living with the iPhone - listening to music
Up until I purchased the iPhone, I was an old skool iPod owner. I still had my old 2G iPod. I received an orange iPod Shuffle for my birthday, and have begun to use it now that I'm back to travelling extensively again. I haven't had any experience with a standard iPod after the 2G one — I've never used a video iPod or even one of the old photo iPods.
There's a lot to like about the iPod features in the iPhone. I really like Cover Flow. It's a great way to scan through what I have on my iPhone. I'd probably like it better if I had anything other than podcasts on my iPhone right now. I like that the wallpaper for the phone becomes the cover art when you're using the iPod feature. I also appreciate that the iPod feature is configurable, so I can add/remove the bottom menu items that I want/don't want. (I removed the videos and replaced it with podcasts.) The icons that they're using for these items are quite visually appealing, as well as the glow that they're using to indicate where your selected icon is going. This makes me wish that I could do the same thing in the phone application.
It's only just now that I figured out that tapping the screen to see the progess bar for the item that you're listening to. I've been annoyed about this for the past few days. If you're just listening to music, this isn't really all that important. If you're listening to something longer, such as an audiobook or podcast, the progress bar is much more useful. I want to be able to skip forward a couple of minutes, or jump to a particular point in the audio. This discoverability issue makes me wonder if there is other iPod functionality that I just haven't stumbled across yet. (Hmm, maybe that's a hint that I should dig into the iPhone manual.)
And while this isn't really an iPod issue, I have to say that I just don't like the earbuds. I've never found them comfortable. I like having the mic on the cables and being able to click it to do certain things, but the earbuds themselves hurt my ears with extended use. I'm waiting for the inevitable deluge of iPhone accessories to get a set of more comfortable headphones that have a mic.
I still haven't tried my iPhone as a video iPod. Hmmm. I've got a bunch of iTunes Store credit, maybe I'll burn through some of that and download a TV show or film.
Comments
Anonymous
July 24, 2007
If you're looking for some video, I highly recommend the "This American Life" TV show...Anonymous
July 29, 2007
The comment has been removed