I was excited to hear about the Apple iPhone, if nothing more because I couldn't believe they hadn't done it yet (I'm talking about an exclusive Apple offering).
That said, I think the device is gorgeous, and I worry it has an achilles heel.
A while back, I bought a Philips GoGear 30GB mp3 player device, which was aesthetically beautiful and the best offering I could find at the time for a Windows Media Player device. The problem emerged in that you had to look at the totally touch-sensitive screen to do anything at all. Now, when you're on a walk this isn't so bad, but I still remember wishing it had a scrolling device of some type. That way I could've have scrolled through using touch, only looking down occasionally. The problem really emerged though, when driving: It felt downright unsafe to have to rely on sight completely to switch musical tracks. Not too long after I purchased the device I returned it on account of technical problems, but I know I wouldn't have continued using it while driving if it had kept on working.
And now for the main point: Most people I know who don't live in one of the US' walking cities like to use their Ipod in their cars: I'm just afraid we're going to have pileups because people have to look at their device to change tracks without the aid of a scroll wheel. Even if it's yesterday's technology, that scroll wheel gives people sensory context for where they are touching their device, alleviating the need to constantly look at it when changing tracks. I could be wrong as Apple is rarely lacking in the design dept., but if someone can't scroll through music intelligently without looking at the device, Nationwide could be on a lot of people's sides too often.
The most reassuring part I see in one of the pics in the below linked article is the device ignores unintended touches: Let's hope so.
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