ihavebeenfloated

I’m going to update this as I find shit out.

1.) My god, the new interface is slick. This is where the majority of improvements come from.

a.) The split screen is awesome. I hate to say it but seeing the covers of albums gradually slide and zoom in across the screen and fade into other album covers is just such a nice touch. This extends to videos and photos. When you highlight “extras” it shows an analog clock. The menus slide around like they always have but now they slide around on a background. When you select the extras screen, the clock appears over a map of the world. When you hit “clock” from within the extras menu, the menu slides away and your clocks slide in, while the map of the world stays in place. It’s really slick and sure it’s all bling but damn is it satisfying.

b.) The play screen is completely redone, and it is so much better. It still has the cover art on the left, but it’s a perspective/3D view with a reflection. The track info has been totally redone. The song title is in large print with the artist, album, and rating () shown on screen at all times. The slider at the bottom has a reflection as well in all modes. The slider now cycles through Position, Rating, and then this is so fucking awesome, on the fly shuffle changing. At any time in a playlist you can turn shuffle off, or turn it on to Song or Album. I’m sorry, but when I saw this, I shit my fucking pants.

c.) There is no longer an option to show the time in the title bar (as far as I can see), There is still the option to show the time in the title bar, but and if you don’t touch your iPod for a minute, it seems, the screen changes to a large plain reading digital clock, a very plain play symbol, and a battery meter. All the images on this screen are black and white and 8bit. Kinda weird, but there’s no backlight so basically it’s just a screensaver for when you’re not looking at your iPod. Aside from that the screen is totally blank.

d.) Playlist folders are fully supported on the iPod. Smart Playlists don’t seem to generate on the fly, or if they do, it’s in the background while other shit is happening, and I think this is because: the playlist view screen now shows you the name of the playlist as well as how many songs are within it. Folders display just the same as a regular playlist, but they’re definitely folders. When you display a playlist, now it has the song title with a smaller text of which artist it is. This is really nice if you’re not familiar with song names. Doesn’t look like you can turn this off. Artist/Album view is normal Album-Song list (no artists in the song list).

e.) The automatic letter search when going through artists seems to a little more finely tuned, with how it activates and how much movement it takes to shift letters. I’m happy about this. When you display an Artist, it now shows album art and song count for each album on the selection screen. The Search function has been revamped a little, visually, and performance wise, it’s all new. No lagging at all when it’s loading search results while sliding around the letters. Very nice.

f.) Solitaire has been replaced with Klondike (which is a really nice touch), which is basically an “iPod Games”-ified Solitaire. Slick presentation, etc. For some reason on first load it bumped the volume of my iPod almost all the way up and nearly deafened me. Bug! This Klondike is really nice. All the other games seem to be missing. No parachute, no Brick (WTF I didn’t like it anyway). Klondike lets you save your games! THANK GOD! My biggest annoyance was absent-mindedly hitting “Menu” to undo grabbing a card and losing my game forever. Now, when you hit menu, it takes you to a fucking menu screen where you can resume, save and exit, and do various things. Thank the Lord. The iTunes store is really ambiguous about whether or not old games work on the classic. Basically it says games are meant for a 5.5g and not for an iPod Classic, but Vortex seems to run better (less slowdown) on the Classic and I assume iQuiz works just fine.

g.) You now modify the Music sub-menu separately from the Main Menu. Don’t ask me why.

h.) Video interface is different too. You can adjust brightness of the screen during video playback, I don’t think you could do that before.

i.) When you connect the iPod to your PC, now there’s a big “Your iPod is connected, eject first,” and “Your iPod is Syncing” and “Your iPod is disconnecting” screens, all with nifty little logos and clean text.

j.) Cover Flow is fucking useless. Also, it’s aliased to all hell so it’s just a bunch of covers with jagged edges when slid around. I don’t see why Apple thinks Cover Flow is so awesome. I guess it looks cool, and I guess they bought or hired whoever originally made it so it is an investment, but seriously, will I ever find Cover Flow useful? No.

What would be awesome: Cover Flow that plays while your iPod is playing/shuffling. As in, each time the song changes, the new album art slides in, with all the ones before and after still on screen. That would be awesome. Apple, I’m looking at you. Make it an option. “During Playback, Switch to Cover Flow after: 30 seconds, 2 minutes” etc, etc.

2.) I don’t think there is video-out on the 80gb iPod Classic. I cannot modify the “TV Out” option from Off (to either Ask or On). I have yet to try plugging it in to a video cable to see what happens but I’ll update this when the time comes. If they really took out video-out and you have to use a dock to do it, that’s going to be a huge huge huge crock of shit. iPods should not lose features in newer generations. Confirmed: Video TV Out playback doesn’t work with a normal miniplug cable anymore. Bullshit.

3.) I really like the new all-metal casing (too bad the screen isn’t metal) and I don’t feel too bad I don’t have a case for it. It just feels hardier, like my old 4th generation, I don’t have to baby the face like I did for the short time I had my 5.5g all locked in a case. Also, I swear this 80gb Classic is half as thick as the 80gig 5.5g.

And I’m spent. This iPod is fantastic.