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Birth of the iPod
b00le writes "There's a little story over at Wired about the genesis of the iPod from the point of view of Ben Knauss, a former senior manager at PortalPlayer, the company Apple Computer approached to help develop its player.
There's some nice gossip about The Steve's involvement in the project, the extreme secrecy and so on, but for me, the kicker comes at the end: 'Knauss stayed on until near the end of the iPod's development, but quit shortly before it was released because he had no confidence it would be a success. "It was probably a mistake, but then you have to go with what you think at the time," he said.'
"
of the understatement of the year contest goes to:
"It was probably a mistake,"
And now he's with M$
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
No kidding, he's not alone.
Here's what our very own illustrious CmdrTaco said at the time, " No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
Slashdot Moderation: From positive to terrible in 2 "insightful" posts.
I guess it would be easy to make fun of him now. Let us however not forget that one first reaction to the unveiling of the iPod read "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Hank! White!
"It was probably a mistake, but then you have to go with what you think at the time," he said.' "
This is a dilemma all entrepreneurs (and software developers) face - if you wait until a product is absolutely perfected before taking it to market, you will likely lose your opportunity. At some point, you have to get it out there and gauge public opinion (which should help guide further development), lest you burn all your resources in R&D.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Apple has a design philosophy lacking in many un-user friendly electronics products. I do hope they succeed in the market, with items such as Apple TV's and DVD's and car stereos and such.
Although he is kicking himself right now, you can't really blame the guy. Even the most successfull people in our society do things that they regret in hindsight. Warren Beatty, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, etc...
Knauss stayed on until near the end of the iPod's development, but quit shortly before it was released because he had no confidence it would be a success.
The article should be titled 'IClod'.
It's strange that after so many years of making great computer hardware Apple's niche is almost redefined for them via a glorified walkman. No, that's not flamebait, but merely an oversimplification. Still, this is part of Steve's overall 'digital hub' theory, so the Macs still fit in, it just feels like they're getting a bit more out of focus compared to the extranious hardware.
CB
free ipod and free gmail!
I'm surprised the iPod team actually produced a finished product based upon how difficult Steve Jobs is reported to get along with.
I would have been interested as an aside in seeing pictures of some of the earlier prototypes as the iPod made it's way from an initial design to the finished product.
. . . and now we have theme restaurants based on the movie.
...that IBM had an idea which incorporated bluetooth headphones, makes me wonder why Apple didn't do it, and that was in 2001! But don't get on at me for how it would effect the ipod's battery life, the ipod *could* be a little bigger to take a bigger battery and then we could all be happy.
Jonathanjk.com
Knauss said Jobs' influence was sometimes idiosyncratic. For example, the iPod is louder than most MP3 players because Jobs is partly deaf, he said. "They drove the sound up so he could hear it," Knauss said
That's why the iPod goes to 11!
This is not meant to offend, I am really curious..
Obviously the iPod is very popular, but for the life of me I don't see what makes it different from other mp3 players. For those of you who shelled out the big cash for this thing, what makes it so special? Why sets the iPod apart aside from slick marketing?
would you want Bluetooth headphones? So your music is compressed further to the point where it sounds like it's filtered through a waterfall? There are other kinds of wireless headphones out there that work better than Bluetooth. They aren't included with the iPod because they're expensive enough to cut into the profit margin.
A lot of techs i know have blown off the iPod and are currently using another device to provide portable storage and audio playback. The iRivers are incredibly popular amoung 'i.t. people'. I know a lot of folks rave on about Creative's products as well. I personally like the Neuros.
From a tech standpoint the iPod lacks some functionality, or has too high a price point for many of us. But from marketing, fashion, and the MTV crowd it is the "it" thing to own. No one can predict these things though. "It" just happens. Like a $45 trucker hat.
This reminds me of when the cheif designer for Banyan-Vine's streettalk went to Microsoft - viola, Active Directory, which very closely resembes Streettalk!
Same-old microsoft play. Take the idea someone else creates and call it innovation when you include it in the OS that 95% of PCs use.
Although Jobs' influence seems to have helped the iPod become the force it is, I find it odd that he would be so influential on the sonic quality - being that he is partially deaf. I am partially fat (oh, who am I kidding - "totally fat"), so I should not be a contact for bicycle seat design.
Business is relentlessly cynical. I would guess that the iPod was constantly ridiculed during development, and that there were numerous attempts (all driven by office politics, no doubt) to cancel the project.
