Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattdotc | Hacker News Reader

Is iTunes responsible for this trend I'm seeing more of where the Seek Forward/Backward (Fast-Forward/Rewind) symbol is being used in place of 'Next Track' and 'Previous Track?'

All other complaints aside, this, to me, is iTunes' worst offense. I don't know if there was some official standard ever, but it was at a very minimum an unofficial standard for DECADES. Now some asshole designer has decided to muddle and confuse everyone by redefining the symbol. This idea has infected PowerAmp on Android now, too.

I have not seen anyone discussing this before (but I haven't looked very hard). I refuse to buy into this new definition. Am I the only one bothered by this? I can't take a music application seriously if it can't get the symbols right.

View on HN

I've never actually noticed this. I'm pretty sure if you hold the button it still does the scrubbing though.

You're right, it does seek if you press and hold. Thanks for that info.

I don't meant to shoot the messenger and this isn't directed at you, but this behavior makes no sense and is not intuitive to anyone who's ever listened to music on a CD (which is still A LOT of people).

I couldn't care less about scrubbing; I'd do that with the little progress bar because it's quicker and more precise than guessing how long to hold a button. I really just hate that one arrogant (or ignorant) person/group decided to change the meaning of a well-understood symbol as if they were the decider for everyone else.

Oh I'm not defending it at all, I'm saying the missing | at the end of the button was never something I noticed. Possibly because I converted from Windows Media Player when I got a mac and the layout of media player is basically the same for playback controls (though they got the icon right). I agree, it's dumb.

The primary CD player (a Sony) I used for over a decade did the same thing as itunes in terms of press-and-hold.

I disagree. It's pretty intuitive for me, and I've listened to music on CDs. Personal opinion vs personal opinion.

The confusion/misdirecting part for me is that I would expect to hold down a 'Seek' button to seek through the track.

However, as a user, I was just trained to recognize the 'Seek' button as 'Next' or 'Previous' track.

So there are conflicting messages in their design. Why would I want to hold down the 'Next Track' button to seek ahead in the song? I would never think to do that.

While I kind of agree, it seems to be pretty common behavior for software audio players. VLC for example has the same UI and behavior.

A "designer" will no doubt point to a real world CD player/stereo and say "Holding down the next track button fast-forwards. We are just emulating that experience on a computer."

To which I would reply "My stereo does not have a fast-forward symbol on that button."

Reply on news.ycombinator.com