06 Mar 2004 | Bill Brown said...

Yes, it is annoying. What's also annoying is that when you put the iPod in your pocket and have the remote clipped to your pocket edge it's positioned in a landscape-type style that really boggles the mind. Plus, it unclips easily.

06 Mar 2004 | David S said...

I can control anything on my CD player once I find the braille on the play button.

Use-by-touch is essential for good remote design.

06 Mar 2004 | Isaac said...

The one saving grace of the design is that you can finger the edge of it for the hold button, and from that, realize which way the remote is oriented.

Realizing this has made my life a little less frustrating. That said, all your suggestions are good and I hope they take them up in future ipods (and allow them to work with older models).

06 Mar 2004 | Lance E. Leonard said...

from the picture, it appears that the cable is on the play/pause button side. does this not at least help. i'm with ya on the frustration of it all, but it seems like it would be an easy feel to find the cable side instead of guessing or finding the hold button.

i just hope the wife lets me spend a part of our tax return on one!

07 Mar 2004 | Josh said...

I love the iPod, but the remote control is just silly. I used to have a Sony MD Walkman -- now that was a remote control. It had an LCD display that showed the song title, and you twisted the end of the remote to control things volume; it was a work of beauty. It also had a real clip.

Hopefully Apple wil introduce a real remote in the near future . . . I'd buy one.

07 Mar 2004 | Josh said...

Er . . . things *like* volume. And I forgot to mention -- the most glaring flaw in the current iPod remote is obvious: it doesn't let you navigate the iPod's albums, genres, composers, and artists. Apple needs to fix that too.

07 Mar 2004 | brian w said...

Lance -- when the headphones are plugged into the remote (which they pretty much have to be), there are cables coming out of both ends.

My biggest problem with the remote is definitely the clippy bit which Bill mentioned. It's way too weak and small. Forget about getting it to clamp onto, say, a messenger bag strap.

07 Mar 2004 | Ian McFarlan said...

I completely agree. And it would be just as simple to use the braille features to distinguish the various buttons.

07 Mar 2004 | ~bc said...

Something I use just about everyday of my life. I have an iPod holder from Timbuk2 which is on the strap of my messenger bag. The sleeve totally engulfs the iPod, and it's not convenient to pull out the iPod (great for keeping it safe and dry, though). I select a predetermined playlist before sliding it in the sleeve, and then clip the remote to the seam of the flap. I always have it pointed in one direction, and I know without looking which button does what. That said, I agree it could be more blind ergonomic. Perhaps simple braille-style markings, one bump on the "-" volume, two bumps for "+" That may be enough context to tell you everything, without dramatically redoing the remote. A more dramatic redesign would be to make one side of the remote much longer than the other (some parallelogram shape), and have the long side be the volume up side, the track forward side, and also provide more space for the mouth of the clip, so it would grab more securely.

Would I mind an interface to select playlists, etc? Yeah, that'd be cool, but I feel the amount of time I would spend using the added functionality would be less worth it versus keeping the remote nice, small, and light. There are, of course, plenty of other cases which allow you to use the iPods already well designed interface, without removing it from the package. I also have the incase sleeve for these times...

07 Mar 2004 | Mike Czepiel said...

Although a few tweaks here and there would certainwly make the current remote more usable, there is a long road ahead to making it a better remote.

Currently, there are shortcomings everywhere. I strained the conector to the iPod itself within the first few weeks of owning my 2nd gen iPod. They really need a more reinforced connector, preferably of the right-angle variety used by most headphones. I baby my iPod to this day and don't appreciate being acused of "abusing" it. Granted it still works, but an iPod shouldn't have exposed wiring.

Further down the line you run into issues of the infamous clamp. The clamp just plain sucks and hardly grips anything. They need to have one that grips better, and possibly even one that allows for swivelling.

The hold switch is extremely difficult to set with a single hand. I have this complaint on the current generation of the iPods actually as I found it perfectly useable on my 2nd Gen. The middle aligned-ridge made it easy to flip the hold switch. As evidenced by the original iPod, the edge ridge is difficult to grip and slide. (I may be wrong about where the ridge actualy was) The 3rd gen one seems easier to slide, but still requires me to focus on the smaller edges. This is especially difficult on the wired remote as I need to grip the edge with my finger and push it off to the side. Not terribly difficult to unlock, but very tough when trying to lock without hitting any of the other buttons.