Nothing will work. Nothing will make money. Nobody wants to buy it. Nobody cares. Everything sucks. It's so hard to make money (announced in a $3 million conference room) It'll never work. What makes you think people will buy it? What makes you think you're qualified to work here? Blah blah blah.
It's so predictable any more it's almost comedy. It is truly amazing that anything new is developed at all. Try taking a new product to a bank for a loan to manufacture it. I can hear the whining already. Every single word is predictable. After a while it becomes truly redundant and very difficult to listen to.
Oh, what wonders have been lost to society for office politics and lack of capital.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
This guy also had the iTunes Music Store thought up as well.
"Tony's idea was to take an MP3 player, build a Napster music sale service to complement it, and build a company around it," Knauss said.
while you're making some gross oversimplifications and this is an obvious troll, i can't help but partially agree. i despise the stupid wheel, the non-responsive buttons (when i push a button, i like to feel it depressing), and the lack of an off button (no, holding down "stop" until i _think_ it's turned off is _not_ an off button). the on-screen UI is pretty well laid-out, but it feels more like a "ok, we have a limited number of buttons, let's see what we can design to fit into that restriction", rather than something designed in a less-restrictive manner. but hey, what do i know - it's wildly successful.
as for the fanaticism surrounding it, it's just your typical "in-crowd" fad. except that the in-crowd is a bit more geeky than usual. will something better come along? probably. but i don't really care. i'm just waiting until i can afford one of these.
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
Amen.
___FutureShoks___
Computing History is replete with such cases of going ahead with mistaken ideas. One such incident that springs to mind is the drafting of the various AAL standards for ATM, all but a few later ones being left unused
So much for the adage 'slow and steady wins the race.' I wonder how much money this guy lost in bonuses and stock options by giving up early.
I found this particularly interesting:
Knauss said at one of the first meetings with PortalPlayer, Fadell said, "This is the project that's going to remold Apple and 10 years from now, it's going to be a music business, not a computer business."
I don't own an iPod, and I don't plan on it. What Apple has done is come up with a convenient package that made a lot of similar technologies work on a large scale. Buy one, plug it in, connect to the iTunes server and you're there. For people who may not have been ripping all their CD's to .mp3 (or perhaps weren't downloading music beforehand), this was an easy way into an electronic storage format with a higher capacity than CD.
Do I like Apple? Not particularly. Do I like The Steve? Hell no. But I grudgingly admit that Apple seems to do a better job with interface and packaging useability than just about anyone else. And apparently, people are willing to pay for it.
Choice quotes:
"This is the project that's going to remold Apple and 10 years from now, it's going to be a music business, not a computer business."
"Tony had an idea for a business process and Apple is transforming itself on his whim..."
These statements bother me bigtime. I know the quote is from the guy who originated the iPod idea, but the fact Steve devoted so much time to the project, and that apple has a division devoted solely to the iPod, leads me to believe that they might really think this is where their company is going. If that's the case, then I morn for apple. Here's a company who is on the cusp of everything revolutionary (with OS X), yet they're going to bail out because the very first product they sold to windows users is successful. Talk about company execs being blindsighted by a single successful product.
Apple has WAY more to offer the world then just the iPod, I just wish apple themselves would see that.
Interesting reference to make your point. Dated 11.19.03, It says "Banc of America said Apple is fairly valued at $21. Shares are down 3 cents to $20.38. "
Yet the chart shows today that the shares are trading for $32.40. Had I listened to this article back in November, I would have missed out on a 50+% rise in the stock price.
Good one.
Knauss stayed on until near the end of the iPod's development, but quit shortly before it was released because he had no confidence it would be a success.
He must have read all the slashdot comments saying it would fail.
Yet another way slashdot can ruin your career.
As an organization get larger, (enough to afford a $3 million conference room) the costs of promoting any ideology or technology get larger until they become insurmountable.
That's when some fool with more brains that money eats the lunch of some bigger fool with more money than brains.
Innovations come from without, not from within.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Jacked the price up tenfold? I see why you'd assume that, but HD MP3 players are actually quite comparable in pricing. I've actually been shopping for an MP3 player lately, and the iPod has been a strong contender, even though I'd prefer iRiver's 20 gig player for the ability to mount it as a drive. With the recent price drop, the 20 gig iPod is actually significantly (c$70) cheaper than iRiver's product, and even before the price drop, the price was within $40 or $50.
