Why doesn’t the iPod Devices have a stop (■) button?

Why doesn't the iPod Devices have a stop (■) button?

Because it is redundant.  There is nothing you can accomplish with a stop button that can’t already be done using the pause, menu, next track, and/or previous track buttons.

This is not the case with media players that are physically interacting with their storage, such as VCR’s or DVD players.  According to ecoustics.com [1]:

On a VHS machine, pausing the tape kept the same segment of tape rubbing against the playback drum, which if done for a long enough time could wear that spot in the tape. This could cause any number of picture and sound hiccups, or worse, cause the tape to break.

With a DVD, there’s little mechanical difference between pause and stop unless you keep it paused for more than a few minutes, after which a stopped DVD motor will spin down but a paused one will continue to run [1].

[1] http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/14092/

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