Shadows of the Sun

Today I was going through my music library, and towards the end of the list there it was… what I was looking all along: Ulver. I double clicked “Porn piece or the scars of cold kisses” with a trembling mouse pointer. It has been so long since I played this album… And as I was laid back deeply immersed in the sound emerging from my headphones, with my amazing ability to multi-task I began wondering what Ulver was up to these days. Only one way to find out: Google. I put the chair in upright position and googled Ulver. “The Future Sound of Music” was now playing, which amazingly disrupted my amazing ability to multi-task. This track demands my full attention, the complete dedication of my senses. Once the track released me from its wonderful capture, I was able to look at the results.

What do you know? They were up to something: Shadows of the Sun – the iTunes 30sec track previews convinced me to get this album and have a nice thorough and extensive listening session, like any great album deserves.

One more thing about the touch

On the iPod mini when listening to a podcast, by pressing the click wheel center would cycle through volume, scrubber and finally info about the podcast (a little text description) – and I assume that all clickwheel iPods do this. The iPod touch while having all the other controls, as in volume and scrubber (and here’s a related note about scrubbing on the iPod touch*), seems to lack the info feature… First the alarm clock thing and now this? What’s next? Not being able to quickly play music in shuffle mode?

Oh… about that last thing…

You can’t quickly turn the iPod on then hitting one button and have it shuffle through the entire music library (like you can on the other iPods by placing a “Shuffle” item in the main menu)… Okay, I admit it, this is a bit stretched, but I do miss this shortcut, as I just want to quickly take out the device and play some music, any music. Instead I have to unlock, navigate to music from wherever it was last left, and then go to Songs**, and then hit Shuffle. Hmm… now that I see it written down it doesn’t seem all that bad…

Luckily the touch is really keeping me happy with its other nifty features, so it’s not in any danger of being thrown on the floor in a frustration fit, however finding these small annoyances can slowly erode the (warning: all caps following) OMG THIS IS AWESOME (you have been warned) feeling.

* Okay, so that is about scrubbing on the iPhone, but the iPod software is identical so… OK? Thanks, I knew you’d understand.

**This becomes more complicated if you don’t have the Songs shortcut on the bottom. In this case the procedure adds two more steps: select More, select Songs. See? I like to reserve the fourth spot on the shortcuts to podcasts, so for me it does add these two more steps. There, is it legitimate enough for you now? Thank you.

I want my musical mornings back!

I recently decided that my aging (but still very much alive and kicking) iPod mini could use a retirement, so I decided to stretch for the brand spanking new iPod touch. And so I did.

I’ll spare you the over talked about details regarding how wonderful the device is, about the moments of awe in front of how the interface reacts and operates, and how much care and attention to detail went into the software, and jump right to my problem with the brand spanking new iPod touch: the alarm clock.

Why Apple, why? I remember a time not long ago when I used to have such a wonderful time with my iPod mini in the morning… I would be sleeping, while the mini would be connected to the sound system, waiting for the right time to come alive and wake me up to sweet sound of music.

And where are we now? After an extensive playing with the touch, I decided it was time for it to start learning the ways of being one of my possessions, by choosing a waking up playlist. The shock, the horror, the amazement. The touch cannot wake up to music! Unless you consider 2 second sequences of beeps music, that is. Because if you do consider them music, well, then technically yes, it can wake up to music (but which is by no means sweet). So in order to make things as clear as possible: the iPod touch cannot wake up to music that is stored on it (you know, your music), it can only use a few very short very inaudible series of beeps. The shock. The horror. The shock.

Oh the sadness… I have my fingers crossed on a fix for this in a future update, and since 1.1.2 did not provide it, here’s hoping for 1.1.3.

And this is why my mornings go like this: the iPod touch does its 2 sec whisper alarm, which does nothing for me so I go on sleeping. Then my backup alarm goes off a few minutes later, which does something for me, because it is similar to trying to sleep in a parking lot full of cars with their alarms* going off at the same time. So I wake up half sleeping to find the touch devilishly asking me if I wish to snooze. I say no with my finger, and then proceed to start the music manually. Oh the horror…

*yes, that type of alarm that cycles through quite a selection of ‘themes’, that would be the best comparison. Or maybe it’s just me and me not being a morning person, so whatever disturbs my sleep gets automatically upgraded to grotesque proportions. Still, the iPod touch’s chirping does nothing for me, nothing. It’s as if it never even happens.