I mean just think of what the iPod COULD have been. Along with the lack of wireless, I was also pissed that Apple left out the following features:
-The ability to create a Beowulf cluster of multiple iPods. Just imagine- a render farm on the go!
-AltiVec Velocity Engine
-Videoconferencing
-floppy drive
-alpha-channel transparency (c'mon this is APPLE we're talking about here!)
-"eject" button- in the current iPod, you would have to drag the disk to the trash in order to eject it!
-The ability to interface with ANY Swedish vibrator.
-Support for Ogg Vorbis AND Ogg Theora.
-Drivers for Linux/BSD/Hurd.
-Gyroscopically-controlled 3D pointing device.
-The ability to modulate subliminal messages into the music that will make me stop being so damn fat.
-Support for both the NX (no-execute) AND Evil bits.
WTF? Is that too much to ask!
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
Seems the RIAA decided to change Apples mind about it.... who wants to guess they would have refused to do the iTunes Music Store without it having DRM and probably wanted something stronger than what Apple gave them.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
I lived in California between 1991 and 2000 and frequently showed my friends (some who worked for Apple and others who were well connected patent attorneys) drawings of conceptual hardware devices my company was (is) planning. Plus, a drawing of a computer of the future I designed and won and award for in 1982 (yes, '82). My 'scroll wheel' was identical to the iPods, button in the middle etc. I refer to the first generation iPod scroll wheel, not the excellent new clickable one in the 4G ipod and iPod mini. I have no proof my idea was stolen, but am fairly sure it was as the few people I showed it to reacted in that way that says "Hmmm..." But you know what, congrats to Apple for actually making the thing. For that is what counts.
O'WONDERWe're working on it.
Like I mentioned earlier, 11 jokes will soon become very lame. I'm just warning everyone in advance. This one didn't even have a setup!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
The Doctor is not pleased.
Like my director says: analysis paralysis.
I think there's another thing going on, too: tech features vs. desirability. Jobs understands that it's not only a list of technical features that's important, but a more wholistic view of the product, which includes usability and "sex appeal".
This is probably why most geeks at first thought the iPod was lame. Like a lot of Apple products (and products of other upscale manufacturers), the spec sheet doesn't do it justice; you have to use it for a bit.
Lies about crimes
"Tony's idea was to take an MP3 player, build a Napster music sale service to complement it, and build a company around it," Knauss said. "Tony had the business idea."
Hmm, sounds familiar - someone comes up with an idea, and before it's fully implemented, it lands int the hands of Steve Jobs, who does a fantastic job of launching it and selling it to the masses and Apple ends up smelling like roses, forever changing the industry.
- passion
I wonder how many people noticed that some of the work on the iPod was outsourced to India!!
Yeahh baby. Apple also used that cheap slave labour!!! No wonder they have such huge margins on the iPod and are able to like..give away free songs. Yeahh..
Therapy is expensive... bubble wrap is cheap. You choose.
It's excruciatingly unpleasant to work with Jobs; that's widely known.
One of endless examples:
By Andy Hertzfeld, on how he was inducted into the original Macintosh team:
I'd like to know much more about the iPod story.
"Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
The new 4G iPod has buttons that depress when pushed (the new click wheel). Personally, I think a dedicated off button is a bad idea. I wouldn't want to accidentally turn off my iPod.
"Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
From the article:
Knauss said at one of the first meetings with PortalPlayer, Fadell said, "This is the project that's going to remold Apple and 10 years from now, it's going to be a music business, not a computer business."
I wonder if Apple will suddenly stop making the Mac one day if the marketshare continues to dwindle? I'm a huge OS X fan, I'm typing this from my iBook, so it's no troll. As someone who was screwed when they dropped continuation (or any support whatsoever) for the Apple II line, I have to wonder what will happen to the Mac if it's not making money, but their music section is.
Any thoughts?
You can mount the iPod as a drive - and through FireWire it's a nippy little thing too.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Despite the low market share, Apple's computer business is in good shape right now. I just don't see it. Apple's been on the brink before, but they keep fighting.
"Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
There are several (large) companies who have tried, most notably Sony, whose players are lambasted above. I believe the reason Apple built a music player by which to measure all others is that the specs weren't polluted by outside requirements. Steve had the vision and, more importantly, the authority to make it what he knew it to be (doesn't hurt that he is very good at what he does).
