iPod shuffle not compatible with eMac or iMac G3

I have an iMac G3 OS 9.2.2 333 Mhz. This happened, when my ipod shuffle was running in orange battery light I plugged in the USB port of the imac itself (not the keyboard), it perfectly fit with the usb port of ipod, the light came orange...I left ipod for 1 hour and when I disconnected from imac the light battery goes green. I mean, first light was orange, one hour later turned to green, it charged...and of course it was recognized by the imac as an external disc. No problem with sync because I have an eMac also and works to sync with iTunes, at least (yes I know...I have both no compatible mac's with ipod shuffle!! OUCH...but, it works....4 now...or I am dreaming?)

YES, I'm miffed. What was once advertised as $99 is now $150 since it will not charge from the spare USB port on my (USB) Apple Pro Keyboard on my G4, With both USB ports filled (keyboard + printer) I"ll have to invest in a USB hub. THAT flaw should been exposed by Apple in the Shuffle announcements. Maybe this is the best kept secret at Apple.

Zonda - if you have an Apple kb you shouldn't even need to unplug your mouse. There's another USB port on the left side (if you're right-handed, vica versa if you're left) that should charge the shuffle. I have also charged it in a USB hub, and others have charged it in their Airport Express. Anybody else tried other USB charge sources?

I heard that if you unplug your mouse from your keybord you can charge then. Can anyone confirm?

I just bought 2 Shuffle iPod's. I won't even touch on the delay in getting them. I have a dual 1GHZ G4 Power Mac and this thing won't plug in to the rear USB ports there either. Have to go get a cable...no big... am I miffed? heck yeah.

Thanks for this post. While the information may be on Apple's site, I googled ' ipod shuffle "not charging" ' and this was the first site that came up. In our case, my wife's Shuffle wasn't charging off her G3 iMac. It didn't make a difference if it was plugged into the keyboard or into the USB on the computer itself. Plugging it into my PowerMac G5's keyboard worked fine of course (although I've seen over at MacFixIt that there have been other Shuffle issues - see 1/25 there). I had a USB extension laying around, plugged that into her computer's USB, and the Shuffle now charges fine from it.

Apple has mentioned it..

The potential problem I can see with running it off the keyboard USB ports that came with the G3 etc. is power consumption. Depending on how much power this thing requires (apparently it charges off the USB port) it may not be able to draw enough juice from the keyboard. You may run into the same troubles off a non-powered hub if you have other power-consuming devices plugged in. I mention this as my digital camera (Sony Cybershot P52) has a problem even transferring pics to iPhoto through the keyboard USB ports (unfortunately, while there isn't enough juice to draw the pics through, if you have it set up to delete them off the camera after a transfer, that goes through just fine... ouch!) I would imagine that transfering a 4MB mp3 via the keyboard ports may lead to the same situation. If anyone wants to send me a Shuffle though, I'd be more than happy to test out that theory :)

Aside from a hubm there's another nifty adapter you can use, called FlexUSB. You can check them out here: http://www.flexusb.com/ - of course street price tends to be a few dollars cheaper than what they sell them for directly, so do a froogle search if you want to buy a few. I have 10 of them and use them on a variety of machines and keyboards that have awkward USB access points. They are USB 2.0 native now too I believe. I think I paid about $7 each for them. You can also get little USB extension jumpers for a few bucks a piece. Some of my USB thumb drives came with them. They are a few inches long, with a male end and a female end (looks like a really short keyboard extension cable)

wait one second... shouldnt those computers come with USB ports on the apple keyboards? wasnt that standard on the wired keyboards?