it is probably the best interface available for anyone at all at the moment.
Unless you're blind. Or using it hands-free. That's the point of this discussion.
you can no more gauge movement on a mechanical wheel than you can on a touch wheel
This is where you need to think different. The point here is that dialling using a radial controller is sub-optimal for non-visual operation. You are probably better off with a jog-dial or rocker controller. Or simple up/down or cursor keys.
if you spend 5 minutes to look at how the click wheel and software work
We're talking about blind users here, remember? All the UI analogies you use demonstrate your visual perspective.
I would say that your "meta-mode" bookmark/breadcrumb facility would be a nice/feature/, but is hardly "essential" for operation, visual or otherwise
That's where you're wrong. Using your visual field enables you to navigate successfully through a complex collection of assets in a branchy fashion. However, blind or hands-free users don't have this luxury - they need bookmarks. That's why serious hands-free/blind systems generally have unlimited bookmarking, unlimited creation of on-device playists, and a way to embed these bookmarks in directories or playlists to create "charts" through the content.
Seriously, the iPod is a wonderful UI and device... as long as you're looking at it (or you have looked at it and use this knowledge to navigate thinly and briefly "through your trousers). Outside that domain, however, it lags badly. Try using some of the other interfaces discussed in this conversation then see if your conclusion remains the same.
I use my (4th-gen) iPod almost exclusively while it resides in my pocket--changing songs, adjusting volume, rating songs (well, if they're worth all 5 stars), seeking in songs
How do you move your selection focus between different playlists, or genres, or artists, without getting visual feedback? Navigating within a single linear array is trivial for sighted and unsighted alike, but beyond that?
One final thing I consider essential for non-visual operation is a "meta-mode" unlimited bookmarking/breadcrumbing facility, with audio feedback. I know the iPod can bookmark audible files, but can you "pop" out of any track or number of tracks, putting a bookmark to that exact place into the breadcrumb stack, and then return to that bookmark and that track at any arbitrary time in the future?
the iPod would be absolutely ideal here as well with just a little software engineering.
You're kidding, right? The iPod is totally visual. After the 1G Apple doesn't even have a tactile feedback controller. The entire UI is based on visually dialing through hierarchical lists. It is ill-suited for visually impaired people from both a hardware and a fundamental software architecture POV.
The Book Industry garnered $23.4 billion in 2003 - and that was a flat recession year. When video games pass books in dollar volume, then we will know the end of civilisation is at hand.
Google Suggest has some pretty serious filters in place, so instead of P being "Porn" it is "Paris Hilton."
The filters do weird things. You can type as many letters as you want but it will not suggest bestiality (~2m results). However once you get to "besti" the common misspelling bestility (30K results) pops up. However, Google is not yet filtering felching.
The last analyst report I saw pointed out that the entire revenue from legal downloads amounted to 5% of the current revenue from mobile phone ringtones.
If I was Apple I'd be selling ringtones on the ITMS.
The students were threatening to bring down the government and hence in the interests of stability the government had to act to ensure that the country remained intact.
Yes there are no examples in the world of successful countries that use democracy, and where different Governments come and go according to the will of the people. Nope. None at all.
Apple is and always has been as evil as MS. It's just that MS is so much more successful from doing it that everybody notices them, while until the iPod Apple played the role of the weedy bully nobody paid attention to. Now that it finally has a market niche pretty much locked up (DRM music) suddenly it's noticable how reluctant Apple is to play nicely with the other kids.
Usenet? It's just a shadow of its former glory. I was there for the heady days of the Carasso Wars. Later on I worked with him and found him to be just as intriguingly infuriatingly trollish in person. For more info see alt.sex.carasso. You can also check out
Everything was going fine until you decided to get gross. Keep that in mind next time.
Is sex dirty?
Only if it's done right.
--Woody Allen
And anyway, okay, maybe one dongle is required. if it's just an XLR->RCA mini issue then you can use something like the A96F wire to handle the impedance. If all you can get is AES/EBU over XLR then you're going to need a convertor box. But so would a (current) iPod, as well as the dock. And by now you're carrying round a small backpack of gear. All things considered, I prefer optical.
I fail to understand why anybody would want it on the iPod itself.
