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Apple promised big things for the launch of iTunes 8 last September, and what did we get? A music recommendation engine and another layer of UI glossiness in the Grid view. Genius? Not really.
What we really hoped for and expected was a complete ground-up revamp that prepped iTunes for the future. Why?
Because iTunes, as we've known it so far, is really starting to show its age. Its underpinnings are becoming increasingly creaky thanks to the weight of features, files and expectations being shovelled upon it - and its fast turning into bloatware of almost Redmond-like proportions.
Here are 10 things we think Apple should do for iTunes 9:
1. Clean up the user interface
Once upon a time iTunes UI was one of the best things about it. True, it looked a little bland, but the old List and Grid views at least made it easy to find your way around.
We still have List view, luckily, but last year's Cover Flow was always more novelty than genuinely useful addition. We can't forgive its inclusion in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's Finder either.
The new Grid view in iTunes 8 presents you with even more ways to slice the same content, adding more layers of complication and frustration at every turn. Don't believe us?
Check out the Artists tab. Here you'll see a Grid view of the all the Artists in your library. Move the cursor over the icon and you can side-scroll through the album art, just like you can in iPhoto '08.
Not only is the whole idea of being able to do this rubbish, but clicking on a piece of album art presents you with another version of the UI, this time the old style Grid complete with track listing and album artwork. Confusing? Gimmicky? Useless. Yes, yes and yes again.
2. Bar the Genius
OK, so it's a fairly easy way to auto-generate playlists, but at the expense of what? Your musical tastes get automatically submitted to Apple, which then hits you back with money-gouging recommendations based on content found in the iTunes Store.
This is the kind of hardcore sell we expect from pile-'em-high-sell-it-cheap merchants. We thought Apple thought differently.
And what about the iTunes Store arrows that sit next to every track in your library? You used to be able to turn them off. Now you can't. Grrr.
3. Better file handling
Like the little plastic donkey in Buckaroo, iTunes burden keeps getting heavier and heavier - it has to be able to handle music, movies and TV shows for enjoying on your computer; ditto for your iPod, iPod touch and iPhone; and ditto again for Apple TV. Oh, and let's not forgets about HD content, audiobooks, PDFs, applications and artwork. Plus the whole shopping thing. Sheesh.
The problem is, iTunes isn't very good at handling this at all. Ideally you want lean, mean versions of your music, movies, and so on for toting around on your iPod or whatever; and then full-fat alternatives for enjoyment at home.
In a sensible world, iTunes would enable you to seamlessly convert from the full-fat version to the skinny version as needed, and not leave your hard drive or your library in a confusing jumble afterwards. iTunes isn't sensible, it's downright moronic - it either has to separate versions for every device you own in your library; or you have to plump for a one-size-fits-all file that doesn't work particularly well anywhere. This needs to change.
4. Better handling for multiple libraries
One of the biggest features of iTunes 7 was the ability to create multiple iTunes libraries - handy if you want to keep high quality Apple TV files separate from your iPod-compatible ones, and so on. Unfortunately, Apple's implementation sucks. Here's why:
a) You have to remember to hold down the Alt [Option] key every time you click on the iTunes icon;
b) It's easy to forget which library you're in and add content to wrong place;
c) It doesn't matter anyway because iTunes quickly gets its Library Preferences in a knot and files you were expecting to appear in iTunes Library A suddenly turn up in Library B, and so on.
Third-party solutions like Doug Adam's iTunes Library Manager work better.
5. Better file tracking
iTunes is rubbish at keeping track of your files. Proof comes in the form of the growing number of third-party apps that try to take the pain out of managing thousands of files on your hard drive.
iTunes music and movie files seem to go missing at a whim: sometimes they disappear from the library, but not your iTunes Music folder; sometimes they get moved to a different location - particularly if you're using multiple libraries - and sometimes they go missing completely.
The only way to discover whether or not everything in the library is as it should be is to re-scan your entire iTunes Music folder using the Add To Library command on a regular basis. iTunes doesn't keep do this automatically. It should.
6. Better database handling
A lot of the problems we've hit on so far are due to way that iTunes handles the contents of your iTunes Music library (which, confusingly, also includes Podcasts, Movies, TV Shows, and so on).
That's because iTunes stores all the information about the iTunes Music folder's content in the iTunes Library (.itl file on Windows) - an encrypted file that could be a glorified spreadsheet for all we know. It's certainly not a proper database.
Proof comes in the way iTunes works. Every time you fire it up, iTunes has to load the entire iTunes Library file into memory. Although Apple doesn't specify the maximum number of files iTunes can contain, it certainly gets slower and slower the more you stuff it with content - especially given the drawbacks we've mentioned above.
