Today’s music-themed event from Apple saw various updates to the iPod touch, iPod nano and also the iPod classic. While the iPod shuffle didn’t receive much attention on stage, it’s worth mentioning the very slight additions that it did gain: colors. Five of them to be precise.

The hot topic in the Apple portion of the internet this weekend has been the discovery of a chip in the iPod shuffle headphones. It seemed the intent was to lock in users even more by only allowing playback with this chip. The concern was that headphone manufacturers would need to pay Apple for use of the chip, thus passing the cost down to consumers. On top of that, consumers would have a smaller selection of headphones to choose from, as not just any headphone set would have the appropriate chip.

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?

The iPod shuffle update surprised everyone yesterday. It was completely unexpected—probably because it was unneeded. What has Apple done in this “update”? Let’s take a look…

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.