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To any Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) 
aficionado, the iPod and Mac manufacturer has a consistent formula for its products: start with an elegant, innovative and easy-to-use product, price it slightly higher than the competition, deliver it to the market, and as interest begins to die down, add some bright new colors or slight design change to jump-start sales .
Then do it all over again.
This week, Apple delivered its latest blast of color to its popular iPod shuffle lineup, which is now available in blue, pink, green, orange and the original silver.
The colors follow on the heals of the tiny music player's November 2006 revamp that introduced a smaller form factor made out of aluminum. Like the old shuffle, the second generation shuffles lack a display screen, but they are so light they can be clipped to almost any item of clothing.
The new iPod shuffle is the "most wearable iPod ever," claimed Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of worldwide iPod product marketing .
Worked for Nano
As the world's leading digital music player manufacturer, Apple has succeeded by capturing the attention of consumers, and while you can't attribute any single feature to the iPod lineup's overall success, the details might hold some clues.
Just how important is color, anyway?
"I think it's more important for females, who seem to respond most to the colors -- as they did with the nano," Phil Leigh, senior analyst for Inside Digital Media, told MacNewsWorld. Apple changed the nano's enclosure to aluminum in September, adding silver, green, blue and pink options.
While the color change won't likely be the sole reason for many iPod sales, Leigh added, "it's just one more reason someone would be more inclined to go with an iPod."
New Headphones
There is one feature that has changed with the new colors -- the earbud headphones. They are still white, but now they are the lighter and more comfortable earbuds that have already been shipping with the bigger iPod and iPod nano for a couple of months.
The iPod shuffle holds up to 240 songs on its 1 GB of flash memory, requires a Mac or PC with a USB 2.0 port, and features up to 12 hours of battery life. Users must connect it to a PC or Mac via included iTunes software to load it with songs and create its playlist. It retails for around US$79.
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