The iPod software needs work (the pro...

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Author Message   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1504 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Thursday, March 30, 2006 - 12:52 pm:        I have been using my iPod for a while now, and Tom's recent post about how to delete files on his iPod reminded me of my on-going issues with the iPod interface (software). I would have thought that Apple would have fixed some of these things by now, since the ipod is not a new product. Alas I find that Apple thinks the software is perfect and hasn't bothered (and probably won't ever) change the iPod software's functionality at all. This might be my biggest pet peeve and as far as I am concerned it such a large design flaw that I am ready to call it a bug. I'm constantly bothered that I can't get back to the volume settings while I am browsing for a song. I have to wait the x amount of seconds (5 seconds?) usually with my ears bleeding from the overly loud volume just to get back to the volume controls. This to me is a MONSTROUS problem. I wish I could delete songs on my ipod. I understand that they want you to do your file management on your PC. Got it. But providing one or two of the most requested features that people want (such as deletion) I don't think is asking for too much. I have duplicate copies of so many songs on my iPod and it's easier to kill them when I find them rather than have to remember which ones have duplicates very many hours or even days later. Similarly, I wish that iTunes had a feature which said, DISPLAY EXACTLY AS YOUR IPOD DOES. So that I could sort by Compilation. I have a few albums in my compilation list that aren't really compilations. Once again, I can only find out which are problematic while I am using the ipod. So I have to remember and fix hours and days later. Even if I am by my computer, I need to constantly connect and reconnect the device to get all of my file management issues. This is time consuming and uneccessary. This problem and very many other ones would be resolved if I could see the contents of my ipod on the device (instead of the flashing DO NOT DISCONNECT message) or if the iTunes software displayed the contents in the same manner as the ipod itself. I have other issues, but those are the ones I remember right now off the top of my head. I'll add more as I remember them.   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1530 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 11:32 am:        This weekend I was wondering WHO actually uses the SHUFFLE BY ALBUM feature? It's almost completely useless. Shuffle songs by playlist could be sorta useful. Or shuffle songs within an artist would be VERY useful. Or Shuffle songs within an album might even be useful. But shuffle albums I just don't get it.   Eponymous Citizen Username: Eponymous Post Number: 162 Registered: 6-2004 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 1:32 pm:        'Gater, WHO actually uses the SHUFFLE BY ALBUM feature? Obviously you're not a Pink Floyd fan. Who could listen to Dark Side of the Moon out of order? Shuffle songs by playlist could be sorta useful. Shuffle by playlist is incredibly useful, and probably the most used method of playing on iPods. You can shuffle within artist too and within album. (And why is it a problem to have features you don't use much, or at all? Do you think they're crowding out useful ones?) As to your original loud-volume problem, can't you just hit pause right away if a song is playing too loud? How else could Apple design the existing controls to allow the wheel to be used for both volume and scrolling through playlists? The iPod can't magically tell which function you'd like to use.   Albatross Citizen Username: Albatross Post Number: 830 Registered: 9-2004 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 2:07 pm:        Alley: as far as compliations go: If you've set iTunes to organize music files, iTunes will sort by artist-album-track, renaming as it needs to according to what you have listed in iTunes. You end up being able to browse your music through Windows Explorer. I've found it helpful for locating missing and misplaced music... and as a bonus it sticks all the 'Compilations' in one folder labeled as such.   Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 13369 Registered: 1-2003 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 2:40 pm:        Yes, it's hard for a clickwheel (or other control) to know which way we want to use it. That's why it's annoying when one control has too many functions. I think the iPod has too few buttons.   