The various incarnations of the iPod are obviously going to be one of the hottest ticket items as a gift this year. The Shuffle, a low-cost alternative to the much larger capacity models, is one of them. For those that waited until now, though, you'll have to wait even longer as the 1GB version of iPod Shuffle is plain sold out. Until "mid-January" according to Apple.com, no more will be available, though the smaller 512MB version is still in stock. Of course, if you wanted to look for older models you certainly could, though that kind of stems from the "must buy new" philosophy. It's probable that Apple simply couldn't manufacture enough, as it's unlikely that huge vendor would want to miss out on the tremendous holiday sales potential. Within the next month or so, Apple has said they will be releasing even smaller versions of the iPod, "smaller than a pack of gum".