Because being able to quickly plug in digitally to a nearby amp for playback (parties!) or record (DJs!) is cool. And carrying around a whole other dock gadget is just silly. Besides, the iPod chipset has always had SPDIF from the outset - it's part of the PortalPlayer reference design. Apple just decided to not expose it on the iPod, probably because the record companies told them to lube up and bend over.
I'd say the 60GB is just a matter of weeks. Tosh are using it in their F60 player, the excess goes to Apple. After the xmas rush there should be lots to go around.
Personally I'm waiting for a reasonably priced 100GB 2.5" to drop into my Archos.
Probably because you posted the same info half a dozen times.
Probably because different people said exactly the same thing half a dozen times. You think they are going to notice a response to their statement in someone else's thread? I doubt it. This is/. after all, where too many people focus only on new topics for the new new thing karma whoring angle, neglecting the old ones. Topics go stale within 60 minutes and their eyeball count declines almost to zero.
If something is worth saying then it's worth repeating. It's worth repeating.
Even though the Archos mp3 players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
The last time I wrote about this it was marked down as Troll, probably by some iPod-happy blind-person-hating fanboi. If you're reading this then you are a grade A wanker.
when you slow down enough, it would tell you what album you're on (voice synth from ID3 tags)
You're right that computer-generated audio directory listings can be done easily. Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
For an idea of how this could be accomplished on a lightweight portable player
Or you could look at an already-existing system that works pretty well... Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
You're right that computer-generate audio directory listings can be good. Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
I don't see how you're supposed to navigate through 1 GB of music/etc. with no screen.
Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
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it is probably the best interface available for anyone at all at the moment.
/feature/, but is hardly "essential" for operation, visual or otherwise
Unless you're blind. Or using it hands-free. That's the point of this discussion.
you can no more gauge movement on a mechanical wheel than you can on a touch wheel
This is where you need to think different. The point here is that dialling using a radial controller is sub-optimal for non-visual operation. You are probably better off with a jog-dial or rocker controller. Or simple up/down or cursor keys.
if you spend 5 minutes to look at how the click wheel and software work
We're talking about blind users here, remember? All the UI analogies you use demonstrate your visual perspective.
I would say that your "meta-mode" bookmark/breadcrumb facility would be a nice
That's where you're wrong. Using your visual field enables you to navigate successfully through a complex collection of assets in a branchy fashion. However, blind or hands-free users don't have this luxury - they need bookmarks. That's why serious hands-free/blind systems generally have unlimited bookmarking, unlimited creation of on-device playists, and a way to embed these bookmarks in directories or playlists to create "charts" through the content.
Seriously, the iPod is a wonderful UI and device... as long as you're looking at it (or you have looked at it and use this knowledge to navigate thinly and briefly "through your trousers). Outside that domain, however, it lags badly. Try using some of the other interfaces discussed in this conversation then see if your conclusion remains the same.
hardware needing to get to a certian point.
Amiga. Blitter (bimmer!). Copper (co-processor!). 1980s. Cool.
I use my (4th-gen) iPod almost exclusively while it resides in my pocket--changing songs, adjusting volume, rating songs (well, if they're worth all 5 stars), seeking in songs
How do you move your selection focus between different playlists, or genres, or artists, without getting visual feedback? Navigating within a single linear array is trivial for sighted and unsighted alike, but beyond that?
This post explains in much better detail why the iPod is currently spectacularly un-optimized for non-visual operation.
One final thing I consider essential for non-visual operation is a "meta-mode" unlimited bookmarking/breadcrumbing facility, with audio feedback. I know the iPod can bookmark audible files, but can you "pop" out of any track or number of tracks, putting a bookmark to that exact place into the breadcrumb stack, and then return to that bookmark and that track at any arbitrary time in the future?
Here's a thread started by a novice blind user of the Rockbox mp3 player.
Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver hardware.
The choice of porting is constrained by how open a platform is to open source developers. To quote one of the Rockbox developers here on
the iPod would be absolutely ideal here as well with just a little software engineering.
You're kidding, right? The iPod is totally visual. After the 1G Apple doesn't even have a tactile feedback controller. The entire UI is based on visually dialing through hierarchical lists. It is ill-suited for visually impaired people from both a hardware and a fundamental software architecture POV.