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1533 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 4:08 pm:        Epon and Tom: How about holding down the MENU button continuously takes you back to the NOW PLAYING song, allowing you to change the volume again. Then pressing Menu button again would take you back to where you were prior in your surfing for your next song. Also Epon, if you press Pause to stop your ears from bleeding while you are searching for your next song, you actually don't get to control your volume. It just leaves you in the directory where you are surfing for you next song. And in fact if you are still surfing for you next song and you press PAUSE again, it will start playing that new song, which is NOT REMOTELY what I was trying to do. In order to do what I wanted to, I would need to browse back to the original song (which actually is a GIANT pain) or browse all the way back out (by pressing the menu button a million times) to the root level and scroll down to NOW PLAYING. Which sucks in itself but actually is bad because you lost your place where you were browsing for the new song. In all honesty, this is bad design. The best solution I have come up with is, pull off your headphones and wait 5 seconds for the now playing song screen to show up again. Epon, Also I don't have any way to shuffle by playlist. I only have options to shuffle by song and shuffle by album. Can you explain how to shuffle within playlist, artist or album? I don't have any problem with extra features provided they are easy to use. I'm a power user, the more the merrier. Also you don't need to use Shuffle by Album to listen to Dark Side of the Moon in it's entirety in the right order. Just play it, when you want to hear it. Albatross: I do sort my music the way you are talking about. But it actually doesn't solve my problem, it's more like a bad/incovenient work-around.   Eponymous Citizen Username: Eponymous Post Number: 166 Registered: 6-2004 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 8:56 pm:        Gater, Epon and Tom: How about holding down the MENU button continuously takes you back to the NOW PLAYING song, allowing you to change the volume again. Then pressing Menu button again would take you back to where you were prior in your surfing for your next song. Is this a suggestion? Try http://bugreporter.apple.com/ though frankly I think the iPod interface is a masterpiece of design. That's not to say that no improvements could be made. The problem as it stands now is that Menu takes you back up through the menues. How would the iPod know when you wanted to change the volume and when you wanted to back up through the menues? (Obviously, it can't.) I agree that there are times when it would be nice to have one button that does what I want it to do, but that happens with a lot of software I use. Epon, Also I don't have any way to shuffle by playlist. I only have options to shuffle by song and shuffle by album. Can you explain how to shuffle within playlist, artist or album? I don't have any problem with extra features provided they are easy to use. I'm a power user, the more the merrier. To shuffle by playlist, set your prefs to "shuffle by song". Then browse to your playlist and hit play. This will start you shuffling through the selected playlist. Also you don't need to use Shuffle by Album to listen to Dark Side of the Moon in it's entirety in the right order. Just play it, when you want to hear it. True enough. I usually have "shuffle songs" set, so this doesn't work for me; I have to reset the shuffle setting. I think some people (of a certain age?) remember when albums were designed with their songs in a certain sequence, and prefer to have it work that way. I suspect it's true that it's a little used feature, but I also suspect the "cost" of having it in the iPod firmware is very small. And I also trust Apple to be doing a whole lot of market research. As for your main complaint, well, it's a compromise between convenience and economy of design. I suspect that tens of millions of iPod owners would disagree with you.   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1537 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Monday, April 3, 2006 - 10:55 pm:        Yes that was my suggestion. I suggest that if you are browsing songs that IF you hold down the MENU BUTTON DOWN for one second straight (similarly to how you hold down the pause button for 3 seconds and it powers the unit down). I don't think sending my suggestions to Apple is going to help he situation because they haven't bothered to fix there software EVER so what makes you think they ever wil? Seriously. I think they think it's perfect, just as you do. I disagree. Thanks for the tip on shuffle songs in playlist. I'll give it a try tomorrow.   Eponymous Citizen Username: Eponymous Post Number: 169 Registered: 6-2004 Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 2:03 am:        Gater, You seem to assume that Apple or a great number of their users think the iPod is broken. I've never seen your complaint posted before, and I read a lot of Apple sites. If you don't send your suggestions, they'll never know about them. 'Course it's easier to just complain on MOL.   