Apple iPod shuffle is the new Sony Walkman.

Your music, wherever you are, whenever you want it. And nothing else.

No videos, no Internet…Hell, not even album covers. No distractions like touch screens, EQ settings, or playlists. No unnecessary crap.

Just you and your music, alone.

Thank you, Apple.

The Celemony folks came up with something pretty damn neat. While it may feel like cheating for recordings, I think it will prove itself extremely handy.

It’s amusing how it is possible namely due to the faultiness of human hearing.

These days there seems to be quite a bit of fuss about whether choices are good or bad. In particular there has been a fair amount of buzz regarding the choices contained within Microsoft Windows Vista’s shutdown menu. For those who haven’t seen the menu, Joel’s article has a screenshot.

That’s a lot of options. Seven menu choices in addition to the two buttons to the left. To computer-savvy users this is far from a problem; they understand that “Shut Down” means the same thing regardless of where it is located. However, there are plenty of people in this world who will buy Vista and be confused with a barrage of technical jargon they do not quite understand. An average user has no idea what their computer is about to do when they choose “Sleep” or “Hibernate.” They have a vague idea of what the end result means to them, but do not not have a deep understanding of the difference, as Joel points out. To them all these options are an overload of information.

The other side of the coin is the tech-savvy folks who very much care about whether they just told their laptop to sleep (keep RAM powered, wastes battery, session lost if power is interrupted) or hibernate (data saved to HDD, longer “wake” period). The power users like being in control and dislike having to make compromises. Occasionally those compromises seem to work out (Apple MacOS X’s “Sleep” function is essentially “sleep” + “hibernate”), but not always.

So how about reaching a compromise? Is it even possible?

One thing many power users argue for is that teaching everyone the basics would solve the problem. Others say that it’s easy enough for power users to hack about until they achieve their goal. Neither of these two options is exactly a “true compromise.”

The true compromise lies in customization. Not a must-hack-in-command-line-to-achieve-results customization, but a sane customization checklist/wizard. The user double-clicks the icon and reads explanations about each of the options, and is prompted to select the ones he/she thinks will be the most useful. The rest could be available in an extended menu of some sort. Or maybe not even.

This compromise would achieve several things. Firstly, it would educate the average user on the differences, and provided that descriptions are intelligible it would be the end of discussion on the shutdown issue. Secondly, it would allow the computer nerd friend to set up this part of the OS for the non-computer nerd in a way that would minimize the amount of explaining needed. Thirdly, it would allow the power users to even further customize the OS to their needs.

So why not do it this way?

Too complicated? If the IP configuration window (in Windows XP) can be reduced to a rather simple set of boxes, so can a shutdown menu customization. Too much effort for a minor feature? User experience is far from insignificant. Too much forced customization? Who said forced?

Again, why not do it this way?

Interesting articles on the subject:
Joel Spolsky’s critique of Windows Vista shutdown menu
Moishe Lettvin, worked on Windows Vista shutdown menu
Arno Gourdol, worked on MacOS X shutdown menu