(FORTUNE Magazine) – IN THE INTEREST OF fool disclosure, this reviewer once heaped praise on the Apple Macintosh Cube ("a computer of classic beauty") and scorn on the iPod mini ("Why pay $249 for a four-gigabyte mini when for $50 more you can get a real iPod with five times the capacity?"). The Cube turned out to be Apple's Edsel, a monumental dud, while frenzied consumer demand for the iPod mini caused global shortages. But I still love my Mac Cube, despite its unfortunate tendency to belch smoke from time to time, and the 20-gigabyte iPod at $299 still seems a much better bargain than the four-gigabyte iPod mini at $249--plus, you don't have to wait in line to buy one.

Anyway, I'm in good company when it comes to "What was I thinking?" moments. It wasdéjà vu all over again recently when Apple's CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the $499 Son of Cube (officially known as the Mac mini--just 6½ inches square and two inches tall) and the $99 iPod mini-mini (a.k.a. the iPod shuffle). Apple did not provide a Mac mini for review before presstime.

The iPod shuffle, for Macs or Windows PCs, is the least expensive member of the iPod family. Unlike its siblings, which store 1,000 or more songs on a tiny hard-disk drive, the finger-sized shuffle stores about 140 songs on a 512-megabyte, solid-state flash memory chip. A second version that holds twice as many songs on a one-gigabyte flash chip costs $149. Just a year ago, as he introduced the iPod mini, Jobs derided flash-based music players as lame little trinkets that rarely get used and often "end up in a drawer." What was he thinking? True music fans, Jobs said at the time, want music players that can hold their entire music collections and allow easy scrolling through thousands of songs. He was right, of course: Apple has sold millions of iPods and iPod minis at prices ranging from $249 to $599.

But now Jobs has changed his tune regarding flash players. Not everyone, it seems, is willing or able to pay $249 for a music player, and while Apple controls more than half the market for portable digital audio players, it wants it all. Hence the little white gizmo shown above hanging from Jobs' neck on a white lanyard. The shuffle weighs less than your pocket change, stores several hours of music or a mixture of tunes and computer files, and unlike hard-disk-based players, never skips when you're jogging or dancing around behind your closed office door trying to look like someone in an iPod television ad.

And that big display screen and scroll wheel that make the bigger iPods so much fun to use? Here's a news flash: You don't really need them after all, Jobs says, because most people simply set their iPods to play songs randomly, in "shuffle" mode. So the iPod shuffle does away with the display screen altogether and reduces the pushbutton control panel to the bare minimum: PLAY and PAUSE, NEXT SONG and PREVIOUS SONG, and VOLUME UP and DOWN. Besides reducing the player to the size of a pack of chewing gum, jettisoning the display lets you fiddle with the iPod shuffle while driving. (And that means you won't be dangerously distracted from other important tasks like talking on your cellphone, applying makeup, or drinking coffee.)

On the back of the shuffle there's an ON-OFF slider that also determines whether songs should be played randomly or from the start of a playlist. It's an acknowledgement of my theory that the digital music universe can be divided into two types of people: the "straights," who prefer listening to albums from start to finish and who often use their portable players to listen to audio books, and the "technosexuals," who buy (or, tsk-tsk, steal) digital songs one at a time and arrange them into playlists like Workout Tunes or Depressing Songs or Music to Play Really, Really Loudly When My Co-Workers Are Ticking Me Off.

Straights, who can also be control freaks, are more likely to prefer the traditional iPod display-screen and scroll-wheel setup. Technosexuals, who enjoy surprises and minimalist design, will adore the shuffle. Even straights, however, will admire Apple for taking the iPod's legendary ease of use and making it even easier. A small plastic cap on the bottom of the iPod shuffle pops off to reveal a USB 2.0 connector, which means the device can be plugged directly into a computer's USB port for transferring songs or computer files. (In data mode, it simply shows up on the desktop as another hard drive as soon as it's plugged in.) Almost all other portable music players, including other iPods, require some sort of special connecting cable or docking station. The shuffle's battery recharges directly from the USB port and runs up to 12 hours between refreshments. Or Apple sells a $29 external AAA battery pack for all-day tune binges.

To further simplify things, Apple has modified its iTunes music-management software (for Windows and Macintosh computers) to automatically populate the iPod shuffle from your music library. Just click the AUTOFILL command and iTunes will choose and install a fresh batch of songs, to the brim of the player's capacity. The shuffle comes with the Apple logo and signature white-earbud speakers that signal membership in the iPod culture. And at $99, or even $149, it's a discount membership.

But is it the best flash player? SanDisk has a one-gigabyte flash-memory player that's a few bucks less expensive than the $149 one- gigabyte iPod shuffle, a bit tubbier but otherwise about the same size and weight, and loaded with features missing from the iPod shuffle, including an FM radio, a voice recorder, a backlit display screen, and all sorts of navigation controls. It runs 15 hours on a single AAA battery. While carrying extra batteries is an annoyance, it avoids the problem of expensive-to-replace iPod batteries that some Apple customers have reported. SanDisk also makes a 512-megabyte version for about $110, and a two-gigabyte flash player is rumored to be in the works. Like the iPod shuffle, the SanDisk flash player works with MP3 music files, but unlike the iPod, it also plays Windows Media Audio and copy-protected WMA files (but not Apple's AAC). If you already shop at the online Apple iTunes Music Store, the iPod is the way to go; if you frequent MusicMatch or other non-Apple sites and want the FM radio, the SanDisk rocks.

Having learned my lesson from the iPod mini, this time around I have to say that the iPod shuffle is bound to be a hit. It's simple, useful, loads of fun, and inexpensive enough to entice newbies to give digital music a try. Current iPod owners might consider the iPod shuffle as a second player dedicated to, say, digital books or language lessons. Lovers, whether straight or technosexual, can stock the shuffle with love songs and offer it as a Valentine's Day gift. Random things might happen.

FEEDBACK technology@fortunemail.com