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If Apple were to split iTunes I could see them replicating the app structure used on iOS devices. This would be in keeping with the upcoming Mountain Lion release and is separation of notes and reminders into their own apps.

So, I could foresee a new suit of apps.
iTunes - Just the store, same purple icon as iOS.
Music - The same orange icon as iOS, for music, podcast etc; organisation.
Videos - Again, same icon and feature use as iOS.
App Store - Consolidate the Mac App Store and the iOS App Stores together. Would allow for seeing truly ecosystem universal apps, along with those just for iOS or the Mac.

All of the above shouldn't be too difficult for users to adopt, as if they're familiar with iOS, the concept is already in place.

The only element that would the. Be missing would be syncing. For newer iOS devices this can all be done wirelessly, but a solution would be needed for the older iOS devices and legacy iPods. The reintroduction of iSync, used to communicate with all of the various programmes would allow the syncing to take place. Each tab referring to a different app, where it currently refers to a different element of iTunes.

If they really wanted to take things to their logical end, iBooks should be brought to the Mac, to be used for book organisation whilst a tighter integration with iPhoto would tighten the photo element.

It's only with the final two that I could see not being as simple, the four apps plus sync solution should work just as well orna windows machine as a Mac, it's only when working with Mac only software such as iPhoto where a compromise would be needed.

I agree with this. As you point out, Apple is working towards feature and UI parity between iOS and OSX. Separate iTunes, Music, Videos and App Store apps. The natural successor as the syncing and device management app is the App Store. Apps generally work on multiple different devices so this should be the central location to distribute them.
 
Hopefully they'll allow those of us with music libraries larger than 25k to use iTunes Match. Maybe allowing people to select what they want in the cloud as opposed to upping the limit.

Would also like a separate syncing app, and to move tv/films/apps out of the software, but understand why this probably won't happen.
 
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Well we wouldn't have guessed in a million years ;)





edit : iTunes 11 needs a big make over. It's all rather cluttered. Even a simple way to jump to the now playing track at times is convoluted, and with app management for IOS devices likewise being a royal pain in the hole. Fine if you have 10 apps, but when you have a few hundred its a royal nightmare. We should also be able to open our books stored on our mac's that have been purchased in store for iBooks.
 
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Based on Mountain Lion and the move to iOS integration, they will do the following:

- iTunes 11 app - just the store, synching, ringtones, and preferences
- Music app - look like the iPad app, used to play music/radio
- Videos app - look like the iPad app, used to playback videos
- iBooks app - look like the iPad app, used to view books on the Mac finally
- App Store - unified for Mac and iOS

iTunes is TOO bloated and needs an overhaul drastically.

Has far as windows goes, they may still have a unified version.
 
I just hope they fix the home sharing issue with all iOS devices. That died with the last version of iTunes.
 
iTunes truly is the best media management application on the planet. I love it, and I use it almost every minute of every day I'm in front of a Mac. I can't wait for version 11 and the innovations it will bring to the marketplace.
 
Can you connect me to one person that got scared off an iPhone and got and Android phone because iTunes scared them off? That might be one of the most far fetched statements I've heard in a while. Have you used any of the three products you are comparing/contrasting?

While my Dad hasn't been scared off, I am the typical "Tech-Support" Son. Except it's not just the stereotypical Windows issues he faces as someone whos not computer-minded. I'd say 75% of his issues are with iTunes.
 
Unless iTunes 11 is a rewrite its still going to be slow, bloated abused pile of junk.

Either rebrand it to Media Center (or something similar) or split out apps and movies into their own apps.

Whilst they are at it, throw away the cockup known as 'Ping' and fix the broken not-so-random feature.
 
The main focus seems to be on iCloud:An increased focus around iCloud makes sense as Apple's Tim Cook has said that he doesn't view iCloud as short term product, but instead a long term strategy for the next 10 years.

So how long until you are forced to use iCloud if you want to use a Mac? Just like you are forced to have an App Store ID if you want to use a Mac with 10.8.
 
New iTunes?

Steve Jobs such a perfectionist?

How could anyone put their name to this
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They can re-do that for a start - what an amateur job.

Can iTunes finally be re-written in Cocoa nao Plz?
 
I really wish they'd instead focus on… you know… playing music, rather than continuing with this "all-in-one" app that currently sucks at pretty much everything it tries to do and only gets worse with each update.
 
I'd like them to fix the Smart Playlist bug that they've known about for several updates now, but have yet to release a fix.

I've never had a problem with it being "bloated", even on my old Core2Duo iMac my 305gb library (41gb music, 250gb video, 14gb apps) ran iTunes just perfectly. Deciding what to listen to, firing up iTunes, finding and playing it; it all takes around 10 seconds.

Just fix the damn Smart Playlist bug! I've posted on their forums, they acknowledged it and said it'd be fixed. I contacted the Genius Bar (thinking it was a hardware fault at first), phone Apple to tell them, blah blah. S'all I want.
 
