Reeve comes up trumps!*

I opened up the packaging and thought there had been a mistake. The box of my new Reeve personal music player was devoid of manual and cables. All that greeted me was a curious svelte player itself in anodized aluminium and a sticker saying "Press me. Plug me in. Turn me on."

I felt like Alice in Wonderland. I tentatively press the button indicated; a USB plug shot out the side of the player. It appeared to be on a ratchet like a vacuum cord, but to assist the cable had the words "pull-pull-pull" along its length. When I reached the end the cable colour turned red and said "stop-stop-stop". This seemed simple enough.

I found an empty slot on my USB hub and plugged the player in wondering what would happen next. The screen instantly lit up and gave me some curious instructions. Very kindly and clearly it told me of a problem; apparently it knew it was plugged into a hub and that power was going to be an issue. I had two options – wait for the player to charge or plug it directly into the computer so it could take power directly from the PC. It said I could unplug it whenever I wanted and that I wasn't to worry; hmm maybe I should name the thing? It seemed almost to have a personality. A clock started to count down on the display.

I decided I was too excited to wait so I unplugged it from the hub and directly into the computer. This time it said it was happy and going to give itself a charge; two hours apparently until full, but it didn't matter, it said I could leap in directly and begin loading up music.

First I was instructed that if I had auto-run turned on in Windows it would guild me through the process; however it had noticed that despite being plugged in nothing had happened on the PC therefore would I mind running the setup program found in its main folder? What the heck? Manners?

I did as instructed and found myself in a tutorial. It told me about my options for installing music software, ripping CDs or just copying files. It told me that I could do what I'd just done on any computer I fancied or just use the player like a floppy drive or hard disk. It told me a lot.

Apparently the entire manual was also interactively on the player. I could call up the same information when stuck or had a problem. I could unplug it whenever I felt like it and I could reset it simply if something happened that made things go all screwy. It then guided me around the physical aspects of the player.

The unit I was looking at was in fact 3 different modules. The bottom module was the USB link with a retractable cable; a simply yank and it would shoot back into its holder and be a flush part of the player. I could also remove the module completely; when I did it revealed a standard mini-USB socket. Handy if my cable gets broken and I need another.

The top module was actually the headphones. Another button to press and two ear-buds jumped out; they were unusual in that there was no left and right. "Any" was written on each one and apparently they knew which ear they were in; I'm not sure how but they did too! When this module was removed a standard headphone connector was revealed and an expansion port; apparently there was more upgrades, plus the headphones could easily be swapped for something else if I wanted, but who'd want to!

My journey continued. The player had a thing called location awareness in it and as far as I could tell it was awesomeness in a package. The idea was that all the play-lists, settings, configuration of my Windows ripping software I'd installed, player etc were all backed up on the player itself. So, whenever I went to a new computer and installed the software on the player … or returned to a computer it synchronised itself. It meant that whatever changes I made to the apps on one computer appeared as if my magic in all the copies on the all the computers I used (well, as soon as I plugged the player in or the internet was accessed).

Bliss! My work computer functioned identical to my home computer or even my mates if I happened to need to copy something over when I was round his house. Oh, and don't think it would screw up if different players were used, my mate got one after seeing mine and the software is clever enough to work out who is who. It allows temporary changes while my player is connected to his machine; restoring his settings when I'm gone, yet recording mine back on the player even if I'm just using his machine for a moment and decide to make a change to my setup. The damn thing is freaky in what it knows and keeps synchronised.

The rest of the software seems fairly straight forward. In fact no different from any other player/ripping software I'd see on the PC. I wasn't restricted in how I wanted to add stuff to the player though; I could drag files in, or use the applications provided. It figured out what was where and ensured I didn't get confused.

My entire music collection just dragged and dropped into the player. I left it charging and came back to it a few hours later and unplugged it as it was charged. I then pressed the button on the side and recoiled the USB back into its holder and started using the player.

The player itself consisted of a large clear screen, navigation controls and some ancillary sliders on one side. One was a lock for when I had the player in my pocket, another was sprung and a combined reset/power switch; I could move and hold it to turn the machine on/off/reset at any time.

