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That’s the question anyone purchasing Apple’s latest redesign of its iPod Shuffle should be asking themselves.
Quietly released last week, the new device removes all controls from the player itself, leaving it as a tiny stick, smaller and thinner than most of the USB flash drives many of us carry around.
On the back of the Shuffle is a clip for safely fastening it to your clothing – and presumably to help you to remember where it is.
The controls now form a little plastic nodule that is part of the headphone cable, meaning you will have to use Apple’s notoriously substandard earbuds in order to operate the iPod.
The final innovation, which will no doubt be introduced to other models very soon, is that your player now speaks the name of the song or playlist – quite an elaborate workaround for not having a screen to look at.
I think Apple has a problem here.
You can only go on tweaking and reinventing a product for so long before eventually reaching an optimum design. This is clearly starting to happen with not just the iPod Shuffle but with other devices that Apple puts out, too.
For a company whose selling point is often the aesthetics and elegance of its products, this is a marketing headache.
The truth is that the previous iPod Shuffle was pretty much perfect for a low capacity, screenless MP3 player. It was light and small but big enough to feature controls and clipped unnoticed to your clothing. It didn’t need to be made any smaller and take backward steps in usability just for the sake of it.
iMacs also appear to have reached their optimum design. I’m writing this on one now and it’s compact, has a small footprint on the desk but is nearly all screen and nothing else. Apple has released further updates to the model in the two years since I’ve had mine, but the actual look of the thing hasn’t changed at all – it really can’t.
Don’t get me wrong. Looks are certainly not everything and I love Macs more for their ease of use than anything else but we the fickle public are drawn more instantly to visual changes – particularly with Apple products.
Let’s hope the Shuffle’s needless redesign doesn’t become a trend.
It’s been some considerable time in the making but last week finally saw the official 1.0 release of Songbird (getsongbird.com), a media playing application clearly designed to snap at the ankles of the likes of iTunes, Windows Media Player and Winamp.
In a world awash with MP3 playing software, Songbird offers anticipation because of its open source foundation and the fact that it is built using Mozilla XULRunner, the same programming language that brings us Firefox.
In fact, the first thing you notice when you install and launch Songbird is that it does appear to be the offspring of an iTunes and Firefox liaison – something which brings both good and bad points to the table.
Early pre-release versions of Songbird looked so similar to iTunes that I was convinced Apple would be slapping down a lawsuit before too long The developers appear to have gone some way to giving it its own style but the inspiration is still there for all to see.
Indeed, with a couple of rejigs of the layout and the application of a new skin (as per Firefox, Songbird lets you apply different designs called ‘feathers’), it’s possible to reintroduce the striking similarity. Personally, I would like to see a little more innovation in a new product.
The Firefox family line comes into play with tabbed browsing within the player, the aforementioned ‘feathers’ and extensions – small add-ons to Songbird which perform specific tasks like adding iPod integration or video playback.
It’s these add-ons which excite me most because they offer limitless potential.
As the software stands at the moment, it’s hard to imagine embracing it over iTunes or, indeed, Winamp (just about anything is better than Windows Media Player so there’s no real challenge there).
Yes, it’s open source; yes, it includes concert and ticket information (did you know The Damned are playing in Oxford on the 19th?) and yes, it’s available on all platforms, but it can’t rip or burn CDs, there’s no support for Podcast subscriptions and the deal-breaker for me – it doesn’t recognise the iPhone.
Songbird’s similarity to iTunes causes inevitable comparisons at every step of the way and this is the product’s biggest hurdle.
Do I want it to succeed? Yes, I’d love it to.
Does it have a long way to go? Oh yes, miles. But it’s off to a good start and I’ll be waiting.
I’ve just been listening to the new Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul and one thing is clear. Oasis should split up. Now.
That’s not because I don’t like them. Probably like most people I own nearly all Oasis albums (apart from that blip in the mid 90s when they lost it completely with Standing on the Shoulder of Giants) but I don’t really listen to them that often.
Liam and Noel write and sing completely different songs to each other and I’d genuinely welcome a solo album from each of them (Noel, if either, will be the first to do that, for sure).
