Not too long ago I mentioned the type of ease of use I want out of my appliances, whether it’s a dishwasher, a wireless LAN, or a gizmo that lets me play my music over the stereo without having to swap CDs. I really do want to set it up, then never worry about it again. I can handle a clothes dryer level of periodic upkeep in an appliance — just clean the lint screen and go for it. I don’t want some mythical convergence box in my living room that acts like a computer when I use it, I want a hand-held device barely bigger than my TiVo remote control that lets me effortlessly play anything I want from my music collection, without swapping CDs. The best solution I’ve found so far is just to hook an iPod up to the stereo, but even with third party remote controls, that isn’t an ideal solution. What if I want to browse? What I need is a hand held platform that can browse the music library and control playback. It has to be almost as fast at browsing as iTunes; no one wants to scroll through an HTML table or list with five thousand items.
I think the Mac Media Center can give us that if the project team keeps things nice and modular. Sure, their default interface may not be exactly what I want, but if they keep their view abstracted from their model, I or somebody with similarly simple motivation will be able to add it on later.