The Book Industry garnered $23.4 billion in 2003 - and that was a flat recession year. When video games pass books in dollar volume, then we will know the end of civilisation is at hand.
Call me untrendy, but I still like dotcomments.
Google Suggest has some pretty serious filters in place, so instead of P being "Porn" it is "Paris Hilton."
The filters do weird things. You can type as many letters as you want but it will not suggest bestiality (~2m results). However once you get to "besti" the common misspelling bestility (30K results) pops up. However, Google is not yet filtering felching.
The last analyst report I saw pointed out that the entire revenue from legal downloads amounted to 5% of the current revenue from mobile phone ringtones.
If I was Apple I'd be selling ringtones on the ITMS.
I'm reminded of Aldous Huxley's 1984.
That's George Orwell's 1984. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, the funnier dystopia with all the sex and drugs and "feelies".
The students were threatening to bring down the government and hence in the interests of stability the government had to act to ensure that the country remained intact.
Yes there are no examples in the world of successful countries that use democracy, and where different Governments come and go according to the will of the people. Nope. None at all.
Where do you stand on Tibet, sorry, Xzàng Zìzhìq?
Apple is and always has been as evil as MS. It's just that MS is so much more successful from doing it that everybody notices them, while until the iPod Apple played the role of the weedy bully nobody paid attention to. Now that it finally has a market niche pretty much locked up (DRM music) suddenly it's noticable how reluctant Apple is to play nicely with the other kids.
Everything was going fine until you decided to get gross. Keep that in mind next time.
Is sex dirty?
Only if it's done right.
--Woody Allen
And anyway, okay, maybe one dongle is required. if it's just an XLR->RCA mini issue then you can use something like the A96F wire to handle the impedance. If all you can get is AES/EBU over XLR then you're going to need a convertor box. But so would a (current) iPod, as well as the dock. And by now you're carrying round a small backpack of gear. All things considered, I prefer optical.
I fail to understand why anybody would want it on the iPod itself.
Because being able to quickly plug in digitally to a nearby amp for playback (parties!) or record (DJs!) is cool. And carrying around a whole other dock gadget is just silly. Besides, the iPod chipset has always had SPDIF from the outset - it's part of the PortalPlayer reference design. Apple just decided to not expose it on the iPod, probably because the record companies told them to lube up and bend over.
the 1,8" disks are completely unbuyable
Have you tried this new-fangled thing called the internet? You can even get it on computers these days!
40GB 1.8", ~$140
I'd say the 60GB is just a matter of weeks. Tosh are using it in their F60 player, the excess goes to Apple. After the xmas rush there should be lots to go around.
Personally I'm waiting for a reasonably priced 100GB 2.5" to drop into my Archos.
Probably because you posted the same info half a dozen times.
/. after all, where too many people focus only on new topics for the new new thing karma whoring angle, neglecting the old ones. Topics go stale within 60 minutes and their eyeball count declines almost to zero.
Probably because different people said exactly the same thing half a dozen times. You think they are going to notice a response to their statement in someone else's thread? I doubt it. This is
If something is worth saying then it's worth repeating. It's worth repeating.
Why not just get them all iPods?
Can an iPod do talking menus or run an audio feedback UI?
Even though the Archos mp3 players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
The last time I wrote about this it was marked down as Troll, probably by some iPod-happy blind-person-hating fanboi. If you're reading this then you are a grade A wanker.
Woah. Four "troll" mods for speaking about an open-source audio feedback system. Someone hates blind people!
when you slow down enough, it would tell you what album you're on (voice synth from ID3 tags)
You're right that computer-generated audio directory listings can be done easily. Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
For an idea of how this could be accomplished on a lightweight portable player
Or you could look at an already-existing system that works pretty well... Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
You're right that computer-generate audio directory listings can be good. Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...
I don't see how you're supposed to navigate through 1 GB of music/etc. with no screen.
Even though the Archos players have screens, the open-source personal jukebox software Rockbox recently implemented a Talking Menu system that can announce directories and playlists. It's useful for non-visual operation, and it proving to be a hit with blind users. Rockbox is being ported to some of the iRiver players...