[Tetedeiench]

Originally Posted by pomegranate

Er, what? Perhaps I'm missing something... The A-B button is for queueing songs to be played. When press the button, it queues up the song that is selected, and it goes back to the front screen. In the second instance: I'm in a directory, browsing. I want to go to the next directory. I press back (left), scroll down the list, then press the joystick button in to enter the folder. This IS consistent.

Please note: I like to be polite, but I can't think of anything more appropriate to say than READ THE GODDAMN MANUAL!

Admittedly, this is a bit of an oversight, but I hardly think it's as fatal as you're making out. I think it's a fair assumption that if you're choosing a playlist, you don't want to listen to the current music anymore....

Sure, the iHP has some interface...errors, eccentricities, call them what you want. But if you actually take the care to figure out how to use it, you'll find they're insignificant. It's not an iPod, but it's not a nuclear power station either.

Call me whimsical, but I kind of like the file count at the front, only because it's a nice reminder of what I've got in my hand. It doesn't really add anything to the "ergonomy" of the player, but it doesn't actively take anything away either.
A further note, I don't think (in the six months I've owned it), I have once pressed the equalizer button unintentionally. How often has this tragedy befallen you? Do you have six fingers? If so, I apologise for my insensitivity.

rant over

I didn't have the player under my eyes, but now i do I mistook the A-B button for the REC button. Just a small mistake while writing I guess you could have figured that out yourself. GO READ THE GODDAMN MANUAL yourself, because when you push this button aside while playing, you're changing directories, bud. I'm talking about the one on the remote of course

Oh yes, one more thing about this feature. Imagine you've got the following arborescence :

Root
|-Singer1
| |-CD1
| |-CD2
|
|-Singer2
|
|-Singer3
| |-CD1
| |-CD2

3 directory on the root, Singer1 containing 2 directories with songs, Singer2 with songs directly in it, and Singer3 with two directories.

So. You're playing Singer1-CD2 songs. Wanna jump to the next directory, so you press the according button ( REC ) forward. And you end up listening to Singer2 songs, right ? Well... not really... you end up in Singer3-CD1 ... why is that ? You can change directories in the same aborescence lvl ( Singer1-CD2 that's a depth of 2, Singer2 is a depth of 1).

Cool uh ? Another silly example. i can understand why they did this. But problem is : with such a way of programming it, there would have been no way to access songs on lvl1 of arborescence while playing a song on lvl 2 using this button. wherehas if it was a depth-first search ( if i remember correctly my algorithmic classes back then ), you may have to press the button more times, but at least, you would have access to everywhere... more, they could flag the directory containing MP3 files, cause this button is active only on the remote while playing. So, if you press it forward, you'll end up in the next directory with SONGS... seems like they didn't think about it too hard...

As for the remote : yes i am using the remote. yes i find this piece of HARDWARE great. That doesn't mean BECAUSE it exists the thing is user-friendly. The fact is the firmware is really poorly programmed... if you're using the remote or not. And that's software.

I don't care wether the iPod has a "next directory" function or not. I don't have one. I don't plan on having one. But the function exists in iRiver. Why is it so... buggy ? so... inconsistent ? If the iRiver was supporting an exotic File format... dunno of any, let's say MP3Pro or something more exotic... would you still be happy if playing such a file was crashing the player, because at least it is supporting ( sort of ) this file format ? yes ? Well...

And even if the iHP is not an Ipod, why is that only iPod could have flawless interface, with nice shortcuts ? Why ? Is it asking too much to iRiver, to review it's interface ? Isn't it one of the main thing of the player, that everybody is using everyday ? Because it is not an iPod, it is Ok for iRiver to have a buggy interface ? blah, lemme laugh...

As for the silly "change EQ button". It happens to me at least twice a week. And i gotta "bipbipbip" all the way back to a neutral EQ. Cool. bip bip. I know 3 people with a iHP. We are all thinking the same about this silly, unuseful shortcut.

Finally, as for the "Total" screen : it would be ok if you they made it as an option in the config menu of some sort. Not displaying it everytime.

Last example :

-i was listening to a song. it's iover, so the player jumps to the next file ( normal ). You don't like it and wanna change of album not while playing. You gotta press "stop", look at this silly screen, then the NAVI button, to get back to navigation mode... what if stopping the song would have gotten you DIRECTLY to navigational mode ? hu ? What is the point in displaying this silly screen ? In terms of interface, there's basically NONE. It's just a mistake they did while programming it.

I hope the upcoming firmware will address these issues ( i'm not the type of guy that wanna have problems just to complain about them... hey, paid 450$ for the player... ). But seriously, i'm doubtful. End of july/beginning of august ? Cool. We're August 11th. Kinda the middle of the month if you ask me. Sort of. They still got 4 days before we actually hit the middle of the month, and this is not "beginning of august" for me... so... well, you have the right to be optimistic. As for me, i still think about what happenend in May... and haven't forgotten it.