My biggest 2nd gen gripes

[cyrdog]

1) Scrolling of long artist/album titles. Ideally, the item you're hovering over would scroll while browsing. Or, if this is not possible, allowing the user to have a setting to turn on scrolling of the artist and/or album in the "Now Playing" screen.

Here's why I want this so bad. When I browse by album, I see:

Promo Only Mains...
Promo Only Mains...
Promo Only Mains...
etc..

which actually are:
Promo Only Mainstream Club June 2003 (Disc 1)
Promo Only Mainstream Club June 2003 (Disc 2)
Promo Only Mainstream Radio February 2003

When I have several different "mainstream" variants and months, I have like 20 items in a row in the listing that look identical. I can't tell what's what unless I memorize what songs are on what compliation. Even when I play the album, the "Now Playing" screen is just as useless. It only gives me a few more characters:

Promo Only Mainstre...


2) On the fly playlists. This has been implemented in the 3rd generation iPods. Will Apple ever include this feature in a future software upgrade for older models?


3) No line out. This is far and away my biggest gripe. I almost didn't buy the iPod because of this. I fell in love with the size and simplicity of the iPod, but I still absolutely hate the fact that the signal coming out of the iPod is speaker-level. I can't stand have to play with 2 volume controls, etc

Does anyone know if the line out that's on the dock of the 3rd generation models works without power running to the dock?

Also, I wonder if someone - like the people who make the TransPod - are going to figure out a way to make use of the slot on the bottom of the iPod and harness the line out like the cradle does?

[mrkablooey]

for the first item, why not change the info to NOT say "Promo only", etc since display is limited?

[cyrdog]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'd prefer not to make any changes to my artist/album/track tag information. I have over 1.5 TB of full albums that I really don't want to edit.

The example given is a highly typical one for me. I would say that I end up see album trunction on close to 20% of my albums.

[IlIlIlIlIl]

1.5 TB of albums? now that is ALOT of albums!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[studogvetmed]

cyrdog,

I had the line out working without having the cable connected to power. I'll assume whatever power it needs, if any, comes from the iPod sitting the the cradle.

Cheers,
Stu-dog

[ephraim]

cyrdog: The iPod's output is most definitely not speaker-level; it's well within the standard voltage range for line-level type signals (0.3?2.0V), whereas a typical speaker-level signal is in the 3?20V range.

I run my 2nd-gen iPod into a number of line-level inputs (car stereo, home stereo, etc.), and the signal quality it generates is more than adequate, even when the volume's up all the way. Most high-end stuff will have an aux-input gain control anyway, where you can boost or reduce the signal as desired.

Do you find the level is too weak, or too strong? You don't have any EQ on, do you? That can seriously mangle your output quality...

As for the other two gripes, I couldn't agree more. I actually posted exactly the same scrolling-names suggestion back in the fall when it started to affect me; it's a really good idea, and I'd suggest sending official feedback (http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipod.html) to Apple to let them know there are lots of people out there who want it.

Personally, the 3rd-gen feature I'm drooling over the most is the menu customization. I *always* browse by artist, and it would be so nice to remove that pesky Playlists item from the top level.