Gluemeat

Reason Numéro Deux: Blindness

The marketing folks at Apple are an astute bunch. Seriously. Hey, when the iPod design team came up to them with the idea of the iPod Shuffle, they were struck with the problem of coming up with a slogan which would convey the idea that owning an MP3 player on constant random mode was a good idea. Not an easy sell. So they decided to dive into the collective consciousness of an entire generation-and-a-half and came up with three little questions:

“What will it play next? Can it read your mind? Can it read your moods?”

Anyone who has ever randomized a CD in his or her CD player has asked his or herself one of these whimsical, albeit pointless questions.

- You know that Pay No Mind is the track that follows Loser, but what will it play next? Nitemare Hippy Girl? Soul Suckin’ Jerk?

- You just listened to Sweetness Follows, Man On The Moon, and Find The River. You’d really like to hear Drive right now. Can it read your mind? Here comes the next song: Everybody Hurts? Hmm…

- You just listened to Evenflow, but can it read your moods? Because Black sure could help nurture that self-loathing feeling right about now.

Yeah, there was something both daring and cosmic when listening to your CDs out of their pre-planned order. It’s that magic the Shuffle’s mantra was trying to channel. But no matter how many times you did, you could always return order to your musical universe by resetting the tunes back to their prescribed placement. Or skip over to the track number you wanted to listen to. The songs you wanted were never really out of reach.

But finding the song you want on an iPod Shuffle is exactly like navigating through the Titanic wreckage without James Cameron.

You have a good idea what’s in there: the rooms, the artifacts, the coral… but if you’re looking for the crate of elastic cords which was being transported in the cargo area for Kuyper, P.C. & Co., you’d best have James around to tell you where to go; if not, you’ll probably end up sorting through crates of synringe fittings shipped by American Express Co, or one of Downing, R.F. & Co crates of iron jacks. You’ll eventually reach the elastic cords, but not after some major blind poking around.

Yes, there are two modes on the iPod Shuffle, Virginia. The Shuffle mode and the Play in Order mode. Play in Order will play a song playlist in a order (duh) as defined in iTunes: track number, artist name, play count, whatever suits your fancy-wancy. So, one can get to the desired songs easier right? I say “sort of.” What if I’m listening to Autour de Lucie on a playlist sorted by artist, and get a hankering for some Postal Service. I’m still going to have to weed through Beck, Band of Horses, Buck 65, the Decemberists, the Flaming Lips, Hawksley Workman, Jeff Buckley and Malajube before reaching Jimmy Tamborello’s dreamy beats. I just might get bored in the meantime and start making out with someone to fill the void.

Yes, one could put less songs on the Shuffle to find the songs easier. But then what’s the point of having bigger disk space if you can’t carry more tunes because the more tunes you carry the longer it takes to find them?

The irony of it all is that if I owned any other type of MP3 player, I probably would listen to its musical content in random mode 75% of the time anyway. But that 25% chunk of my life where I would like to reach a song, artist, or album on a whim, but can’t, is irritating enough to knock my iPod Shuffle love down another peg.

This entry was posted by Mike on Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 at 12:10 am and is filed under Technology. Stay fresh on your flaming needs by following responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave your own response, or trackback from your own site. YEAH