Obviously, we've adressed the problems with the lack of being able to discren a button's identity without looking. Furthermore we need an LCD. Sony has gottne it right on several occassions, we need ot look to them apparently.

I'm not even going to get started on how weak the 1st and 2nd gen sound/data port collar is with this or the iTrip in. Obviously Apple realized this and moved the data port to the side...

Sorry for length, just glad to see others have noticed how crappy the wired remote is.

07 Mar 2004 | Freddy said...

Scott: how long is a long bike ride, by the way?

07 Mar 2004 | mikes said...

worst part about the remote is the length of the wire ... it extends the headphone length to unacceptable.

07 Mar 2004 | Benjy said...

The one saving grace of the design is that you can finger the edge of it for the hold button, and from that, realize which way the remote is oriented.

That's what I do, too. But with all the effort Apple puts into design and usability, I'm surprised they didn't add the little raised dots like keyboards have.

08 Mar 2004 | ed said...

i may be mistaken, but i think the remote was discontinued.

08 Mar 2004 | SU said...

i may be mistaken, but i think the remote was discontinued.

Nope, it's right on Apple's site in the iPod accessories department.

08 Mar 2004 | Michael Spina said...

I just realized the dot on my F key is worn down to almost nothing. But the "F" is still there. Or maybe the dot was never there. Hmm.

Makes you think.

08 Mar 2004 | Toby Bradbury said...

I roughed up this prediciton of a next generation remote a while back, although my idea was mostly about using the itunes interface, and when I think about it now, doesn't prove very practical for locking/unlocking etc.

Be interested in hearing what people thought.

Visual for a better remote

A thing that's only been hinted on a couple of times, which I find to be the biggest criticism, is the fact that everyone I know's remote broke after three months, when their ipod took it's first "knock". Sound only plays through one channel. It could also be something to do with the wire coming straight out of the ipod itself, and, and not at 90 degrees which, as someone mentioned, has been common practise for Sony for decades. Maybe the fact you bent this wire back on itself to put it in your pocket cause all these loose connections?

08 Mar 2004 | One of several Steves said...

You're right about the bad design of that remote. I tried using it once at the gym. It was useless. I actually stopped what I was doing, unplugged the remote and put my headphones back in. I haven't touched the remote since.

Plus, that ends up being an awful lot of cable dangling around.

08 Mar 2004 | Noah said...

Yeah, I think they sort of fell asleep at the wheel when it came to the remote, but I understand the desire to keep the interface of the whole device as simple as possible. However, the fact that you a) can't see what's playing and b) can't actually select a playlist from the remote makes it pretty silly.

Toby, I like your design. I think the volume slider is unlikely; a potentiometer like that would only attract dust and wear out early, plus get pushed around unintentionally... go with a volume clicker like the current remote. I'd think a one-line LCD with a physical Change Display button at the very end is much more likely, and would give you a gamepad-like layout where you can use Change Display as a menu select button and the Next/Previous buttons as left/right navigation for things like playlists, ratings, and shuffle options.

12 Mar 2004 | Tobias said...

The only way I solve this "find the button"-problem is to put my iPod in my bag the same way every time. So I am - sometimes :) - able to remeber where to find the button :)

Onother think I cant (under)stand is the loooooooong wire. I have to put it around my iPod several times since I dont need such a long wire - just would need 10 cm... :)

13 Mar 2004 | Ben Collier said...

I aggree. Can ANYONE tell me a trick to sucessfully applying the remote onto oneself? its ok with just the head phones and my Marware belt clip cos i use the ipods controls, but utilising the remote really buggers this trick up! any help here?

16 Mar 2004 | ash said...

I have no problems remembering that the volume is on the top, and the play/pause in on the bottom. The next/prev buttons are hard to forget. The clip is on the *left* side of the controller, if you are looking at it from the front. Using that as a reference it is easy to remember that right skips to the next song, and volume goes up to the right, just as you would expect. What's this about using the hold switch (the one thats on the side) to align yourself? That's like saying that you like to count the holes that are on the earpiece and mouth piece of your phone to figure out which is which.

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