Filed under: iPod Family
My wish for the iPod
No, I'm not looking for a video iPod with WiFi capabilities, web, email and handwriting recognition all for under $200. My request is much simpler. When I'm in the car, which is where I listen to my iPod most often, I just set it to shuffle and let it run. Occasionally the 'Pod will select a song that will prompt me to think, "Yeah, I'd like to listen to this whole album right now." Currently, selecting the target album requires me to navigate back to the main menu, then artist (because the artist list is shorter than the album list), then album and then play. Not good at 60 m.p.h. I propose that, if the iPod is in shuffle mode, a simple click of the center button will jump to the parent album of the currently playing track (without interrupting that track). For instance, if "Banana Pancakes" by Jack Johnson begins to play, I need only click the center button to jump right to "In Between Dreams," the song's parent album.It's not a big dream, but a dream all the same.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jyan said 11:50AM on 11-14-2005
i have a concern when you buy a ipod the music you ownloaded to it does it have to be bought a the itunes music store what if you some music in your library imported can you download that to your ipod or do you just have to buy from itunes music store,
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Sam said 12:52AM on 12-12-2005
Ahhh... I always come up with ideas for things that product managers of my belongings could have implemented easily, but they never listen. -.-;;
It's a good idea, really good idea actually, but sadly I doubt the makers of the iPod will ever catch word of this, or even give a crap if they do. They suck. :P
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AE said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Great idea. Maybe even better would be to have that center button programmable under such circumstances... I imagine there are people who would like to jump to all the songs by that artist, or genre, etc.
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Henry said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Thats a good idea and it sounds reasonable easy to implement.
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Natrino said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
The problem is, however, that the center button is currently used to enable you to skip through parts of the song. Perhaps a double-click would work. It is a good idea.
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john Green said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Good idea. I've thought exactly the same. In fact, I would like an *in-car* setting, where stuff like this are more obviously found. Like the ability to have the backlight on automatically when i plug it into the car, or maybe even remember where i was, last time i was in the car.
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Tom Edwards said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
I like the idea - but the centre button is already effectively used by the scrub function and rating. So, make a fourth item which allows you to select the album it came from, the artist it's by or something else like that.
I agree - good idea.
The only thing is, Apple only go in for stuff when lots and lots of people will agree and use it. Many of my friends don't know what On The Go is or how to use it. If they can't cope with that, then I doubt they'll be able to get this into their heads - or even find it.
Really good idea though.
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Flex said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
I would hate that. I need my center button to function in the way it does now during a track: navigating to a specific time in the track (especially useful during those retarded 2 minute gaps between the "last track" and the "hidden track"... yeah, I'm talking to you, Beck...) and assigning stars to the track.
I'm all about incorporating a contextual menu type jump-off in there somewhere, but it needs to be in addition to the current functionality of the center button, not in lieu of it.
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Hamish McKenzie-Campbell said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
"The problem is, however, that the center button is currently used to enable you to skip through parts of the song. Perhaps a double-click would work."
Or maybe if you used a "long press", like the way you select tracks for on-the-go playlists.
Also, having the ability to add a track into the play order, similarly to the party shuffle mode in iTunes, would be great. I use my iPod for music at parties, and having the ability to add in a request without disrupting the currently playing track would be great.
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Titx said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Maybe the good thing would be to have a "contextual" menu letting people choose the action:
- navigation within the song (currently 1 click)
- rating (currently 2 clicks)
- jump to album
- jump to artist
- jump to genre
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Eric Schwarz said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
I've been wanting this for awhile, but Dave gets the credit for actually penning it first. What if some button/control allowed you to jump to "related items", so you could hear other songs by the artists, other songs in that particular genre, other songs in the album, or some other way to hear similar items (somewhat like the little arrows all over iTunes that lead to the iTMS).
That would be cool.
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Dan said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Well, that's all well and good - I'd love a way to quickly nav to an album based on the currently palying song, but you do know that the center button is kinda already spoken for. One click puts you in scrubbing mode, a second click allows you to adjust your rating on the current song, and a third click puts you back to volume control.
But when you click and hold the center button, it just waits until you let go to switch to the next mode. So, like turning on your backlight with the menu button (hold for a second or so) maybe they could make the center button do this, via click and hold.
But, someone like me would say how about if I want to go to the artist instead of the album (In case "Banana Pancakes" makes me yearn to hear some "Brushfire Fairytales".) You could make it a selectable option in the Settings menu, to do one or the other... I don't know. Maybe there's a better way - but too many shortcuts like this and soon the player looses the simplicity that has made it the perfect music player in the first place. (Just because you can, doesn't mean you should)
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Chris Fenison said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Good idea. I wrote about this on my blog a few months ago but had few different ideas regarding the center click button. I'd like to click on the center button to go to a scrollable selection screen that has Get Info, Play This Artist, Play This Album and Play This Genre. Go here: http://www.chrisfenison.com/article/361/the-ipods-missing-features to read my article or click here: http://www.iinet.com/~cfenison/images/ipod.jpg to see the image mockup. Everyone post your ideas to Apple Feedback and one day we might actually have these features.
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Iso Grifo said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
You're reading my mind.
I also want the ability to have a "See also" link for bands. For example, if I'm listening to Led Zepplin, I want to have an option to link over to Robert Plant. Maybe a related artist link right under the album listings.
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Tony Barnhill said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Banana Pancakes is great! Jack is a friend of a friend (I live in Hawaii) and he let me use one of his songs on my wedding website. http://www.laurenandtony.com
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Sean said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
I actually submitted something just like this via the apple website some months ago, never heard back though. The other thing I would really like is when I am falling asleep to my ipod (and altec inmotion speakers), and I set the timer, I would love for it finish the song before turning off.
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AG said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Another feature I'd like to see on the iPod is a "last import" feature. I import music into iTunes on almost a daily basis and when I hop into my car, I'd like to have one folder on the iPod with everything I've just imported.
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Chris Fenison said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
AG, you can do that with a smart playlist and sync it to your iPod. I have a smart playlist for songs added today, in the last 7 days, in the last month, and the last 200 songs.
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Harsh said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Tony, your website kicks butt. Jack Johnson is great...the music makes your site even nicer.
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Jonny said 4:20PM on 6-16-2005
Already an option with the iPod shuffle.
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