At Sony, there are forces with competitng agendas. The "DRM crippling" comes from their ownership of an RIAA member. (Note in the article the clues about AAC DRM being forced on Apple). Other Sony products, like cameras and non-HD players, suffer from input from the group that does the Memory Stick (==insert Memory Stick rant here==).
It is VERY hard for companies to resist this effect, each of the factions is headed by people with years/decades of stored up political capital.
Arguably, Apple was the only one who could have created such a product. They are independent enough to make the business idea their own, but substantial enough to bring it to market and to deal with the media companies.
I for one, applaud loudly. "WELL DONE"
During the Apple Newton development, one programmer was so stressed, that he shot himself!
Best Buy can have you arrested
I'm still unclear as to the nature of the Apple music format.
I know that it's better than MP3 - so are WMA and OGG. And I'm not really interested in comparisons between these next gen codecs: they are all good enough for me.
I just want to know if it's proprietary. Some people tell me it is an open codec called AAC. So will my CD-ripper software (CD-ex) and other music utilities be able to include the codec so it can rip and encode to this format (without breaking the law)? Can other brands of MP3 players support this format without paying a license fee?
I wouldn't want to develop a music collection in this format, and then find that it isn't supported by the software and hardware that I want to use because it is a closed format. If I get locked into a proprietary format then the owner of that format can charge an excessive amount for the use of that format, based on the lock-in.
I'm not blaming Apple if it is proprietary - obviously MS does the same. But, if so, I'll take a pass.
- Player size in centimeters, grams, and gigabytes.
For almost all of these attributes, the iPod is highly competive with other models. In the case of the user interface, volume/weight, and especially aesthetics it is notably superior to almost everything out there. The only real drawback has been that the pricetag matches the quality-- ya gets what ya pays for, but ya pays for what ya gets.The quality of the user Interface.
The aesthetics of the exterior appearance.
File transfer speed to your computer.
The battery life.
The durability.
The price.
As a comparison, when I was shopping around, I settled about a year and a half ago on the Archos Jukebox 20. It is modestly larger and heftier, enough so that it won't fit in a pocket, but is still comfortable in the (supplied) belt look case. It was substantially cheaper (by about a factor of 2 for the same drive space) and felt more drop resistant. I didn't fall in love with the UI on the iPod; the Archos is servicable enough. It provides me a couple hours run time with normal use. And, while I didn't realize the immense advantage at the time, the Archos is powered by (essentially) four utterly boring AA Nickel-Metal Hydride rechargables-- which, when they die, are only marginally harder to replace than on a walkman. (Ya like apples? How ya like them apples? )
Seriously, however, for those with the disposable income to afford the additional quality an iPod offers, it's a nice player. Since I had a modest-paying helldesk support jobs, I was better off spending the money on something cheaper. At this point, however, the new iPod 20s are dropping to about where the Archos was when I bought it. Looking at current models, were I shopping today I'd probably go with the iPod 20 rather than (say) the current Archos Gmini model.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
oooh! somebody can't afford one!
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
It doesn't have an off button because it doesn't need one. It turns itself off after you pause it.
irb(main):001:0>
Pecka (31619) on Tuesday October 23, @03:47PM (#2468015)
Yes ist's nice and all, but does it play ogg vorbis files? Thet's what my whole collection is.
. Guess this is the VERY FIRST OGG post on the iPod.
( it's in the taco story ! )
-- forget
Partly the blind spot comes from critics being a)reactive and b)assigned to review individual products alone.
With the iMac, Apple was aiming to put out a sweet little appliance home computer, with all those ease of UI advantages, designed for internet-able homes. The idea was that swapping files by floppy would be obsolete because they'd be too small for modern files and everyone would be networked to everyone else. (Look up. We live there.) Critics reacted by saying iMacs wouldn't fit the old model, in which computers were isolated islands (or island chains, in LANs) and you had to carry those life rafts from one slot to another.
iPods were definitely an extension of the whole "digital hub" idea. They weren't bigger, badder mp3 players, because Apple wanted to sell them as a complete system built into the whole "hub" idea. Critics saw the price and compared them to other mp3 players. They didn't see how Apple was positioning the product.
