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Blake
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1 year ago
in Gripe on The Technology Liberation Front
About Rockbox, beats me, but the issues you mention both involve the player and whatever jukebox software you're using (it might use iTunes - I have no idea).
I don't really see your point about Safari; the open source contributions on that project (so far as I understand) are to generate a standard-compliant rendering engine, which is more of an objective challenge than the subjective challenge of UI design. Your iPod issues you mention are probably not so much an issue with programming man-hours as they are with sound interface design. I'm sure Apple engineers have a variety of channels with which to gather feedback on product features. I hate to generalize, but based on their existing body of work open source programmers would be just about the last group I would turn to for UI advice.
I don't really see your point about Safari; the open source contributions on that project (so far as I understand) are to generate a standard-compliant rendering engine, which is more of an objective challenge than the subjective challenge of UI design. Your iPod issues you mention are probably not so much an issue with programming man-hours as they are with sound interface design. I'm sure Apple engineers have a variety of channels with which to gather feedback on product features. I hate to generalize, but based on their existing body of work open source programmers would be just about the last group I would turn to for UI advice.
1 year ago
in Gripe on The Technology Liberation Front
If you're not worried about the space issues, then you can set all Podcasts to be left on the iPod (iTunes->Preferences->Podcasts->Keep->All Episodes - or something more reasonable like "Last 10" so they start falling off eventually).
Switching logic based on the state of the player when you plug it in is more complicated than you might think.
Oh, and your second comment about not kicking off syncing automatically? My guess is that it's to prevent people from unplugging the player in the middle of a sync they don't know is happening and causing data loss or some kind of unknown state on the player. Yeah, you could have iTunes overtake focus on the screen, but it'd be doing it all the time if you had a lot of Podcasts.
Good UI design is harder than it looks!
Switching logic based on the state of the player when you plug it in is more complicated than you might think.
Oh, and your second comment about not kicking off syncing automatically? My guess is that it's to prevent people from unplugging the player in the middle of a sync they don't know is happening and causing data loss or some kind of unknown state on the player. Yeah, you could have iTunes overtake focus on the screen, but it'd be doing it all the time if you had a lot of Podcasts.
Good UI design is harder than it looks!
1 year ago
in Gripe on The Technology Liberation Front
I'm not really sure that's "obviously" the wrong behavior; if I don't finish listening to a Podcast and sync my iPod afterwards, I probably don't want it on the iPod 9 times out of 10. Apple could set some kind of option for it, but Apple's brand of user interface design takes options that are likely never to be used and makes the decision for you. I don't necessarily agree, but there's something to be said for not burdening the average user of your product with obtuse and confusing configuration options.
Have you checked out Rockbox? (http://www.rockbox.org/) I'm not sure it does what you're looking for, but presumably would accommodate the "competent hacker" you reference. I have a feeling you'll find the user interface lacking in some way, but it'll be a good reminder that open source projects aren't necessarily the paneca you suggest they are in your post.
Have you checked out Rockbox? (http://www.rockbox.org/) I'm not sure it does what you're looking for, but presumably would accommodate the "competent hacker" you reference. I have a feeling you'll find the user interface lacking in some way, but it'll be a good reminder that open source projects aren't necessarily the paneca you suggest they are in your post.
