So this post is actually where I was going the other day when I started talking about people streaming their music to themselves. It was triggered off by Tom's post On iTunes and iPods and the data they don't capture... [via Gordon]
Tom raises some interesting points, and although focuses on one feature he would find useful, it does highlight how are worlds are being extended by the information we produce. Music and iTunes are good examples as it is easily digestible, human understandable and can give almost instantaneous results. As other technologies grow, you will see this more and more.
Anyway, the point is, if you listen to music a lot, your iTunes library becomes really really valuable. It becomes a fingerprint of who you are aurally. It has intrinsic personal value and is impossible to recover if lost.
Now where I was going with my post on streaming iTunes to yourself, is that because Apple designed this component with the idea in mind that you would listen to other peoples music, they never envisioned that you might want to listen to your own music. Because they never saw this, they have no return path, no back connection from the listening point back to the source library. Which is a problem.
If my iTunes library is my aural signature, I want to record every track I listen to. On my iPod, on my laptop, in my flat, in my car. Now my iPod has a return path, which happens when I resync with my library at home (ignoring for the moment that this doesn't always work perfectly). If I am listening on my laptop to my music based in another location, I want to be able to have my source location update playcounts, update listened dates. Hell I want to be able to change my ratings remotely.
iTunes needs an "Access & Listen to remote library" feature.
Remote access of an application isn't rocket science guys. Throw in a username/password, and feedback data and you're done. Like I said in my previous post, this should move towards a day when my iPod can actually do this itself [via some sort of wireless technology]. Of course the people selling music wont like this. They don't like anything where you actually listen to your own music. They like things where you just buy music.
1. Gordon
YES YES YES!!!
Only slight flaw is how you allow permanent online access via a home PC. It has to be something the masses can do, and will have to be 99% unhackable surely?
Anyway, I’d settle for being able to update ratings and playcounts from both iPod and my laptop at work, storing and updating MY home library on my home PC. As iTunes library data is XML based, surely this should be relatively straightforward.
Ohh and pedant warning: I’ll take your excuse for bad spelling if you use the correct WORD! ;-)
2. Adrian
Nothing is unhackable, but you can introduce an appropriate level of security.
And all you need to do is provide a password and ID that you need to access your iTunes remotely, and allow this to only be done by one concurrent user. Make sure the password and ID are securely authenticated, and the tunnel is encrypted and you are ok. Putting some basic authentication and encryption into iTunes would solve this. Or at least have an add on pack for it.
I think it’s widely viewed that iTunes needs to move their database from XML to some proper DB structure. But yes iTunes is also lacking a “synchronise any with any” feature. I suspect they might try ‘sell’ this with .mac, but that’s not really the answer.
iTunes has done some great work in making the most usable music player on the market. Now they need to extend it to allow for more advanced music management functionality to meet the demands of people who’s libraries are now all digital. The feature set of iTunes is going to start falling behind if they don’t start meeting new demands.
Oh and Gordon, what word did I get wrong?
3. Matt Schinckel
iTunes stores a copy of it’s database in XML, but the other database is in another format.
I’ve not been bothered to see what this is, but yeah, if the XML file were say, SQLite, or something, then adding stuff might be easier. I’ve found interpreting XMl to be a bit slower than other formats. But easy to hack.
I too would like to see the ability to update my play count, and ratings, from Xbox Media Centre. Oh, and I don’t like only being able to rate 0-5 stars. It’s possible under MacOS X to use AppleScript to change ratings to a value anywhere between 0 and 100, and I do this now.
4. Adrian
Actually I much prefer a 0-5 rating system than a 0-100. As Jason points out,”100 is just way too many points[2]. How can there be any tangible difference between a 75 movie and a 76 movie”.
5. Matt Schinckel
Granted, but I have songs/movies/books that I like a little more than others, and if I were to just group them into 6 groups, that wouldn’t reflect my favourite-est ones well enough.