Re: [microsound] music in the digital age

[Alex Young <alex@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2004-02-12 at 10:13, sediment@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> I think the central problem with iTunes and almost any other media
> player is not that the interface sucks, just that it has an interface
> in the first place.  The more specialized the interface, the less
> accessible it becomes.

I don't understand what you're saying here.  Everything has to have an
interface.  Even if you merely beamed your thoughts at a machine which
then played your media files, there would still be a structured exchange
of information and hence an interface of some kind.

> Don't get me wrong, I think multimedia projects are great.  My opinions
> about general media players are somewhat different.  My favorite player
> goes something like this:
> 
> bash#> play thing.mp3
> 
> from there, each individual can roll their own look, layout and features. 
> The beauty of computers is that they are not static tools.  You can
> program them how you like.

I find it interesting that you're a windows user who's using bash.

I've survived for years using my own scripts to play my audio files at
from the shell.  In the last year I've also been using a Mac, and I
found the interface for iTunes extremely good.  It all seems incredibly
obvious, fast and usable.  For example, I love the use of three panes
and the smart playlists.

Now the only scripts I use are the ones which run the daap daemon on my
firewall so my girlfriend and I can easily access all our music from one
place.  Telling her to click on the icon in iTunes is easier (and uses
less bandwidth on the network) than using SMB file shares or whatever.

The central problem is not the interface, but the user's understanding
of what they want from the interface and what options exist.

-- 
http://alex.bash.sh


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