The iPod shuffle 3G and the Future
— ♣The new third-generation iPod Shuffle has been unveiled, with nary a rumor to foretell it’s arrival on store shelves. It’s size, (now smaller than a AA battery), and its capacity, (now 4GB), are of course big deals to the legions of joggers, bicyclists, and gym-goers at whom the tiny stripped-down digital music player is aimed, but there are some interesting features under the hood that could have an even bigger impact for blind and visually impaired users of Apple products.
First, let’s examine some of the Shuffles new tricks, and then what the far-reaching implications of these features might be.
Generalizations, by and large, tend to be a bad thing. They can be, however, useful if understood as such. Generally speaking, the visually impaired are music enthusiasts for obvious reasons. That means that they often have a wider mix of content, including foreign language content, on their iPods than Mr. Joe Average. Being able to have the titles for those tracks read properly is a huge improvement, not to mention the boon for non-English speakers. Try having Mac OS X Leopard’s Alex voice speak French, and you’ll find the result less than optimal…if entertaining.
If we extend the generalization that visually impaired users are music enthusiasts just a bit further, we’ll find that the 4GB capacity of the Shuffle is not nearly enough for most visually impaired users, including myself, who struggle to keep within the confines of even the 16GB nanos. Audible.com is tremendously popular with blind users as well, which also eats up a lot of space in a hurry.
Including the iPod controls on the earbuds, while perfectly fine with me personally, as I like Apple’s high-end $79 earbuds, is proving to be a major drawback to many visually impaired users, judging by reaction from the community. The blind, still generalizing, also tend to be audiophiles. Until there is a wider array of ear buds from third-party vendors or an adaptor with the controls included on it, the lack of choice is going to drive many potential visually impaired customers away. Fortunately, an ever growing number of third-party manufacturers are announcing an assortment of earbuds and control adaptors that will soon render this complaint obsolete.
It’s very important to understand two distinct points when considering Apple’s decision to move the Shuffle’s controls to the earbuds. The first is the target audience. The iPod Shuffle is not primarily aimed at audiophiles, or even music enthusiasts. It’s meant to be a stripped-down music player that is ideal for commuting, jogging, or exercising with. With that in mind, putting the controls on the earbuds makes perfect sense. They will be within easy reach at all times, and the iPod is free to be clipped to any article of clothing that is safe and convenient for the user.
The second consideration is, perhaps, the more important one. Earbud technology has been static for decades. By introducing some changes to the connector, Apple has made it possible to include both a microphone and remote controls conveniently on the part of our music players which is always the most easily accessible. They’re opening the development of third-party earbuds up to include such features on higher or lower end models. One could argue this is not astronomically innovative, but no one else has taken such advancements very seriously. No one else has brought such features to the masses and encouraged third-party development of the technology. If backward compatibility is the main argument, which I submit that it is, then I’m thankful it wasn’t applied to CD’s and DVD’s. We’d still be listening to music on vinyl, and watching movies on VHS. I think advancements in earbud technology, however minor, is long overdue.
But what can be conjecture from these new features about Apple’s future products?
Unlike the speaking iPod nanos, the new iTunes 8.1 seems to include its own TTS voices within itself. This is particularly interesting for users of the Mac’s Voiceover functionality. Currently, the only way to use Voiceover on the Mac in other languages is by purchasing pricey third-party solutions. If Apple can incorporate these additional languages into other products, especially OS X, it would be a huge boost for blind users. The fact that Apple has specifically called the speaking feature of the iPod Shuffle "VoiceOver" seems to indicate that we may find this multilingual functionality in Mac OS X’s implementation of VoiceOver before long. Here’s hoping.
Coming full circle, the iPod nano seems to be still the better choice for most visually impaired users, and there doesn’t seem to be any technical reason why the multilingual support couldn’t find its way to the nanos, given that the speech generation is handled by iTunes, not the iPod.
Overall, the Shuffle update is showing how serious APple is about accessibility, and how they hope to leverage some of that innovative technology into practical uses for non-visually impaired users, which will be a huge boon for both sighted and blind consumers alike.