the pantry. To see what I mean you can try holding a Twoonie coin. It’s exactly the same size and with a new brushed-aluminum finish, just as metallic and eager to catch the light.

In design Apple is offering nothing new. The square shape and plastic, clickable wheel are the same from the second generation shuffle. The metal clip on the back is the same size as the player itself, offering a strong grasp for your clothing or bag while the shiny appearance supports the main use it’s designed for, as a brooch or lapel clip.

It clips to the front of your jacket or the strap on your bag upside down, with the headphone jack pointing down to your toes, so the cable trails down and out of the way of your arms and hands. While the controls may be upside down to anyone facing you, as you look down to your chest or to your side, they’re right side up from your perspective.

Apple’s last Shuffle was far more revolutionary, and frankly, a little more exciting to write about. It managed to avoid having any physical controls at all, allowing you to change tracks with a morse code-like system of clicks using a remote built into the earbud cord. This allowed you to clip the player anywhere you like, not just your lapel, and to change songs without having to look down at yourself.

I became so used to this system that I now find it a pain to take my eyes off of what I’m doing now and search for the clip-on player just to pause it or change volume. Sales on the previous Shuffle made it clear that consumers preferred the older controls, and so to cater to both camps Apple’s made the new Shuffle a hybrid, including the option to add a pair of Apple earphones with built-in mic, using one click to pause, two to skip tracks, and three to go back a track.

Both systems work with Voice Control, Apple’s text-to-speech software which gives your Shuffle a computer voice to speak aloud the name of the song and artist currently playing. It works well as a stand-in for a screen, allowing you to even navigate through playlists while paused to find a specific track. The computer voice, which supports a range of languages, is easy to understand, but differs depending on whether you sync your Shuffle with a Mac or PC. The Mac voice, in my opinion, is a little more human in sound. Nothing has changed in its use since the last Shuffle, except this time it has its own physical button on the player, allowing you to use any set of headphones you like with it.

The Fourth Generation is business as usual, a practical update that doesn’t change the basic use of an iPod Shuffle. It syncs with iTunes, clips to your clothes, and plays a shuffled mix. If you already own either of the two previous generations, there’s no reason here to upgrade. As before it’s a fine solution for those with a very small music collection and a casual need for music on-the-go.