On the other side of the machine were five small buttons; each was on was a different colour. They were presets, as if you had your own radio station, and were linked to smart play lists. Pressing one paused the current play list where it was and switched to another. I set mine up so I had different genres on each; mood music if you will, but it was entirely up to you.

Actually on the issue of pausing, things were very sophisticated. Changing play lists, turning off the player, or even changing tracks all resulted in the original material being paused ready for resuming. A fantastic feature when you're listening to a long audio book. You can switch to music, switch back, associate it to a preset; whatever you want and however you want it really.

On screen the player had all the conventional controls for play lists and navigation, but it also had some unusual features too; I could order the things based on files and folders or ID tags and I could flip between the two instantly. This meant that any music I had with incorrect tags didn't interfere with me finding music. There was even field based searching and fuzzy grouping; where similar phonetic spellings were linked automatically. A huge help when you can't remember the exactly spelling of an artist or track.

There was also a hyper-link system. From any particular track or artist, suggestions were made on things similar or associated. At first I wasn't sure how this technology could work, but another search/sort mechanism called 'beats' began to explain it. Somehow the player had analysed the beats-per-minute of each music track, volume levels and frequencies. It had determined whether the songs were fast or slow, clubby, instrumental, vocal, all sorts. In essence it has created automatic genres for the music and was using that to catalogue things. Slick considering ID tags are often inaccurate or incomplete.

Further poking around showed 'beats' to be even more than I thought, 'beats' in fact created multiple genres; I mean, let's face it, genre categorising lots of artists is very tricky. 'Beats' spans genres when things are too vague; real nice when I've lost something in my head and try digging it up out of 10,000 music tracks.

The unit also had a totally whacky hosting mode. There was a mini-USB socket found on the USB cable module as well and it allowed players to be coupled together with or without the Reeve's cable. I could literally take the Reeve plug it into my mate's player and providing his player was a Reeve or acted as a USB drive we could share files. As a test I plugged my flash drive into the Reeve and despite not actually being a music player I could share files between the two devices without a hitch. It didn't even ask to be put into hosting mode it did this automatically when I plugged in the flash drive. What hadn't these guys considered?

I suppose in summary I was blown away by the Reeve player. In a crowded market place I didn't think a new player would offer anything … well … erm … new. However Reeve not only offered me a fantastic new player but also a whole new way of doing things. In truth I'd never considered some of the things it offered me, but once they were introduced to me I certainly didn't want to go back to the old clunky way of cables, wires, chargers, drivers, and fixed navigation lists.

The sad thing now however is I'm beginning to question the rest of the market. How did the competition miss the mark by so much? Why are products created for consumers but without what they truly need?

I think it stems from companies listening too much to customers and cost rather than figuring out good design. Sure, customers give you the clues, but it's not the only element. You have to understand what they do in their day-to-day lives and interpret their frustrations into an integrated and effective product. In the case of Reeve I think they've achieved this hands down. Get your hands on one now, you really won't be disappointed!

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(*You may be wondering what's going on here. This is an example of interaction design. Sadly the product doesn't actually exist - all I've done is apply the basic elements of my craft to portable music players. The result is a product that could easily be created with today's technologies. I haven't gone into the finer points of how these features work, but trust me they do work and I'm keeping it to myself for now.

Consider this a Resumé or CV. I am a software architect specialising in Windows application and driver design however I also spend a lot of my time doing interaction design. People employ me due to how I apply this to products and come up with innovation. I've applied these skills around the world with various companies and in various disciplines. I have sole inventor patents filed due to previous ideas and am currently an assistant Chief Software Engineer at a rather large electronics company.

Fortunately my concepts and ideas are pretty limitless, so I'm not worried about making this all public. Forward the article to anyone you think needs their view point changed. If you're part of a serious company wanting serious change in your products and development, feel free to contact me for further discussions.)

[EotM]

I'mafeelin: mischievous
I'malistinto: SH-II music