7. Better codec support
Given our concerns about iTunes' ability to handle different kind of media files, adding support for more codec sounds like a recipe for disaster. It needn't be.
iTunes currently supports Apple Lossless, AAC, AIFF, and MP3 audio, while also enabling you to convert DRM-free WMA tracks, as well as WAV. Video support is limited to H.264 and MPEG-4 video files. But what about Ogg Vorbis? True WMA and WMV support? DivX, MKV, FLV and the rest?
We suspect Apple doesn't support these - and never will - because it's not in its interest to do so. If Apple were to support protected WMA files, for example, it would not only have to pay royalties to Microsoft, but could also see iTunes Store customers leach away to online rivals. iTunes doesn't even support codecs like HD-AAC - a high definition audio codec for 24-bit recordings.
8. Multi-room for the rest of us
When Apple introduced the first AirPort Express in 2004, one if its selling points was that it enabled you to stream music to your Hi-Fi using AirTunes - a part of iTunes.
The drawback then was that Apple couldn't / wouldn't sell you a remote to help you control it without sitting in front of your laptop or desktop. Four years later, it still doesn't. We've had to rely on third-party solutions instead.
Apple TV has gone some way to address these shortcomings, but Apple could take iTunes much, much further - just look at what Sonos has done for a start. Apple could easily do for multi-room music and video what it's arguably done for the MP3 player and phone. Apple already has most of the pieces in place, now it just needs a killer solution to top it all off.
9. A better, cheaper iTunes Store
Buying online from the iTunes Store may be better than trudging down to HMV in the rain, but does that mean we should put up with sky high prices and shonky download quality? We say not.
If Apple can serve up 1GB+ movies on iTunes, there's no reason why it shouldn't also be able to sell true CD-quality audio downloads either - even if they were in Apple Lossless format instead of CDDA or AIFF.
That would finally put an end to the grumbles about sound quality / pricing, especially if we could also say goodbye to DRM too. Of course, we'd expect to pay a slight premium - we do so already with iTunes Plus.
10. iTunes Pro
And what better way to wrap all this improvements up, but to create a new version of iTunes for those of us who take our music and movies seriously. Apple already offers consumer and Pro versions of many of its apps - iPhoto versus Aperture; iMovie versus Final Cut, and so on - so why not do the same with iTunes? We're not the first people to think it, but iTunes Pro certainly sounds like a great idea and, if it was up to the standard of other Apple Pro apps, you can be sure many of us would be happy to pay for it. How about it, Apple?
Apple promised big things for the launch of iTunes 8 last September, and what did we get? A music recommendation engine and another layer of UI glossiness in the Grid view. Genius? Not really.
What we really hoped for and expected was a complete ground-up revamp that prepped iTunes for the future. Why?
Because iTunes, as we've known it so far, is really starting to show its age. Its underpinnings are becoming increasingly creaky thanks to the weight of features, files and expectations being shovelled upon it - and its fast turning into bloatware of almost Redmond-like proportions.
Here are 10 things we think Apple should do for iTunes 9:
1. Clean up the user interface
Once upon a time iTunes UI was one of the best things about it. True, it looked a little bland, but the old List and Grid views at least made it easy to find your way around.
We still have List view, luckily, but last year's Cover Flow was always more novelty than genuinely useful addition. We can't forgive its inclusion in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's Finder either.
The new Grid view in iTunes 8 presents you with even more ways to slice the same content, adding more layers of complication and frustration at every turn. Don't believe us?
Check out the Artists tab. Here you'll see a Grid view of the all the Artists in your library. Move the cursor over the icon and you can side-scroll through the album art, just like you can in iPhoto '08.
Not only is the whole idea of being able to do this rubbish, but clicking on a piece of album art presents you with another version of the UI, this time the old style Grid complete with track listing and album artwork. Confusing? Gimmicky? Useless. Yes, yes and yes again.
2. Bar the Genius
OK, so it's a fairly easy way to auto-generate playlists, but at the expense of what? Your musical tastes get automatically submitted to Apple, which then hits you back with money-gouging recommendations based on content found in the iTunes Store.
This is the kind of hardcore sell we expect from pile-'em-high-sell-it-cheap merchants. We thought Apple thought differently.
And what about the iTunes Store arrows that sit next to every track in your library? You used to be able to turn them off. Now you can't. Grrr.
3. Better file handling
Like the little plastic donkey in Buckaroo, iTunes burden keeps getting heavier and heavier - it has to be able to handle music, movies and TV shows for enjoying on your computer; ditto for your iPod, iPod touch and iPhone; and ditto again for Apple TV. Oh, and let's not forgets about HD content, audiobooks, PDFs, applications and artwork. Plus the whole shopping thing. Sheesh.
The problem is, iTunes isn't very good at handling this at all. Ideally you want lean, mean versions of your music, movies, and so on for toting around on your iPod or whatever; and then full-fat alternatives for enjoyment at home.