I’ve always loved Noel’s own stuff and found Liam’s voice just a bit too whiney for my liking. On this album, that changes.
Probably one of the most beautiful Oasis songs I’ve ever heard is on this album – and it’s written and sung by Liam.
On ‘I’m Outta Time’, gone is the swagger, the strain, the nasally whine. It’s just an amazing song, sung incredibly well, with really mature lyrics that I can relate to. I think I’m going to be listening to this rather a lot.
Elsewhere on the album, the usual Beatles influences can be heard in abundance. Noel sings some stonkers and Oxford’s own one-time Mr. Ride, Andy Bell, finally gets a writing credit on the ‘The Nature of Reality’ – a stomping rocker with a decidedly 1970s feel, sung by Liam. Personally I rated his Ride stuff much higher.
A good album. Better than their last couple at least.
I’m going back to put ‘I’m Outta Time’ on repeat. Liam – you’ve come of age. Who would have thought that snarling Mancunian could deliver such a delight?
A good proportion of my misspent youth was used up strumming or thrashing away on guitars. Despite owning a rather excellent Fender Telecaster, I’ve always had a soft spot for the sound of an acoustic guitar and strumming away to a favourite Beatles composition.
About 10 years ago when my daughter was born, my time on the guitar gradually grew less and less until the lid closed for a final time on the Telecaster and my (never great) acoustic sat and gathered dust.
But the times they are a-changing! Mollie recently expressed an interest in learning the guitar having slowed right down on her piano practice and you’d have to redefine the term ‘proud dad’ if I was ever to get to watch her in a band so Saturday saw us in the unfortunately-named PMT (Professional Music Technology) on the Cowley Road.
I took the old Tele in for a service. It fell pray to a few knocks back in the day and I never really looked after it as much as it deserved so a few things need tightening or replacing and after almost 10 years of inactivity I think I can treat it to a new set of professionally applied strings.
Since switching to Apple Macs a year ago, I’ve been tinkering around on Garage Band on OS X, which is a fully-fledged recording studio application, able to take software tracks and hardware tracks and mix them together. With only passing effort, the results can actually prove quite effective (although my singing voice isn’t quite what it used to be!). When the Tele comes back from PMT I shall be using it to record some tracks in Garage Band and we’ll see what comes out. I don’t wish to deafen or attract the wrath of my neighbours so I laid down £20 on a diddy Marshall amplifier (actually not made by Marshall surprisingly enough) that weighs in at a hardly eye-watering 1 watt output. It’s certainly not going to sound too great but it looks the part and will do well for practice.
I’ve also got the task of teaching Mollie the basic chords before both of us embark on some proper lessons in the coming months. This is going to be fun!
I got a link to download Radiohead’s new album today after paying £5 for it (which, at the time, I considered a fair price if all the money went directly to the band).
I feel a natural kinship with Radiohead having seen them loads of times in their early days in Oxford. I don’t remember seeing ‘On a Friday’ (the original name of the band) but it’s likely that I did as I frequented many gigs back around those times. I’ve got some old indie cassette that I bought in Music Market in Oxford (remember that anyone?!) that has an On A Friday track on it. I can remember the song but I’ve not listened to it for some time.
So I’ve spent much of the day listening to In Rainbows and I’m kind of at a loss to know what to say about it apart from to use the word ‘beautiful’.
Like many people, I’m sure, OK Computer is one of my top five albums of all time. I remember listening to it over and over again whilst driving through France on my own. I went through just about every emotion it’s possible to experience during that trip and the album is indelibly etched on my brain as the soundtrack to it. Awesome – in the genuine sense of the word.
I do love Radiohead’s two (or is it three) follow up albums to OK Computer but I don’t listen to them anything like as often. Kid A gets a fair few plays but the others kind of wash over me.
In Rainbows is great and “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” is one of the most staggeringly beautiful pieces of music I can remember hearing.
If you want to hear the album – and change the way music is distributed – grab a copy of In Rainbows (and pay for it whatever you feel it’s worth) at inrainbows.com (sadly link is dead at time of writing due to overload – do a search but it’s important to pay for it and send out a message. Even if you pay only a very small amount, it will count as a statistic to this new model.