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1567 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 9:29 am:        I'm not assuming that a great number of users think the iPod is broken. In fact just the opposite. Most people are happy with it's mediocrity. I am just shocked that it isn't better with all the people crowing about what a fabulous device it is. I also don't think this is a new problem regarding Apple. Look at the Finder (as a piece of software). It's good, but it has loads of problems and could most certainly be better. Lot's of people complain about it, and I'm sure Apple knows and might even be compiling a list of ways to make it bettter. However, it hasn't really been tinkered with in any significant way since the launch of OSX. That was a pretty long time ago. I think Apple thinks it's great, and making those changes are not a priority for them. I guess good enough, is just good enough for them. I think the same thing is true about the iPod interface. Don't get me wrong the interface is good, but I think it can be better. Thanks Epon, for the shuffle tip/explanation. I've been using it for a few days now. I would say the feature isn't necessarily intuitive though. The reason why I got confused was because I went into the Settings and saw Shuffle and my options were Song, Playlist or Off. Since I don't usually want to listen to my music shuffled, I chose Off. However, since I wanted the ability to turn this functionality on and off easily, I did add Shuffle Songs to my root level Menu list. So every time I want to shuffle, I go to the root and choose Shuffle Songs. Since this is how I THOUGHT the feature worked, my original post makes sense. I didn't understand that the Settings/Shuffle feature did MORE than the root menu's Shuffle Song feature. I can't be the only person confused by this.   Earlster Supporter Username: Earlster Post Number: 1500 Registered: 8-2003 Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 11:56 am:        Alleygater I'm with you, until reading this thread I had no idea that I could shuffle albums.   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1574 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 12:53 pm:        Ooops, I see a typo in my last post. The options under Settings/Shuffle are Song, Album or Off.   Eponymous Citizen Username: Eponymous Post Number: 172 Registered: 6-2004 Posted on Wednesday, April 5, 2006 - 8:57 pm:        Gater said: "Most people are happy with it's mediocrity." On this I give up. Tens of millions of people own these things. They're the hottest thing since sliced bread. You're of course entitled to your opinion, but you should at least acknowledge that it's the view of a tiny minority of users. A very tiny one. So every time I want to shuffle, I go to the root and choose Shuffle Songs. Since this is how I THOUGHT the feature worked, my original post makes sense. I didn't understand that the Settings/Shuffle feature did MORE than the root menu's Shuffle Song feature. If you hit this button (which is on my root level menu too; doesn't it come that way by default?), you shuffle through your entire collection. It's different from the shuffle preference, where changing the shuffle pref to "songs" makes the iPod shuffle songs always, no matter whether you are in the entire collection or in a playlist. If you don't use playlists a lot, hitting the Shuffle option is workable. Me, I keep my entire collection on my iPod and use playlists all the time to avoid hearing "White Christmas" in April (though it seemed appropriate this morning :-). I can't be the only person confused by this. I'm sure you're not, but equally sure you're in a tiny minority there. In my experience most people figure this out pretty quickly, probably because they rely on playlists.   Alleygater Citizen Username: Alleygater Post Number: 1593 Registered: 10-2004 Posted on Thursday, April 6, 2006 - 11:01 am:        well those people who figure it out probably just use Shuffle more than me. When I say most people are happy with it's mediocrity, I mean that people thinks it's fine the way it is. I am the one who thinks the way it is is mediocre. I see nothing wrong with my statement. I feel that if the issues I bring up were fixed (or if Apple just kept working on the interface in general in more substantial ways) that people would feel that there was an improvement and appreciate the changes. Right now, very few people are giving it enough thought to realize that it could be better. That is PRECISELY why I started this thread, in hopes that more people would stop and think about it. I also just am irritated with all the RAH RAH iPods are perfect chants I constantly hear. It's definitely not. I am constantly seeing problems and thinking of solutions for this thing that I use everyday.   Tom Reingold Supporter Username: Noglider Post Number: 13450 Registered: 1-2003 Posted on Thursday, April 6, 2006 - 11:35 am:        I agree, Alleygater. I think a lot of people encounter these problems and shrug or give tiny harrumphs and then forget about it. Or it's a niggling annoyance small enough not to bitch about. That's a lot of dissatisfaction, but not enough to make an eruption, except from a few discerning people who are portrayed as extra picky.