Joel Crane
05-26-2008, 02:16 AM
So I've been using Pocket Player for quite a while now... but I'm still not satisfied. Think about how you use a Zune or an iPod. You pick it up, hit the power, scroll through some very streamlined menus and play your song. Want to switch to a different song or album? In just seconds, you are listening to something new. The menus are intuitive, smooth, and animated. Options are sometimes a little bit limited, but the devices are so simple to use that it doesn't even matter.
Some of us probably don't want to pack around 3 devices, so we have to stick with 2 or even just one. I myself use a Nokia 6300 and a Dell Axim. I would use the Nokia 6300 for mp3 playback exclusively, but I haven't found a headphone adapter, so I'm stick using the Axim.
Lets face it, while all of the players available offer nice sound quality, good EQ's, lots of features, and good battery life, none of them have a good user interface. I've got 64mb of RAM, an Intel 2700g graphics processor, 8 hard buttons, and a VGA touchscreen. Even with all of these things to work with, the developers still haven't come up with a simple, intuitive, fast, animated user interface in their players.
Say you are listening to some Sum41, and on down your playlist is the Halo 3 soundtrack. On a mainstream mp3 player, you could probably just hit "down" and zing down to the desired track and hit select. In most Windows Mobile mp3 players, you have to hit "Next" over and over, one song at a time until you reach the desired song. How about holding down the button? Sure, you can do that, as long as you don't mind watching the program scroll through your 100 song playlist 3 times. User interfaces are slow and unresponsive.
Pocket Player:
Browse/Library is coming along well. It's still slow on my device but it is a great concept. Now if only they could carry this feature over to the rest of the program. The main screen features tiny tiny little buttons that are impossible to hit with your finger. My solution is to map "Item Scroll Up" and "Item Scroll Down" on the d-pad, allowing me to scroll up and down in the playlist. Then, I hit the center button on the d-pad (Mapped to "Item Select") and it plays my song. Its fast and responsive, but its still ugly, and the cursor doesn't advance with the current track, but the playlist does. Urgh! You wouldn't dare hand the device to a friend who has never used one, he is liable to totally mess up your settings, because way too much stuff is accessible right from the main screen. Make sense?
PocketMusic:
Closer, but to switch songs you still have to sit there and click buttons one at a time. Can't scroll to the desired song on the main screen. Most everything else is good, but you gotta whip out the stylus to build playlists; there is no library function.
I use Pocket Player primarily, mainly because Conduits keeps sending out updates and making improvements. I hope they carry their Library ideas into the rest of the program soon.
Rant is over. Anyone else feel this way?
Some of us probably don't want to pack around 3 devices, so we have to stick with 2 or even just one. I myself use a Nokia 6300 and a Dell Axim. I would use the Nokia 6300 for mp3 playback exclusively, but I haven't found a headphone adapter, so I'm stick using the Axim.
Lets face it, while all of the players available offer nice sound quality, good EQ's, lots of features, and good battery life, none of them have a good user interface. I've got 64mb of RAM, an Intel 2700g graphics processor, 8 hard buttons, and a VGA touchscreen. Even with all of these things to work with, the developers still haven't come up with a simple, intuitive, fast, animated user interface in their players.
Say you are listening to some Sum41, and on down your playlist is the Halo 3 soundtrack. On a mainstream mp3 player, you could probably just hit "down" and zing down to the desired track and hit select. In most Windows Mobile mp3 players, you have to hit "Next" over and over, one song at a time until you reach the desired song. How about holding down the button? Sure, you can do that, as long as you don't mind watching the program scroll through your 100 song playlist 3 times. User interfaces are slow and unresponsive.
Pocket Player:
Browse/Library is coming along well. It's still slow on my device but it is a great concept. Now if only they could carry this feature over to the rest of the program. The main screen features tiny tiny little buttons that are impossible to hit with your finger. My solution is to map "Item Scroll Up" and "Item Scroll Down" on the d-pad, allowing me to scroll up and down in the playlist. Then, I hit the center button on the d-pad (Mapped to "Item Select") and it plays my song. Its fast and responsive, but its still ugly, and the cursor doesn't advance with the current track, but the playlist does. Urgh! You wouldn't dare hand the device to a friend who has never used one, he is liable to totally mess up your settings, because way too much stuff is accessible right from the main screen. Make sense?
PocketMusic:
Closer, but to switch songs you still have to sit there and click buttons one at a time. Can't scroll to the desired song on the main screen. Most everything else is good, but you gotta whip out the stylus to build playlists; there is no library function.
I use Pocket Player primarily, mainly because Conduits keeps sending out updates and making improvements. I hope they carry their Library ideas into the rest of the program soon.
Rant is over. Anyone else feel this way?