kampers.net

While there are things about iPod and iTunes that are well-executed (e.g. AirTunes, podcasting support), there are lots of important things that are broken to this day. These things are all fixable.

• No gapless playback. This is number 1. Why is there a little gap between my songs? It should play them back exactly as they appeared on the recording I ripped them from. iTunes can be setup so that the gap becomes less noticeable (turn on crossfading, with the crossfade set to zero seconds), but then it still fades in the start of the every track. iPod, on the other hand, is completely ridiculous—inserting a gap of up to a second between every song it plays.
  
  iTunes “solves” this problem with the deplorable Join Tracks command (see also: iTunes can’t burn gapless CDs, either, even though it says it can).
• Poor format support. Dear Apple: Whenever you’re ready, we invite you to join us here in 2005. Real, VLC, and Winamp are hanging out in the hot tub, and they’re having a great time.
  
  In all seriousness, there’s no good reason that I can think of for iTunes and iPod to not support all the other lovely music formats out there. How about FLAC, Ogg, Monkey’s Audio, aacPlus, Real, WMA, everything. At the least, give us an extensible input plugin API for iTunes like Winamp has. I have to assume that Apple’s strategic reason is that they want any music playable by iTunes to work on an iPod. OK, fine. open up the iPod too! There’s no reason why not. If anything, it will help convert people to iTunes and iPod when all of their other music (say, ripped in WMP to WMA) will still work just fine.
• I need separate EQ settings for different sets of AirTunes speakers. iTunes is smart enough to remember your volume setting for each set of AirTunes speakers, so that when I switch to “Living Room” from my laptop speakers, I don’t blow out the windows. However, it also should remember my EQ settings—in my office, for example, I have to roll off the bass quite a bit because my speakers are right up against a wall (and close to my head). In the living room, I want it flat. On my PowerBook speakers, I want to push up the low frequencies. Instead, I have to go and change it manually every time I switch speakers.
• Options screen has become congested since addition of podcasting support. What used to be a best-of-breed preferences dialog has become crowded, as more and more features are tacked on to the previous interface. To abate the confusion, Apple has put little buttons at the bottom of some tabs linking to other tabs. On the podcasting tab, it says: “Set which Podcasts are copied to your iPod: iPod Preferences.”I guess this is an ontological problem, but it still strikes me as not-quite-right.
• When you browse around your library, it interrupts playback of an album. This one’s a killer for me. I’ll browse around my library such that all the songs from one album are displayed, and double-click on the first track. It starts playing. Then, I browse elsewhere—maybe I’m adding a new album to my library, or whatever. When the first track is done playing, it doesn’t keep going! Apple should separate browsing from playing in an elegant way that doesn’t destroy the current model (i.e., “the library is the playlist”). This is something that iPod handles well—you can browse around your library all you want, and it will keep chugging through the album you were playing, until you tell it otherwise.
  
  A quick fix to satisfy people like me would be to always keep playing an album if I start it by double clicking on it’s name, in the upper right pane of browse view. It could retain the current behavior for double-clicking on a track. #

My dad just forwarded me this alert from the NWS in New Orleans, which was sent to area news stations. It’s weird how this is a virtual non-story here on the left coast.

URGENT - WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA
1011 AM CDT SUN AUG 28 2005

DEVASTATING DAMAGE EXPECTED

HURRICANE KATRINA

A MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE WITH UNPRECEDENTED STRENGTH…RIVALING THE INTENSITY OF HURRICANE CAMILLE OF 1969.

MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER. AT LEAST ONE HALF OF WELL CONSTRUCTED HOMES WILL HAVE ROOF AND WALL FAILURE. ALL GABLED ROOFS WILL FAIL…LEAVING THOSE HOMES SEVERELY DAMAGED OR DESTROYED.

THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL. PARTIAL TO COMPLETE WALL AND ROOF FAILURE IS EXPECTED. ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED. CONCRETE BLOCK LOW RISE APARTMENTS WILL SUSTAIN MAJOR DAMAGE…INCLUDING SOME WALL AND ROOF FAILURE.

HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT.

AIRBORNE DEBRIS WILL BE WIDESPREAD…AND MAY INCLUDE HEAVY ITEMS SUCH AS HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES AND EVEN LIGHT VEHICLES. SPORT UTILITY VEHICLES AND LIGHT TRUCKS WILL BE MOVED. THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK.

POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…AS MOST POWER POLES WILL BE DOWN AND TRANSFORMERS DESTROYED. WATER SHORTAGES WILL MAKE HUMAN SUFFERING INCREDIBLE BY MODERN STANDARDS.

THE VAST MAJORITY OF NATIVE TREES WILL BE SNAPPED OR UPROOTED. ONLY THE HEARTIEST WILL REMAIN STANDING…BUT BE TOTALLY DEFOLIATED. FEW CROPS WILL REMAIN. LIVESTOCK LEFT EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL BE KILLED.

AN INLAND HURRICANE WIND WARNING IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS NEAR HURRICANE FORCE…OR FREQUENT GUSTS AT OR ABOVE HURRICANE FORCE…ARE CERTAIN WITHIN THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

ONCE TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE FORCE WINDS ONSET…DO NOT VENTURE OUTSIDE!