Every now and then, someone creates a product that makes you think; “why didn’t I think of that?”  The miShare is one of those products.

miShare is a smart little gadget for sharing files and playlists between iPods. No computer or cable is needed, and it’s super easy to use. Just attach the source and target iPods and press miShare’s big button to start the transfer.

How do I select files?
See it for yourself in this demo for the tech news site Gizmodo. We want miShare to be both simple and powerful. Just attach two iPods, slide miShare’s on-switch to music, video or photo, and press miShare’s only button. You decide whether you copy the song or video that was last played through to its end, or a pre-defined photo folder. Give the miShare button a longer press (three seconds) and it will copy a collection of files. miShare uses the On-The-Go playlist for multiple songs—simply create an On-The-Go playlist on the source iPod by selecting by song, artist, album, or even playlist.

How fast is miShare?
A typical song takes ten seconds to transfer once the iPods are attached, depending on the file sizes. A short home video in iPod format could be a half minute. (miShare runs USB 2.0 “Full-Speed,” which is rated at more than one megabyte per second. Our real-world experience is about 500KB/second.)

Which iPods can miShare connect?
miShare works with all Mini, Nano, 3G, 4G, Video (5G), and Classic (6G) iPod models. (The “G” here refers to generation, and includes models of all storage capacity from 1GB — “gigabyte” — to 160GB. Here’s the Apple list of iPod models to confirm yours.) miShare’s own internal software can be updated with future downloads from mishare.com. miShare does not work with Shuffle models (or the original 1G and 2G iPods) since they lack the iPod’s standardized 30-pin dock connector. miShare does not currently work with the iPhone or iPod Touch—we are working on a firmware update to accommodate the different disk storage in these models. miShare can handle iPods formatted for either Mac or Windows, and it can transfer between mixed formats. We also maintain a list of known issues and quirks.

I used miShare to copy files to an iPod. Where are they?
Check on the target iPod for a playlist called “miShare Playlist.” This playlist will contain songs or videos that do not employ digital rights management (DRM). In some situations files are also copied to the target iPod’s disk area.

At $99, this is a great product.

Buy at Amazon, or your favorite online retailer.