Apple’s design prowess is legendary … except when it’s notorious. There are a host of ridiculous usability problems in Apple products, but at the moment I am playing some songs on the iPod and frustrated by these facts:
- The name of the currently playing track, along with the name of the artist, track number, etc, is displayed in a tiny font that’s very difficult to read. Especially if you’re walking, standing on a subway train, etc.
- Yet, its width is fixed, and the titles do not scroll. So even if you can read the text, you cannot tell the difference between “Concerto No. 1 in F major, First Movement” and “Concerto No. 1 in F major, Third Movement” since the iPod truncates the name halfway through.
- Perhaps you put some helpful information into the comments section in iTunes, to distinguish among different performances, conductors, and so on. But you cannot see those comments on the iPod, so they can’t help you.
Is it really that unreasonable to expect a $300 mobile device built by alleged geniuses to let me actually see the titles of the songs I have loaded on it?