First off, the good. It’s incredibly cool—so futuristic, it does not have a single button. We get it. And most of us, grumbling aside, would love to run out and buy one. But coolness aside, there is a larger question arising from Apple’s refresh to the iPod Shuffle line: how do we connect it to other stuff? Cars, speakers, TV…anything that accepts a line-in connection can play music from an iPod. But what do we do with this new Shuffle?

Apple hates buttons. We know that. Perhaps that’s why Steve wears so many turtlenecks? And perhaps that’s why the newly announced iPod shuffle contains no buttons on the device itself. The new VoiceOver feature allows you to hear what song is playing, but it doesn’t allow you to navigate between songs. That functionality has been moved to the earbud cord, and that’s an epic fail.

Well, there you go. Seems the Apple Store was down today for good reason after all, as Apple has announced the new iPod Shuffle, “The first music player that talks to you.” It comes in only the 4GB model, holding up to 1,000 songs, and will retail for $79.00. Don’t worry, though, you do have one option; you can get it in gray or a little bit darker gray. But hey, it talks!