Album art on the iPod is awesome. I believe I’ve mentioned this. I have one tiny complaint, though: clicking the middle button on a non-color iPod presents the following options.
- Not clicked yet: regular time countdown (scroll wheel controls volume)
- Clicked once: time countdown replaced by diamond-time countdown (scroll wheel controls where you are in the song)
- Clicked twice: ratings (scroll wheel controls star ratings)
- Clicked again: back to regular time countdown
Now that you’ve got album art, it looks like this:
- No click: regular (volume scroll)
- One click: time scroll
- Two clicks: album art (if there is any), or rating (scroll for ratings)
- Three clicks: back to the beginning, or, if there’s album art, ratings.
- Fourth click: back to the start for album art tracks, but back into time scroll for all other tracks…
My issue is that I rate songs a LOT. If I want to get to the stars menu, I have to know whether or not there’s album art, and whether to click three or four times. It seems to me that they could have put art after ratings, or put a "no art available" image in there, so at least the interface is the same for album art tracks and non-art tracks. Another thought: the scroll wheel does nothing when album art is zoomed in, so perhaps if I click three times (hoping to get ratings, but instead hitting art) and start scrolling, it could gracefully bump me ahead one screen and let me scroll my star ratings.
In terms of other design enhancements, I could take or leave the new anti-aliased font (the other one was pretty crisp, and while I get the point of the fuzzy font, it wasn’t necessary), the click-wheel sound isn’t improved (but I like getting it in the headphones), and the increased tension on the hold switch is greatly appreciated. (I’d never used a hold switch in my life before the iPod. It’s an absolute necessity.) The yanked-cord-pause feature seems to work about half the time, but I use a lot of different headphone sets, and I’ve heard that makes a difference. The new battery is of course a marvel, since my old iPod was down to about 4 hours and 1 minute of useful life (and I will fill out the form for the free replacement as soon as I get around to it).
My only other complaint is universal to all iPods: why must their flawless exterior scratch within 24 hours? I scored a free gas card from work and stuffed it in my iPod pocket… you wouldn’t think that would ding it up, but man.
