Many congrats, Hugo! I hope to see your influence on the next generation car friendly ipod.

definitely - many congratulations! Get Apple sorted with a decent UI!

We definatley need to see some kind of DIN-sized mp3 player with removable storage. Hmmmm.....

Ha! No chance of that, Toby's working for us....

Congrats Hugo!

Now I definitely won't be missing the bbq in July.

I don't see how that rules anything out

Hugo

Didn't I read somewhere that the new Noble M15 had an iPod connection as standard? Is this just coincidence!?

Definitely just coincidence! When the M12 was being serviced a few weeks back I asked to have a look at the M15 and got taken into the top secret area ("don't look at anything except the painted one").

The M15 definitely looks better in the flesh than in pictures, but I'm really not sure on the slab-sides at the back - the M14 was much more my taste if they'd sorted the rear lights out. The interior was ok, but again I think I preferred the M14. Definitely more boot space in the M15 - and the lower mounted engine & all the other race-bred tweaks they've put in will make it a real monster!

Hugo

I would agree on the M15 back - the sharper haunches give it a very wide Testarossa-ish look to me, which is not my cup of tea. Oh to have to choose between M12s, 14s and 15s!

So, did you peek at the unpainted stuff?! And what kind of courtesy car do you get when you have a Noble serviced!!

No, I didn't peek

No courtesy car at all, in fact. Had to go and rent one (the train is so convoluted between Hinckley and Cambridge that if I'd come back that way I'd have about half an hour before I had to get the train back...). Not really excellent service from that point of view, but £24 for a rental Fiesta sport is ok!

Hugo

First off, congrats!

Secondly, having been an early (and continuing) fan[boy] of empeg, and an owner of 4 generations of iPod's, I have the following observation to offer...

The iPod is wildly successful because it LACKS many features. This is the success of Jobs and company. They turned the game around. Prior to the iPod, everyone was competing with how many features they could cram into a pocket sized player. What we ended up with was players with many external switches and ports, and very complicated and intimidating user interfaces, that took a lot of care and feeding. Players perfect for engineers and serious geeks, but completely useless to the average person.

The iPod changed all that. Everytime I use my iPod and I pine for some esoteric feature that I used to have on my empeg or rio500 or whatever, I remember that it's a feature I might only use once in a blue moon, and if I kept adding each one the day to day use of my iPod would soon be unmanagable.

Good luck Hugo, I am sure you'll kick ass and we'll all reap the fruits of your labor!

Cheers,
Ron

It's pretty easy to hide advanced configuration from the average user while still allowing the "power user" access to it.

Otherwise, I agree.

Well, except for the fact that iPods are now chock full of bells and whistles that have nothing whatsoever to do with audio playback. Pictures, calendars, videos, games, etc.

I wouldn't go that far. There's some merit to what he says. Namely, the idiotic masses need something simple. And the idiotic masses outnumber us like 20 to 1, if not more. And I'm not even intending to cast aspersions. Your parents are likely in that category. Mine, too.

That doesn't make it good for the rest of us, though.

Look around you -- you belong to a herd, it's called the human race :-)

I love this reaction to anyone who likes something that "non-technical" people like. It couldn't be that the thing is actually pretty cool and useful and brings some happiness to your life. It has to be because you are just a useless member of some "herd".

Me, I like lots of different devices, complicated and not, and I am fortunate enough to be able to both own and know how to use most of them.

My point with the post was that if someone were to add even only the top 10 requests (from this board) to the iPod, it would signficantly reduce the usability of the device, and by extension its popularity.

rjf&

Hierarchical playlists, too.

There are many things like that that could be added completely transparently that would affect the UI only if you chose to use them.

I'll just point out that this is exactly how a device gets out of hand. A group of very smart people lobbying for the addition of their pet feature, claiming that if implemented properly it'll have absolutely no effect on the usability of the device for those who care nothing of the feature in question.

I definitely accept the argument that perhaps Apple went a little too far toward the pedestrian, but it was a much better choice than going too far the other way, assuming your goal is to have a widely appealing and profitable business :-)

BTW, I don't think we're really arguing, just passing the afternoon by elaborating our points -- let me know if I am mistaken.

Cheers,
rjf&

I think that if anyone can add features without decreasing usability, Apple can.

The iPod is wildly successful because it LACKS many features. This is the success of Jobs and company.

Exactly.

If a company has plans to remain in business, it has to market to the masses, which is what Apple has done, and is why empeg production ceased years ago.

This is a reasonably succinct reprise of what I am saying...

tanstaafl.

iTunes is the reason why the iPod sells. Apple solved the mp3 creation problem for non-technical people and they integrated their solution seamlessly with their player.

Personally - and this comment is with no insight apart from having been a competitor and taken apart many iPods in my time - I suspect that Apple would love gapless, but adding it to their current platform would require a lot reorganisation of the software structure.

I have to say that I've only ever managed to crash an iPod by running some USB stress tests; the player software is solid as a rock. I can believe that they don't fancy pulling it to pieces and (most likely) seriously affecting stability to add such a feature. I can believe the player engine is largely unchanged from how it was in 2001, and for that vintage it's just fine.

However, as everyone has heard (especially portalplayer's shareholders), Apple looks like they're moving platform, at least for new flash players. Given that the PP platform was, errr, unique with its twin ARM7 cores, I can believe that they'll take the opportunity to build themselves a fancy new player with all the bells and whistles. Apart from anything else, their sales now justify a major software investment, whereas the original iPod (pre iTunes, especially) was a bit of a flyer for Apple and was pretty risk-averse in its software design. Take a look at what the Mac does graphically - the beatifully scaled & anti-aliased icons, the neat transparency effects, the rotating cube user switching - these people love seamless. They love flair. I can't believe they're happy with the gaps.

Just my 2p (when it's 2c, I won't be free to give it )

Hugo