Can anyone who claims iTunes 10 is "slow" give a more specific description of the performance issue?
 
I couldn't care less about these new "features", they just need to optimize the hell out of it and get the current feature set working.

iTunes Match is an absolute turkey, works horrible with barely any improvement since it was first released. And with it running, it takes the already bad iTunes performance and makes it flat out horrible.

Just fix the damn thing already. And give all iTunes Match users an extra six months free as a humble apology for wasting so much of our time and screwing up our iTunes libraries.

Can anyone who claims iTunes 10 is "slow" give a more specific description of the performance issue?

Tons of beach balls, it's just flat out unresponsive much of the time, click on something and nothing happens for seconds at a time. Right now the worst app I have installed on any of my macs. I'm sure it would help to multithread the app and make it use more than one core but at this point the problems seem to be much deeper than that.
 
Tons of beach balls, it's just flat out unresponsive much of the time, click on something and nothing happens for seconds at a time. Right now the worst app I have installed on any of my macs. I'm sure it would help to multithread the app and make it use more than one core but at this point the problems seem to be much deeper than that.

iTunes already is multithreaded, has been for years. I don't have any of the issues you mention except things related to iCloud but that's stuff related to internet and bandwidth. I have a 1.7 TB iTunes library sitting on a 5400 RPM external hard disk (the slowest kind of hard disk one can get on 3.5") and I'm not waiting for anything to happen when I'm using iTunes. The only performance issue I can think of is hosting some of the album artwork in the cloud instead of in the hard drive, so iTunes may look up an artwork multiple times and won't cache it on the hard drive for some reason. Doesn't happen always though.

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I couldn't care less about these new "features", they just need to optimize the hell out of it and get the current feature set working.

iTunes Match is an absolute turkey, works horrible with barely any improvement since it was first released. And with it running, it takes the already bad iTunes performance and makes it flat out horrible.

Just fix the damn thing already. And give all iTunes Match users an extra six months free as a humble apology for wasting so much of our time and screwing up our iTunes libraries.

I have been using iTunes match from the start and apart from some "wrong" matches among 28000 songs (which is acceptable), I haven't had any issues with it.
 
The first thing I'd like changed is the tie between iTunes and Safari regarding automatic downloads. I reset Safari every day. When I open iTunes after a reset it asks for my password to allow automatic downloads.

Why does Safari have to be involved in this action? As it stands, the password has to be entered after every reset of Safari or you have to choose "cancel" twice if you'd rather not use automatic downloads.
 
Can you connect me to one person that got scared off an iPhone and got and Android phone because iTunes scared them off? That might be one of the most far fetched statements I've heard in a while...

It's really not far-fetched at all - I can point you to at least 5... and perhaps another 3 who've overcome their iTunes angst despite strong objections. Most Windows users have a hard time with giving up WMP and are confused by the contact/email/calendar integration, while Linux users are often repulsed by how it takes over library management.

iCloud, iMatch and other iOS features has made iTunes MUCH more usable for me in that I basically don't have to touch it anymore. I sync mail, contacts and calendars with my google apps account, my phone and iPad are backed up to iCloud, and all my music is automatically accessible from my 2 iOS devices. Using the Remote app, the only time I have to actually "touch" iTunes is when it crashes or has a silly dialog box open.

Nowadays, iTunes is essentially a front-end and management GUI for "iTunesHelper" and iCloud.
 
Essentially iTunes has become a one stop shop for managing content on iOS devices, which is why I doubt we'll see it split into separate modules. At most, they may make the code more modular while keeping a unified front end.
 
iTunes already is multithreaded, has been for years. I don't have any of the issues you mention except things related to iCloud but that's stuff related to internet and bandwidth.

I don't have issues either. As I said before, iTunes 10.6.1 runs flawlessly* on a 2007 Macbook Pro (specs are actually from late 2006 bump -- 2.16 MHz Core 2 Duo, 3 GB RAM). That's with a 2TB library, running over USB from an external drive.

I don't understand what you people are doing to your machines that you're having problems with iTunes, but it's not the software, it's you.


*Playing + watching things locally, that is. Home sharing is a bag of broken since the 10.6 update.
 
*Playing + watching things locally, that is. Home sharing is a bag of broken since the 10.6 update.

I use homesharing every day to host my library from my Mac Pro to my Macbook Pro and I haven't had any issues with it so far. What are your problems with it?
 
I use homesharing every day to host my library from my Mac Pro to my Macbook Pro and I haven't had any issues with it so far. What are your problems with it?

It doesn't hold a connection to Apple TV anymore. It's a fairly well-known problem, judging by the Apple support community. Terribly frustrating. Won't last more than 3-5 minutes on Apple TV. Home sharing to other Macs is more hit-or-miss. Will usually go through an entire movie without disconnecting, but occasionally drops out around 30-50 minutes in.
 
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