In both cases, Apple was thinking about -- cue usually bogus businesspeak -- new paradigms, and the critics were reviewing just the individual product, without appreciating how it'd fit the bigger picture.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
Ben was fired from PPI, he did not quite. I was where for over 2 years, know the inside on what really happened. Two main reasons why he was fired: * Incompetence: He didn't know how to run a development team and people who where on the firmware team at PPI didn't trust him * Apple (what we called by the code name 'BandPass' at the time) did not trust him and could not work with him. He really angered a lot of people at Apple and almost cost PPI chances at building the iPod for them. He was mainly fired from PPI for this reason alone, since BandPass was are best (and only) customer who would ship at the time.
Apple sells computers. Microsoft sells software to the people that make computers that compete against Apple. Microsoft doesn't really compete against Apple. They let others do that, and they reap the profits. (And if Apple somehow manages to win in "Apple vs. Everyone Else"", Microsoft cleans up as the leading seller of Mac applications).
The situation in Music looks very similar. Apple sells a player. Microsoft sells software (WMA and operating systems) to people making competing players. Apple has a music store. Microsoft sells software (DRM software, databases, web servers, etc) to build music stores.
What Apple is doing is more sexy, but Microsoft's approach is probably going to make a lot more money in the long run.
I love the wheel. Really, how else are you going to navigate down a list with hundreds or thousands of elements? A "down one screen button"? Twenty lines per screen, you'd have to push it 50 times to get to the bottom. Or 25 to get the middle, if you add a "to the bottom" button, but now you have four buttons (up, down, top, bottom) instead of the wheel. Two "scroll buttons"? Not too bad, but it would have to be accelerated as a function how long you hold it down, but then you have the awkward issues of 1. having to wait until the acceleration kicks in and 2. having poor access to elements located right at the point where the acceleration kicks in. Scroll buttons sprout like weeds on scientific instruments, and I never found them pleasant to use.
The scroll wheel, OTOH, is simple, elegant, and perfectly functional. It accelerates as a function of how fast your finger moves around it. So with slow, small motions you get incredibly fine control; while fast, sweeping motions can scroll through the entire 1000-element list in a second. When you get near your destination, your finger slows and super-fine control is instantly returned. It's all so smooth it just feels totally natural. And having the "select" button in the middle is a no-brainer. Your thumb goes from wheel to button and back without hesitation.
When I first heard about it, I was skeptical about the scroll wheel (I never liked them on mice), but Apple's implementation is just perfect; it would be ideal for any application where you need to navigate a huge list of options.
New York != NYC. I live in upstate where such specialized stores are much harder to find.
Just as Apple did in this very case. That's what the whole article was about. A guy comes up with an idea, works with a bunch of OEMs, then Apple comes along, buys out the effort, kills the OEM relationships, then ships the product as their own ingenuity. It's not as though the concept of the iPod was even new at the time of its introduction.
But is clealy now deeply embedded in the Jobs Reality Distortion Field.
My evidence?
There is now an entire Slashdot Topic devoted to the iPod. (See top of this page.)
Pathetic.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
Actually it needs one more than anything since it apparently NEVER turns off. It's interesting that one of the late problems in the development of the original was power management even when the unit was "OFF". The claim was they fixed that but the 3G models certainly suffer from it greatly. My 3G model self-discharges when "OFF" within three days and all my friends' do, too. Giving the unit a proper, mechanical power switch would fix that. As it is, an iPod is virtually useless for a 24 hour airline trip to the other side of the world. All its competitors are just fine doing that. We'll see how the 4G version does.
Funny thing how Apple nurtures it easy-to-use, intuitive image but pulls such a boneheaded design move for the sake of aesthetics and produces a non-intuitive, poorly performing device as a result. The lack of an OFF switch is the iPod's worst problem IMO.
At least the 1G wheels were "simple, elegant, and perfectly functional". The newer wheels don't work nearly as well. As for other solutions, wheels turned on their edge (ala wheel-mice) and sticks work fine, too. A wheel like the iPod's was at the time a proven effective control for its application and was certainly not new. It has the unique feature of requiring greater finger movement than any other control for accomplishing its task (although I don't find that a problem).
Bingo... I worked there for a couple of years from small start up burning through money like crazy to a middle size company that continued to burn through money like crazy. The problem was that our sales force could NOT close a deal and Sanjy Kumar the VP of Technolgy had to always go to customers and close the sale.
So you had a sales force heading all over the world meeting with companies but could not sell a single chip, of they would come back with new requirements that meant a change to the firmware and chip design thus forcing us to delay a release. this went on for two years.