In a sensible world, iTunes would enable you to seamlessly convert from the full-fat version to the skinny version as needed, and not leave your hard drive or your library in a confusing jumble afterwards. iTunes isn't sensible, it's downright moronic - it either has to separate versions for every device you own in your library; or you have to plump for a one-size-fits-all file that doesn't work particularly well anywhere. This needs to change.
4. Better handling for multiple libraries
One of the biggest features of iTunes 7 was the ability to create multiple iTunes libraries - handy if you want to keep high quality Apple TV files separate from your iPod-compatible ones, and so on. Unfortunately, Apple's implementation sucks. Here's why:
a) You have to remember to hold down the Alt [Option] key every time you click on the iTunes icon;
b) It's easy to forget which library you're in and add content to wrong place;
c) It doesn't matter anyway because iTunes quickly gets its Library Preferences in a knot and files you were expecting to appear in iTunes Library A suddenly turn up in Library B, and so on.
Third-party solutions like Doug Adam's iTunes Library Manager work better.
5. Better file tracking
iTunes is rubbish at keeping track of your files. Proof comes in the form of the growing number of third-party apps that try to take the pain out of managing thousands of files on your hard drive.
iTunes music and movie files seem to go missing at a whim: sometimes they disappear from the library, but not your iTunes Music folder; sometimes they get moved to a different location - particularly if you're using multiple libraries - and sometimes they go missing completely.
The only way to discover whether or not everything in the library is as it should be is to re-scan your entire iTunes Music folder using the Add To Library command on a regular basis. iTunes doesn't keep do this automatically. It should.
6. Better database handling
A lot of the problems we've hit on so far are due to way that iTunes handles the contents of your iTunes Music library (which, confusingly, also includes Podcasts, Movies, TV Shows, and so on).
That's because iTunes stores all the information about the iTunes Music folder's content in the iTunes Library (.itl file on Windows) - an encrypted file that could be a glorified spreadsheet for all we know. It's certainly not a proper database.
Proof comes in the way iTunes works. Every time you fire it up, iTunes has to load the entire iTunes Library file into memory. Although Apple doesn't specify the maximum number of files iTunes can contain, it certainly gets slower and slower the more you stuff it with content - especially given the drawbacks we've mentioned above.
7. Better codec support
Given our concerns about iTunes' ability to handle different kind of media files, adding support for more codec sounds like a recipe for disaster. It needn't be.
iTunes currently supports Apple Lossless, AAC, AIFF, and MP3 audio, while also enabling you to convert DRM-free WMA tracks, as well as WAV. Video support is limited to H.264 and MPEG-4 video files. But what about Ogg Vorbis? True WMA and WMV support? DivX, MKV, FLV and the rest?
We suspect Apple doesn't support these - and never will - because it's not in its interest to do so. If Apple were to support protected WMA files, for example, it would not only have to pay royalties to Microsoft, but could also see iTunes Store customers leach away to online rivals. iTunes doesn't even support codecs like HD-AAC - a high definition audio codec for 24-bit recordings.
8. Multi-room for the rest of us
When Apple introduced the first AirPort Express in 2004, one if its selling points was that it enabled you to stream music to your Hi-Fi using AirTunes - a part of iTunes.
The drawback then was that Apple couldn't / wouldn't sell you a remote to help you control it without sitting in front of your laptop or desktop. Four years later, it still doesn't. We've had to rely on third-party solutions instead.
Apple TV has gone some way to address these shortcomings, but Apple could take iTunes much, much further - just look at what Sonos has done for a start. Apple could easily do for multi-room music and video what it's arguably done for the MP3 player and phone. Apple already has most of the pieces in place, now it just needs a killer solution to top it all off.
9. A better, cheaper iTunes Store
Buying online from the iTunes Store may be better than trudging down to HMV in the rain, but does that mean we should put up with sky high prices and shonky download quality? We say not.
If Apple can serve up 1GB+ movies on iTunes, there's no reason why it shouldn't also be able to sell true CD-quality audio downloads either - even if they were in Apple Lossless format instead of CDDA or AIFF.
That would finally put an end to the grumbles about sound quality / pricing, especially if we could also say goodbye to DRM too. Of course, we'd expect to pay a slight premium - we do so already with iTunes Plus.
10. iTunes Pro
And what better way to wrap all this improvements up, but to create a new version of iTunes for those of us who take our music and movies seriously. Apple already offers consumer and Pro versions of many of its apps - iPhoto versus Aperture; iMovie versus Final Cut, and so on - so why not do the same with iTunes? We're not the first people to think it, but iTunes Pro certainly sounds like a great idea and, if it was up to the standard of other Apple Pro apps, you can be sure many of us would be happy to pay for it. How about it, Apple?
