Sony Rolly MP3 Player: Maybe a Little Cooler Than it Needs to Be - Ahead of the Game?
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Let me set up another stumper for you. Remember when computers stopped using floppy disks? Wasn’t that long ago, and if you remember correctly, that after harsh criticism and questions, the move was quickly adopted by almost all PC manufacturers. And why? Because it just wasn’t necessary any longer. And why is this important? Because there’s no headphone jacks on the Rolly!
Now I can’t look into the future and tell you that everything is going to have or not have headphones. But the Rolly definitely does not. Now really, what kind of MP3 player does not have normal headphones? Sure it uses Bluetooth, and of course I don’t want my headphone cord winding around the egg as it dances across the table, but let me tell you what I look for in a Personal Music Player.
I am one of those people who has their friends tell them all the time that I have the absolute worst taste in music. Solely Dr. Dre produced hip-hop, or 80s-90s pop music. And I know most people don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to hear it from them, because I already know I have specific and at times awful taste in music. So what’s my solution that works every single time? A solution that allows me to listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, as loud as I want (in both ears) without any problems?
You got it, headphones.
What’s even more bizarre is the lack of any sort of typical display or buttons, as the Rolly is equipped with motion sensing capabilities that allow the various aspects of its music playback to be controlled by physically moving the device. The volume is raised and lowered by rotating the unit clockwise and counter-clockwise. To change the track selection, roll the unit back and fourth on a flat surface, and a user can change into shuffle mode by simply shaking the Rolly.
Wait… what? Shaking? Really?
Is that really where we are now with our electronics? That we need to, or should aspire to shake them? On purpose no less? Not because they are broken, but because I want to put it in shuffle mode? Maybe a button or a small display might have been good for that?
While the Rolly has no screen of any sort, its status and activity are shown by changing colors of the two nicely lighted rings on the outer edge of the Rolly. But fascinating/bizarre and easy to use are often two very different things, as this lack of traditional controls can make it very frustrating to use as your main music player.
And if all this wasn’t strange and bizarre enough, the Rolly also comes with “Rolly Choreography” software, where users can create their own egg dance moves to any songs placed on the hard drive. Programming from scratch is very tricky and time consuming, but users can allow an automatic choreography for each track, and then edit it as they see fit, which is much simpler. The output is web accessible, and users can share their newest egg dance moves with the overall Rolly MP3 player community.
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