The Lifestream of Jon Moss

iPod Nano’s Voice App Needs Rethinking

September 19 2008, 7:42pm

My 10GB 2nd generation iPod is almost 6 ears old now. I love its retro all-white look and even retain an affinity for its heft; when I’ve got it in my pocket I know it’s there and there’s something reassuring about that. But the battery is on its last legs and even fully-charged only gives me an hour, sometimes less, of playing time, so I mainly use it in the iHome under-counter system we’ve got in the kitchen. When Steve Jobs announced the new iPod lineup, I was immediately interested in the 8GB Nano. Not the least of my curiosity stemmed from wanting to see how something a fraction of the size of my 10GB iPod could hold almost as much music. But I was mainly interested in the voice memo feature and the prospect of playing around with an iPod as a possible digital recorder. So, I got one and it’s great to have something so small fit so much music. I can’t see watching a lot of TV or movies on such a small screen myself, but it’s cool that one could. As far as the voice menus recording memos goes, however, I just have to say thanks, Apple, but no thanks. I’ll tell you the problem after the jump. In order to explore just what Steve Jobs was talking about with the “voice memo” the Nano is capable of recording, you first have to enable the device for voice menus in iTunes. That’s easy enough as far as it goes. Plug the Nano into your Mac and tick the check box to enable spoken menus in the Summary tab of the iTunes interface. The Nano will generate spoken menus in the system voice you have chosen in the Speech pane of System Preferences on your Mac and off you go. If you choose “Bahh” and set the speed between “slow” and “normal” you can get a voice that sounds a little like the Central Scrutinizer from Joe’s Garage. But, I digress. Before I ever even got to the recording of voice memos, I realized, “this will not do.” Not to put too fine a point on it, the system voice just won’t shut up. Scroll through the choices available on any screen and the voice announces, or tries to announce every one, even the ones you’re scrolling past. OK, visually challenged operators, for whom this option was largely created, might need this level of detail to work the device properly. But, and here’s the fundamental flaw in the arrangement - the iPod is a portable music player. It doesn’t sit still, generally, on a desk or in dock connector. And as it moves through the world its orientation can change from vertical to horizontal to something in between dead level on either axis, and it is VERY IRRITATING (no matter how much you love your system voice) to have Now Playing or Cover Flow announced every time you change the iPod’s orientation, whether by mistake or on purpose. And there’s no way to disable voice menus from the Nano’s settings menu - you have to plug it back in to the Mac and untick the “enable spoken menus” box. I never even bothered to explore the voice memo capabilities of the Nano because without the ability to control spoken menus onboard the device itself, I’d rather do without making the odd note or memo if it means I can also avoid listening to the thing yammer away at me all the time.