> …high speed jogging - not something that you typically do very often on a music player.

That’s exactly what you often do on them, when they are good at it. How would you rather browse a large library: one by one, slowly, or use a non-linear accelerator to quickly get close to where you want to be and then precisely pick your choice?

The click wheel was brilliant software and hardware, simultaneously, which is why I call it “Apple at its best”.

It could have been good software with unreliable, wobbly hardware, or robust hardware with a slight rendering delay, which would break the illusion. Instead it was sturdy, responsive and just a joy to use. Much like Apple’s trackpads, which remain surprisingly unmatched.

But I guess we have different tastes on music players.