peteg's blog - hacking - mac - 2006 12 18 iPod Gripes

iPod Shuffle Gripes

Mon, Dec 18, 2006./hacking/mac | Link
OK, I've owned the damn thing for about a month, time to put the boot in. :-) What I like:
  • Unplugging the headphones makes it pause. Perhaps all iPods do this, but my iRiver didn't.
  • The control is much better designed than my old iRiver.
What I'd like:
  • Some audible warning that it's out of juice. The little all-purpose LED glows red, I think, and that's that.
  • A way to delete songs on the player itself, so I can fill it up with random crap and on-the-spot nuke the annoying stuff, rather than having to tediously go through it afterwards in iTunes at home.
What I don't like:
  • The dinky dock. My old iRiver had a standard mini-USB port, which happened to be the same as my Canon PowerShot A75. One cable was all I needed. Moreover I have no way to recharge it without having the iBook plugged in and running — there's no juice on the USB bus when it's suspended.
Ars Technica killed theirs by running a car over it. This program may yet liberate me from iTunes inanity.