Thread: YOUR dream front end

Originally Posted by iamgnat

I understand what you are saying and agree on principle, but the iPod's interface is both a boon and a bane.

For small (few hundred tracks) playlists it works fine, but more than that and I just find it cumbersome. The "letter skip" they added a while ago is also a bit painful for me personally. It seems like it always goes into that mode just as I about get to the track i'm looking for. And if you have a full computer in your car, why wouldn't you want all your music at your finger tips as it were (I know there are reasons).

Actually, I agree with almost all of what you posted. I didn't really mean the iPod interface should be emulated for a front end, which would not make sense. What I meant was that it should be as simple and intuitive as an iPod. The genius of the touch wheel was that as soon as you showed it to someone they "got it". Also, the wheel scrolls endlessly and accurately. Would it work on a carputer touchscreen? Don't know. A rotary controller on the console is probably better.
I have close to 3000 songs in my library and I really like the letter skip, although the iPod method would be less useful than the iPhone method of touching a letter or range on the side. Some hybrid of iPod and iPhone techniques is probably optimum. How hard would it be to implement the scrolling used by the iPhone? Now that would be cool!

That is really the type of interface you need in the car (e.g. requires the absolute least amount of attention).

Completely agree!