@methodshop

"There are many reasons to like the iPod. But to me, the most compelling one is the scroll wheel.



There's never been anything better for negotiating the prodigious amounts of music that we're lucky enough to be able to fit into our pockets these days.



The iPod's scroll wheel has been through three iterations. The first one actually rotated; then there was the touch-sensitive one; and finally there's the clickable one found on the iPod Mini and fourth-generation iPod. I'd always assumed that this bit of design genius sprang from Apple Computer's labs. But in fact, I discovered that a company called Synaptics, which primarily makes touchpads for laptops, actually perfected this little piece of navigational heaven, in accordance with Apple's stringent design requirements."[Via C|NET]



The MethodShop Spin: The iPod's clickable scroll wheel is pure genius. The iPod-clone makers have a tough hurdle to overcome.