The main problem was that firmware/software development was being done in Kirkland and the chip was being designed in San Jose... plus we had a small office in Charlotte SC and offices in India. so not only do you have 4 offices in different locations but also in different time zone and date zones. Communication was a HUGE problem... or lack of communication.
We had a all indian development team that just worked on the codec's... headed by a complete moron. For a whole year we would have dev meetings and each week the problems with the codec were always two weeks away from being fixed.... a whole year of this and this guy would have the same excuses. And if a bug was found it was always someone elses fault... the sound test file is incorrect, the scope was off or some other lame execuse.
The developers in India would find a problem but would not attempt to fix it on their own or even report it since it "wasn't their code". If they came upon a problem that blocked them from continuing their development of the code they would just stop and freeze like a deer caught in a cars headlight. We would finaly find out the problem when we asked them at the weekly meeting where they are in their development.
I finally quit because the total mis-management of the product. The managers in Kirkland were VERY paranoid and god forbid you sent an e-mail stating a problem... they excepted a face to face meeting when it came to problems (can you say cover your ass) so that blame can be laid... and not to try to fix the problem.
The UI on the iPod was not developed by PortalPlayer they just used some of the base firmware code, codec and the ARM7 chip. We had a few really good developers but not enough to over come the majority of incompetent ones.
Does anyone think it's significant that the iPod is a single-function device?
It doesn't have wireless.
It doesn't have a phone in it.
It doesn't have a calendar.
It doesn't have a [insert random function].
It just plays music.
Maybe I'm biased, because it just so happens that I've spent all day today facilitating user testing sessions for a mobile phone company. I just sat through about five hours listening to users of all ages and backgrounds saying things like "There are too many functions," "All this stuff is so confusing," "Why the hell would I want to do that?" "I just want it to do one or two things well, and that's it", etc.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
oooh! somebody is bitter about paying too much!
sup
This is one of the most insightful posts I have read on any of the "iPod v. Joe mp3 player" discussions. I admit that I have fallen into this trap myself. I have an iPod, and I think it's great. I find myself saying that the 'Pod is better than other players, when that is not as true as I would like to believe. But it makes me feel better; I'm justifying my decision to spend $300 on an mp3 player.
You left out the part where Steve Jobs refined the physical design, and Apple designed the user interface, which are the parts of the equation that nobody else in the industry has gotten right.
If it were Microsoft, they'd have listened to the guy's pitch, thrown him out on his ear without a nickel, and then organized a tiger team to re-implement what they thought the guy was trying to do. And they'd implement it poorly.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
AFAIC, the only off switch on a portable music player should be click and hold just like the iPod.
"Dave, I stand still--the conclusions jump to me!" - Bill McNeal, NewsRadio
I'd respond on the wheel comment, but Josh already has really well. Given a massive number of songs in a list, it is mechanically one of the easiest and most fluid ways to scroll through them.
As for your "non-responsive buttons," the gen4 fixes your issue with this, since (I believe) it has a physical click below the scrollwheel. The iPod's original interface remained minimal while providing amazing functionality through (somewhat intuitive) reuse. I think their combination of scrollwheel with buttons below it (with a real physical click even) is pure genius.
Lack of an off button? No holding down "stop" until you "think" it's off? Well there's no "stop" button, which for some reason seems to bother some people. But the screen does turn off to let you know when it's off. Music does stop playing. And worst case, it's still on for 2-3 minutes or whatever the timeout it before it actually turns off. Not really sure what the big problem is here.
Do you have any explicit suggestions for what buttons should be added? Would these confuse the "average" user who actually reads the manuel and still doesn't understand?
Not likely. I think they're great value for money, and I'd happily drop £400 on another if anything happened to the one I've got. In fact, I think the new ones are only £300, which is even better. Anyway, it's only money.
Ok, the scroll wheel is a little overly sensitive. Rating a song up/down just one star can be infuriating.
Never notice my volume being reset, but I don't ever max it out (maybe it only happens in that case). Turn it off all the time, as well as letting the sleep timer turn it off and letting it turn itself off after a pause. Stupid question of the day, is your firmware up to date?
Several reasons
1. It "just works". I had never seen one before and within 5 minutes I had the iPod figured out. I had played with other MP3 players friends had and they were too confusing.
2. It synced beautifully with my existing music collection.
3. Small enough to fit into my pocket.
4. As a Mac support tech, I can boot Macs off of it and copy over the user's data when there OS is messed up. I don't see any other MP3 players that will let me do that.
