I recently purchased a Squeezebox in the US that I now use in India. Overall, it appears well designed, though setup took some time owing to static IP issues. The screen kept blanking out and this took me some time to realize it was actually doing something.
As I began to use this, it occured to me that the design could perhaps be enhanced and improved. Here are some ideas: 1. Device stand Could have been made collapsible into the body of the device, with a lock when extended out. As it is, the ports are a little hard to get to. 2. Visualizing the device differently with a handle or strap This thing is portable (within the coverage area of a WiFi), so why not make it portable? A collapsible handle, as with boomboxes, would be lovely. 3. Make portability a form factor If it's portable, why not fiddle around with the form factor to give it that extra cache? I found myself wanting to lie down on the couch, with headphones, and tune into the device. Guess what? I had to wrestle with: (a) the stand which pokes out; and (b) tune in with one hand waving the remote! It didn't have to be this way - the device body sides could be made with rubberized holds to facilitate holding with both hands with controls on both sides that one could use with both thumbs. Provide a jog wheel to cycle through selections, up-down volume controls, equalizer controls, etc. The remote could be used if the device was hooked up to a stereo system, and the body controls if used as a personal device with headphones. All of a sudden, Squeezebox is no more a static piece hooked into the living room stereo system, but an iPod-like device that one can move around with, hold on to, what have you...imagine carrying this into any Starbucks and tuning into a zillion Internet radio stations and podcasts! Squeezebox could be an effective challenger to portable MP3 players and satellite radios. 4. On-the-fly link within any WiFi setting If #3 above (the Starbucks idea) is to become reality, the Squeezebox needs to be made flexible enough to work in any WiFi environment, not just the home router it is linked to. An on-the-fly access to any public hotspot would be great to leverage its true potential. Maybe this is already possible, I don't know. 5. Ability to control screen font size Why is this necessary? Because, with the above, Squeezebox could be not just an audio device, but also a device to read newspapers and magazines online anywhere, anyplace there's a hotspot. One could read the NYT while also tuning into the newspaper correspondent's audio feed, or just listen to other music. 6. External memory Allow for people to use external memory, such as USB flash drives or SD cards so they could listen to stored music while reading a an online newspaper. My 2c for what they're worth... Jay -- Jay ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jay's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7263 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=26961 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
