iLounge

Company: Shufflesome

Website: www.Shufflesome.com

Model: Shufflesome Stickers

Price: $7.88 each

Compatible: iPod shuffle

Shufflesome Stickers for iPod shuffle

By Jeremy Horwitz

Editor-in-Chief, iLounge
Published: Friday, July 15, 2005
Category: Stickers, Guards and Film - iPod

Pros: Highly edgy, interesting iPod shuffle sticker designs.

Cons: High price per sticker; differences in individual stickers limit the art coverage of certain designs.

We’ve reviewed a number of iPod shuffle stickers at this point - clear, so-so ones from Capdase (iLounge rating: C), textured ones from Mobile Juice (iLounge rating: B-), cool but simple ones from Tatuz Internaional (iLounge rating: B), and cool and comprehensive ones from Tunewear (iLounge rating: A-). Now Germany’s Shufflesome is offering another option, also called Shufflesome ($7.88 each plus international shipping, with 5-15% savings for bulk purchases) - Teflon-coated vinyl adhesives that are easy to put on and take off.

There are two seriously cool things about the Shufflesome stickers. First, the designs are unquestionably the most individually interesting that we’ve seen so far. Each of the stickers is novel enough to be considered a piece of art in its own right, with designs that range from spiritual, detailed, or serious to abstract, simple and clean, or whimsical. The designs we checked out included a miniature boom box with two speakers - one a hole for the shuffle’s front controls - and a retro female crime fighter design, both impressive.

Second, the company’s process of selecting art is really interesting. Shufflesome posts potential designs to its web site, taking votes to determine which artist-submitted designs to manufacture. It also does a surprisingly good job of getting quality material to work with - much better than some of the ersatz iPod artists we’ve seen.

But there’s one limitation to the Shufflesome designs: they don’t totally cover the iPod’s body; a small amount of white space is left as framing for the sticker’s sides, and stickers aren’t included for a shuffle’s front and rear controls. (We get the sense that few people would use both of them, but Tunewear does include them, amongst others.) Additionally, actual art coverage on the stickers varies from sticker to sticker: some add only a panel or two of art to the shuffle’s body, and ship with blank stickers for the other panels, while others use some sort of art for all of the shuffle’s faces. On the bright side, ShuffleSome discloses the differences on its web pages so that you know what you’re getting before you order.

There’s also the issue of price. At nearly $8 a piece plus ascending shipping charges that start at $2 and go up when you purchase even 2 stickers, these are tied for the most expensive stickers we’ve seen. The price is partially justified by the fact that you’re subsidizing the cost of real art, so it depends on whether you’re willing to pay the price for it. Tunewear does a better job overall with its $20 packages of multiple attractive and highly protective stickers, but these are edgier, and still worth recommending.