That’s the question anyone purchasing Apple’s latest redesign of its iPod Shuffle should be asking themselves.

Quietly released last week, the new device removes all controls from the player itself, leaving it as a tiny stick, smaller and thinner than most of the USB flash drives many of us carry around.

On the back of the Shuffle is a clip for safely fastening it to your clothing – and presumably to help you to remember where it is.

The controls now form a little plastic nodule that is part of the headphone cable, meaning you will have to use Apple’s notoriously substandard earbuds in order to operate the iPod.

The final innovation, which will no doubt be introduced to other models very soon, is that your player now speaks the name of the song or playlist – quite an elaborate workaround for not having a screen to look at.

I think Apple has a problem here.

You can only go on tweaking and reinventing a product for so long before eventually reaching an optimum design. This is clearly starting to happen with not just the iPod Shuffle but with other devices that Apple puts out, too.

For a company whose selling point is often the aesthetics and elegance of its products, this is a marketing headache.

The truth is that the previous iPod Shuffle was pretty much perfect for a low capacity, screenless MP3 player. It was light and small but big enough to feature controls and clipped unnoticed to your clothing. It didn’t need to be made any smaller and take backward steps in usability just for the sake of it.

iMacs also appear to have reached their optimum design. I’m writing this on one now and it’s compact, has a small footprint on the desk but is nearly all screen and nothing else. Apple has released further updates to the model in the two years since I’ve had mine, but the actual look of the thing hasn’t changed at all – it really can’t.

Don’t get me wrong. Looks are certainly not everything and I love Macs more for their ease of use than anything else but we the fickle public are drawn more instantly to visual changes – particularly with Apple products.

Let’s hope the Shuffle’s needless redesign doesn’t become a trend.