User Centered

This article was rewritten/updated.

Please see: iTunes as a Podcast Manager: it's time for an intervention for revised version

iTunes+iPod has always been great for me as far as music is concerned. Playlist management and the iPod interface have not always had EVERY feature I wanted or needed, but simplicity is the selling point and well frankly, it sold me. "Less is more." By limiting the feature set to create a simple UI, you've created "more" in terms of the user experience. I agree.

But lately, my iPod is almost exclusively (emphasis on almost) used for podcasts, and I’ve found iTunes to not match exactly the|my real world usage of podcasts (activity centered anyone?)

Here are a couple UI quirks I've found that make me think "less" is actually less when dealing with podcasts-


Repeat

This is a useful feature on playlists of music, but has little value to podcasts. I always want
my music to loop back through the playlist, but I never want my podcasts to loop. iPod can only let you set one. If I'm listening to music- I prefer to select repeat. Podcast? Turn it off. I’ve found (maybe it’s just the podcasts I listen to) that sometimes it’s not so easy to tell you’ve looped back to the beginning, and conversly, when your music playlist ends when you're hitting 9MPH on the treadmill- that's also a let down.


Limited choice of syncing

The options available are perfect for one podcast, but not another. Variations in publishing/syndication lead to variation in how why should sync them. The "one size fits all" approach to updating your podcasts keeps the interface simple, but at the cost of being useful...

• Unplayed podcast This is a podcast specific feature (as far as I know)- but some podcasts I get (like the onion news) are only a minute at best, and some are an hour. If I’m only 20 minutes into one and I want to keep it around, I have to disable automatically sync, because otherwise as soon as I dock it, the unfinished episode has to be marked as unplayed and re-sync'd (and then, I have to FF/find where I was again)
  
  
• Most recent episode- some podcasts are published every once in awhile (PK&J show) and some are published multiple times a day (Armstrong and Getty is a radio show that publishes each hour of a four hour show, every day). Most recent episode is good for infrequent podcasts, but daily (or multiple per day) podcasts require dedicated daily syncs and the potential to miss some.
  
  
• Only Checked- labor intensive. Seems like this is my only choice for the large variety of podcasts I listen too. But each podcast doesn't need to "managed" on a daily basis. I'd like to set it once for each podcast. The PK&J show? Get the most recent. Armstrong and Getty? Get all of em...etc.
  

Auto update

It only updates when you dock it. I dock it when I get home from work and pick it up in the morning on my way out the door….after every podcast I know of has sent out updates. So I have to manually sync it before grab it. I realize iTunes doesn’t know when you’re going to grab it. But how about if it updates the iPod whenever it searches for & updates new podcasts?


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How about allowing us to set preferences for each podcast? Too complex? Would that clutter the UI too much? Less is more, simplicity is key? How about “activity centered design is the key to simplicity” instead? Build your UI to enhance my activities. In my opinion, podcasts management (as well as the searching via iTunes, but that is a different post entirely) is an afterthought.

Perhaps simplicity is still the key here. Maybe iTunes tried to cram podcast functionality into a music manager. In 37Signals mantra- maybe two simple interfaces are needed that are designed for the intended activity. Are podcasts different from music? Should the UI treat them differently?

You may immediately tell me to “use product 'X' instead of iTunes- and that’s fine. But I really do appreciate the integrated music store, syncing and management of iTunes and my iPod. But if you have a better solution that allows me to sit at my desk, dock my iPod and get my music and podcasts sync’d, I’d listen.

This device was a little more than I was looking for (price/features)- but I got it because it met my few requirements:
1)Portable to shove in a backpack or carry on bag
2)FM tuner built in
-and/or-
3)iPod dock connectivity. If there was just a line-in, then I would insist on at least having an FM tuner built in.
4)Around 100 bucks.

Seems pretty simple. The goal was to have a set of speakers to listen to my iPod in the backyard/garage, hotel rooms in the bathroom getting ready in the morning etc.

Other choices: Creative TravelSound, Altec Lansing InMotion, JBL On Tour music box. Most other units do not have an FM tuner and fall into the strickly portable speaker segment.

First off- I don't care about the 250MB mp3 playing capability. I have not yet installed the software after two weeks and the demo songs are still on there. Maybe I'll update the review once/if I get around to actually using it. I may take it back for a dumber/cheaper device. Also- I'm not an audiophile. This set of speakers sounds really good and in my opinion is very loud/clear for the size. I can't distinguish mids and lows and all that. Playlist.com may have a better review of the device in that regard. I can say that of course, as you would expect, bass is lacking. Anyway- I'm just going to review the usability of the device itself.

-Number one problem I have with usability on this device is the power on/off state. Namely- there is none. When have "Line-in" selected and turn off the device, when you turn it back on later- it defaults to it's top menu item (as it so happens, it's the mp3 player functionality). Meaning for my purposes, every time I turn it on, I have to select something from the menu instead of having it remember what I was doing last time and picking up where I left off. VERY Annoying since I don't use the onboard memory. (Edit/update: If you leave it plugged in all the time, it will remember the previous state.)

-There is a menu button- but I've only used it a couple times on initial setup. On the other hand- the actual "menu" that you would use everyday with this thing is not really labeled anywhere. My wife picked it up and did not know how to switch between any of the modes. It's not intuitive for anyone who hasn't used it before (especially since there is a menu button that doesn't do anything useful in this case). Instead- you navigate using up/down/left/right arrows in typical mp3 player type fashion (pressing left arrow repeatedly will get to you the main menu 'root', right arrow drill down into the menu). This all stands out of course because of the first item listed.

-FM pigtail antenna is a PITA. In fact, cable management in general seems to be a pain with this device. I'm sure you'll forget one of the two or three cables you need to bring with you- especially since they don't fit with the carrying case! The case that comes with it only holds the device itself- so the extra cables you need to listen to radio to line in to an MP3 player need to be toted somewhere else. I suppose if you are just running the stored mp3 files, you should be fine- but as I mentioned earlier I am not. In any event, a built in FM tuner or something would be more useful. Possibly retractable cables like the (I believe) a IM4 device does would go a LONG way in making me happy.

-They claim 10 hours, I think I got significantly less my first go around (I charged for the recommended 4 hours before initial use) so I lost some trust with it. Now I always have the AC adapter nearby. Seems to be decent though. I can't say for sure about the total battery performance. I think I would like to have AA batteries. I think I'm also a pessimist since my iPod mini has had battery problems since the day I got it.

-I don't like the fact that it's brightly lit when plugged in. I appreciate the alarm clock functionality of it- but I don't really care about that. I've found that if you select "Line in" and leave it in that mode, you don't get the glow. You can adjust the brightness of it- but I think it's all or nothing. If you dim it when in alarm clock mode, you may get dim light when operating it as well. (I need to fact check this to be sure).

-Device looks really cool and sleek when nothing is plugged into it. There is a flap over the ports/plugs in the back that cover everything up. Unfortunately- the only time when something is not plugged into it is when you are listenting to stored songs on the battery or possibly alarm clock on battery (2 out of 16 possible uses:Alarm Clock, Radio,mp3,line in are the functions- and you can have AC/Battery and headphone/speakers)

All in all- since I don't really care about the mp3 player or clock capability- I may take it back and get just a pair of portable speakers and forgo the FM tuner (or get one for the iPod). I might be able to get the iPod tuner and some speakers for about the same price. I would like to keep it, but that menu is a deal breaker for me. I think the device should default on power on to whatever you had the device set to before it was turned off.