Is that an iPod in your pocket or are you carving soap in there?
4-Jan-2006A great post on iPod design shortcomings at Mobile Community Design:
Hierarchy
You can usually identify a bad interface based on whether its primary navigation scheme is based on a tree hierarchy or not. If it does, it probably has not been structured around user task frequencies and it’s usually bad. The IPod is all about hierarchy. To get to a game you go to Extras>Games>Title (and often you need to reverse back out of some other part of the tree before you do it.) Small screens make it difficult to get away from tree structures, which is one of the reasons they need a larger screen.
Emphasis mine.
I’ll add my list of current niggles:
- Can’t easily move to linear play from shuffle mode.
- Doesn’t allow computer sync and headphone listening at the same time.
- Doesn’t sync with Outlook sensibly for cross-timezone meetings.
- Doesn’t allow me to edit playlists.
- Doesn’t show me previous or next tracks.
I’ve used other players. iPod rocks in comparison. I do, however, agree with the conclusions of the article.
Mobile phones are starting to introduce music player functionality. Apple is likely to be overtaken by these mobile phone companies because they have the wireless networking infrastructure to facilitate media sharing and they already own our other pocket. Will we carry two devices when we could carry one? Only if the IPod can deliver a sufficiently superior social media experience. Think different Apple.
However, I have reservations about whether mobile phone manufacturers and mobile telcos have any desire to play nice when it comes to music DRM.
