New iPod

According to the New York Times Blog, Apple has announced a new generation of iPod with the capability to download songs from the iTunes music store via wi-fi and with a full-size touch-screen a là the iPhone.

I've been somewhat afraid of something like this happening since I saw initial pictures of the iPhone early this year and really afraid when credible rumors about this iPod start surfacing a week or two ago. Steve Jobs' no-buttons crusade has me convinced that he's living in another reality than the people who actually want to regularly use his products.

I am one of those people who grew up using Macs and couldn't see it being any other way. However, ever since buying a third-generation iPod, I've become less trusting of Apple's design choices. As you see from this picture, the third generation is the only one that puts a row of touch-sensitive regions (not buttons) along the top of the iPod. Just looking at it, you might not understand why this sucks, but I've been using it for over three years now, and it still bugs me. If you're like me, you keep an iPod in your pocket while you're walking around, and - this is important - don't take it out unless you absolutely need to. This is to avoid accidentally dropping it or exposing it to thieves and to maintain some polite iPod modesty. It is also a physical hassle to have to reach into one's pocket repeatedly - especially while sitting.

A touch-sensitive third-generation iPod, unfortunately, demands to be taken out of the pocket nearly any time the buttons need pushing. I'm sorry, I shouldn't even be using the words "buttons" or "pushing" because the components I'm talking about provide neither tactile feedback nor pressure-sensitivity. I have no indication that I've pressed the skip or play/pause buttons other than the sound coming through my headphones, and even that is very unreliable considering the number of songs incorporating silence at some point. Also, I can't count the number of times I've accidentally brushed up against a button and had it activate. It's no wonder that generation was only produced for a year and replaced with a model that reverted to the classic click-wheel design. I wish I could go back in time and delay my iPod purchase for a single week so that I could've reaped the benefits of a fourth-generation model.

So what have we here? Has Apple come to make the same mistake twice? If the new iPod uses the same touch-screen technology as the iPhone, pressure-sensitivity is probably in place, which would allow people to use the iPod in their pockets without having to keep their thumb hovering uncomfortably over the surface. However, the main issue is still the complete absence of tactile feedback. This is where I'm most fervently against Apple's design philosophy, but it's also strangely where I'm the most alone. Is this not as much of a stress-inducing issue for others when they operate any sort of device? The press vastly under-reported this matter when covering the iPhone, but it's going to be harder to ignore the buttonless trend and its ramifications now that this new iPod has been unveiled. For crying out loud, Apple's done away with the iconic and revolutionary click-wheel! That's impossible to ignore.

My overarching point is that I'm fed up with Steve Jobs' ego trip. He's like a 12-year old who watches nothing but Star Trek: The Next Generation and wants to make products out of the props. The iPod is not an invincible brand; it is simply entrenched, and everyone else just sucks worse. Jobs seems to take this huge market share as a sweeping mandate to shape the future of technology to accomodate his personal idiosyncratic tastes.

The worst part is that I'm still going to buy the P.O.S

I'm just kidding, but there is the up-side that all previous iPod designs have been re-labelled "classic" with an accompanying price drop and memory boost. I can finally divorce my current iPod for a trophy click-wheel model. You can bet that the only action the touch-screen iPod is going to get, however, is while I'm browsing at an Apple store.