Apple, the consumer electronics and software giant has unveiled the all-new iPod shuffle, the world's smallest music player and the first music player that talks to you.

The revolutionary new VoiceOver feature enables iPod shuffle to speak song titles, artists and playlist names.

The third generation iPod shuffle is significantly smaller than an AA battery, holds up to 1,000 songs and is easier to use with all of the controls conveniently located on the earphone cord.

With the press of a button, one can play, pause, adjust volume, switch playlists and hear the name of the song and artist. iPod shuffle features a gorgeous new aluminum design with a built-in stainless steel clip that makes it ultra-wearable.

''Imagine your music player talking to you, telling you your song titles, artists and playlist names,'' said Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing. ''The amazingly small new iPod shuffle takes a revolutionary approach to how you listen to your music by talking to you, also making it the first iPod shuffle with playlists.''

iPod shuffle is based on Apple's incredibly popular shuffle feature, which randomly selects songs from the music library. The press of a button iPod shuffle tells you the name of the song and artist if one cannot remember the name of a song or an artist playing.

The new iPod shuffle can even tell the status information, such as battery life and with the ability to hold up to 1,000 songs and the VoiceOver feature, one can now easily switch between multiple playlists on the iPod shuffle.

Apple has made the iPod shuffle speak in 14 languages including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.

The new iPod shuffle comes in silver or black and features a sleek and ultra-wearable design with a built-in stainless steel clip and in the US, the 4GB iPod shuffle is sold for $79 and is available in the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple authorized resellers.

iPod shuffle comes with the Apple Earphones with Remote and the iPod shuffle USB cable. iPod shuffle requires a Mac with a USB 2.0 port, Mac OS X v10.4.11 or later and iTunes 8.1 or a Windows PC with a USB 2.0 port and Windows Vista, Windows XP Home or Professional (Service Pack 3) and iTunes 8.1.

The new 4-gigabyte gadget costs $79, which measures around 46mm by 8mm, is the smallest ever made, and weighs only 10.7 grams. The third generation iPod Shuffle, which comes in only silver or black, can store 4GB of music or 1,000 songs.

All of the controls on the new Shuffle have been moved from the device to the earphone cord. The new VoiceOver feature announces songs and playlists to users in 14 different languages, according to Apple. The voice function is particularly useful on the Shuffle, which does not have a display screen like most iPods or other digital music players.

Voice Over features can be activated in iTunes during initial setup or at any later time from iTunes' Device Summary tab presented when the third generation iPod shuffle is attached. Once Voice Over is activated, iTunes will install Voice Over Kit software on the local computer and will generate audio VoiceOver messages to be synced to the device in the language specified. VoiceOver can also tell a user how much battery life remains.

"You previously couldn't have multiple playlists on the iPod Shuffle because you couldn't really switch between them as there was no way to know how you would switch," said Greg Joswiak, Apple vice president of iPod marketing. "So now instead of seeing, you get to hear."

Apple will continue to sell the second-generation version of the 1-gigabyte, 240-song Shuffle for $49 but phase out the 2-gigabyte Shuffle, which sells for $69.

The iPod music player has played an important role in the revival of Apple's fortunes. The company has sold more than 200 million iPods since they launched in 2001. It launched the first Shuffle in January 2005. The refreshed Shuffle comes just a week after the company updated its line of Mac desktop computers. Apple refreshed it MacBook laptop computers last autumn. (See: Apple unveils new desktop models /  New MacBook Pro launched in India)