I finally had a chance to use the iPod Shuffle. I had to fly to Philadelphia this week, so the iPod Shuffle was great to use on the plane. There was a problem though. After about 3 hours into the 5½ hour flight the headphones started to hurt. I am thinking about buying the Apple In-Ear Headphones. They seems like they would be more comfortable.
The other thing that I would like to see is the ability to rate tracks on the iPod Shuffle itself. Apple is marketing this as a device where a random sample of your music gets added to the iPod Shuffle. Then you play it in a random order. Since everyone probably has music in their collection that don't like as much, there will be some songs they don't want to listen to, it would great if you could do something on the iPod that would help to train the AutoFill random selection.
One option is to allow the user to rate the currently playing track by using a button on the iPod. For example, if you could switch the iPod into a certain mode, the + and - buttons could rate up and down, instead of volume.
Another option is to keep track of which songs are played through to the end, when in shuffle mode. If a track is played in its entirety, it is more than likely that you will want to hear that track, and potentially other tracks by that artist and in that genre. If you skip to the next track, within the first 10 seconds of a track, it is more than likely that you don't like that track, and potentially other tracks by that artist or in the genre.
I agree with you about the lack of ability to rate songs on the Shuffle. This is why I have restricted the songs that I already know. That works because I have a huge music collection. It does restrict how I use my shuffle.
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