Hal's Blogs

Around 2000 or 2001 I bought my first MP3 player, and it was while trying to use it at night while driving that I came up with the obvious idea that each button should SAY what it is, rather than make me fumble and HOPE I'm clicking the right thing. I really thought it was a no-brainer considering the device is already built for playing back recordings. Only a tiny fraction of the memory would have been required for a few compressed word recordings like "stop", "play", "select [option]", etc...

I really thought this was a no-brainer that manufacturers would eventually come up with. I really didn't think it would take 5 years though! At least Apple has taken the same idea and run with it, including full song title text-to-speech.