5. A small 30GB external drive for storing large files!
The iPod wheel does require more finger movement than any possible replacement, but that extra effort is traded for time and control. It's faster than any possible replacement, and offers better control, too.
A wheel on its edge would work better than buttons, and require a smaller range of motion (not necessarily less motion total) than the scroll wheel. But it has it's own limitation - the need to stay motionless when not being moved. A sideways wheel, by its nature, must be mechanical. To keep it from moving freely as you jiggle your iPod, it must either have reasonably strong resistance, or a catching mechanism. My scroll wheel mouse has a series of catches. The problem is that those catches quantize its movement. That's less than ideal for scrolling windows - you can only scroll a line at a time, never smoothly - although it would be OK for scrolling a text list. But if you want to scroll fast, you need to go through an awful lot of those catches. The motion is small but highly repetetive, and not very efficient - each motion can only turn the wheel by as much of the wheel as is protruding. That's almost always less than half a rotation. Even if it's got 100 catches per rotation, that means 20 longish finger twiches to get to the end of your 1000 songs - versus two sweeps of the iPod scroll wheel.
You could make the motion smooth, and have a little magnet or something that provides resistance so you don't get unwanted movement. You could even use the magnet to provide acceleration, so you get much faster scrolling with faster movement. And you even make it free-spinning with a strong enough push. But that would require an awfully sensitive and complex mechanical device, which would probably be a lot more expensive and easier to break than a tiny round trackpad with solid-state controls.
Sideways wheels also have to protrude from the device (if it doesn't protrude, how do you move it?). That ruins the smooth contours and makes it more awkward to put the device into a case, for example.
Sticks hardly seem ideal, either. Again, it has to protrude from the device, and to be useful it would have to protrude a LOT. You could store it flush, but then it only goes in one direction. Unless you store it flush sideways, but then you have to waste the time to "deploy" it every time you want to scroll. That'd seem a real pain to me. A stick would have to be fairly long to provide both fine control and smooth acceleration. Obviously, either extreme of movement (up or down) would provide the fastest scrolling - and it ought to be awfully fast, to quickly get to the bottom of that 1000 song list. The smallest movement would scroll just one element. But the smallest movement can't be too small, or it becomes hard to do without overshooting. But you still want some gradations between "one per touch" and "to the bottom in a second". You can design it so that anything up to, say, half-way moves it one element, while the far half of the movement spectrum gradually increases the speed of scrolling up to the maximum. But that requires a fairly long stick. Unless you ignore how far the stick moves, and say that a brief touch moves it one, and the longer you hold it the faster it goes. But then it's just like a button, with all the problems of button scrolls.
I can't believe I've written this much about the frikin iPod scroll wheel. I just think it's such a fabulously elegant peice of functional engineering, regardless of how novel it really is. And I consider my 3G wheel perfect; I never tried a 1G iPod.
What I would have liked to hear about the iPod was how they came up for the idea of the scroll wheel. AFAIK that's Apple's patent, and the defining feature of the iPod's interface that sets it above the competition.
According to the Newsweek cover story this week, it was Apple's VP of Marketing Phil Schiller who proposed the scroll wheel and its acceleration. To my knowledge this is the first time Apple has credited a specific individual. Does his name appear on the patent?
as someone else already pointed out, holding down pause (sorry, forgot it was pause and not stop), supposedly turns the device off, but it would remain sucking battery for quite some time after that. and as for no stop button, yeah, that does bother me. you can think whatever you want about that, but it bothers _me_, and that's what matters to _me_. finally, i'm not an "average user". and i'm not saying that the iPod isn't fine for average users. as with all other comments on /., mine was a _personal opinion_. you can argue with it all you want, but my opinion is just as correct as yours.
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
you _do_ make a good point, when you have long lists of files. however, for me, this isn't a problem, as the songs i listen to frequently are all pretty-well organised.
i think i'm just not a fan of the hand movement required to use it. i'd rather have a pressure/duration-sensitive button, or a small scrolling wheel, or something of that nature. just my preference. we can debate the merits of either approach all day, but the fact of the matter is that one works better for you, and one works better for me. in case you didn't notice, i was expressing an _opinion_ in my original post. in general, opinions based on personal taste can't be judged as right or wrong. my view on this is just as valid or 'correct' as yours.
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.