steve kwan user experience designer

I'm done with iPods

(October 6th, 2007 - 1:27AM)

Regular readers shouldn't be surprised. I'm known to be an Apple hater (see Exhibits A and B). Don't get me wrong, I don't think iPods are bad. It's just that they leave something to be desired.

Apple's always been a great innovator; the iPhone and iPod Touch are recent examples. But all the same, there's a difference between making an innovative product and making a well-rounded product. While iPods have instilled a lot of fresh thinking into portable music players, I find that every iPod has a handful of features I like and a handful of shortcomings that piss me off.

I currently own a fifth-generation (last-gen) iPod. I suppose it's an iPod "Classic" now. I didn't actually buy it, but got it on exchange for a broken iriver. Overall, I've been quite happy with it. In particular, Apple is in my good books for popularizing podcasts, supporting audiobooks, and including video playing capabilities in this model.

But despite all of the great features in the iPod Classic, there are still a lot of weak points that are unacceptable in a high-end music player.

1. Lousy sound quality.
   The most offensive shortcoming in all iPods is the lousy sound quality. I've had the pleasure of using great portable music players such as the iriver h320, which had great sound quality, plus support for SRS WOW and TruBass. Going to the iPod was quite a downgrade. If there's one thing that a portable music player needs to get right, it's playing music. All of the great features in the iPod line are downgraded by the fact that the audio quality is so poor.
2. The click wheel.
   Apple's touch-sensitive wheel is great for controlling volume and skipping forward in audiobooks, but it causes a variety of problems. For example, leaving your iPod in your pocket can result in fabric brushing up against the click wheel, which can blast the volume up to maximum. This can be quite a jarring experience. Also, the click wheel is perhaps a bit too sensitive, and I find myself bumping into something and accidentally skipping forward or backward. This isn't so bad with songs, but if you lose your place in an audiobook it's a pain.
3. iTunes and the iTunes Store.
   I resent having to use a software player as lousy as iTunes to sync my iPod, and I resent low-quality DRMed music.
4. Easily dented and scratched body.
   Other players don't seem to have this problem, but even the newer iPods have metal cases that scratch easily.

Even the newest generation of iPods has these problems. I'm certainly not going to buy a sixth-generation iPod with such awful sound quality. The iPod Touch intrigues me, but it also makes me wonder how I'm supposed to pause or change songs when I'm not looking directly at it. What if the iPod's in my pocket? What if I'm driving? Is Apple's plan to make me take the iPod out of my pocket to manipulate it? Then again, that kind of makes sense: since iPods are more of a fashion statement than a gadget, any chance to pull it out in public is a plus.

So what's my next portable music player? I'm probably not going to replace my iPod until it craps out, but if it does tomorrow, I'll probably get the new Creative Zen.