Why the iPod Shuffle sucks, part 4
Reason Numéro Trois: Random resetting
In our last exciting episode, our hero (me) was assaulted by inexplicable playback interruptions while listening to music on his iPod Shuffle. Now he is faced with the dire Apple recommendation of resetting the playlist to be able to continue enjoying talented musical acts on his portable MP3 device. Will he do it? What grim outcome awaits his day of musical pleasure if he does?
Well, it is drastically simple, citizen. Resetting the playlist is the unavoidable consequence of both elucidations Apple proposes to decamp from the gelid clasp of a Shuffle crash, as I prelected in part the third. Therefore, if one resets the playlist, logically, one divests one’s lieu on the playlist, and then encounters a circumstance similar to what was outlined in part the second.
Let’s be frank: it isn’t so bad having to reset the playlist. After all, it just sends the playback position back to start, so all one has to do is skip over all the songs one just heard to get back to the place one was. Annoying, very annoying, but not the catastrophe which will bring upon the end times. Of course, if one had been listening to one’s Shuffle for four hours, the skipping process becomes rather tedious, unless one entertains the button mashing by concocting an old-school dance beat based on the meter and rhyme scheme of the words “blisters on your fingers.”
But the main problem with resetting the playlist is that it doesn’t always behave in the same fashion. Sometimes the playlist reset not only resets the playback position; it re-shuffles the entire playlist. That, my friends, is a major harsh on anyone’s mellow.
Lost is the simple luxury of skipping forward through one’s playlist to reclaim the place which was unjustly stripped away. Now one deals with an entire new order where songs which one has listened to intermix with those which have yet to grace one’s ears. It’s a baffling ordeal which compromises the relaxing possibilities of sitting back and letting the music play.
What does Apple have to say about that? “We’re not aware of that kind of problem,” the support people regurgitate from their cozy support centers. Therefore, it would appear that even the solution to the bug is buggy.
Oh, cruel irony.
Read the previous entires:
- Why the iPod Shuffle sucks, part 1
- Why the iPod Shuffle sucks, part 2
- Why the iPod Shuffle sucks, part 3
I still don’t understand MP3 players without a display. I mean seriously, my stingy bosses gave everyone at work 64 meg MP3 players with displays (and company logo, no less). Of course, that wasn’t iPods, so displays must be cheaper for those producers.