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iTunes 8 Wishlist

Hmmm...

1. Faster backing up of my iPod touch everytime I connect it. It takes forever, and to be honest its a bit of a joke.

2. I'd love coverflow to be able to do as it does on the iPod's. When you click the cover it could flip round and you could select songs directly from coverflow, rather than going back down to the list below.

3. Like someone earlier mentioned, tabbed browsing in iTunes store.

:D
 
I'd like to see the a button somwhere that performs 'play in Front Row' so say you have started watching a film, or listening to an album in iTunes interface, clicking the button will pause the film/ song etc and open it up in front row. Then you just hit play on your :apple: remote and continue.:)

If I'm at my mac watching a film, this would be useful if I move to the other side of the room (where the sofa is :) and with just the click of 1 button, I'm back in the right place.
 
More features…

hollerz said:
I want to get rid of extra entries in the song lists for music videos and PDF's. You should be able to "attach" music videos to a song, so there's only one entry for the song and attached music video. The song would have the video icon next to it, double click the song and it would play the normal MP3/AAC/Whatever file, click the video icon and it would play the music video (as someone else said, video playing needs to be improved aswell).
Click to expand...
Definitely a good idea. It could either be multiple rows high to accommodate multiple times, (merged) play counts, etc. or it could have one time viewing at a time and merged play counts. Or they could be separate but connected like my idea.
  1. When I double-click the album cover in Cover Flow, it needs to flip around and show the track listings, just like in the iPhone / iPod touch.
  2. An option to not show the list view in the bottom half of the Cover Flow view.
  3. An option to view only the tracks in the album cover selected in Cover Flow in the bottom half of the Cover Flow view.
  4. Taking another cue from iMovie: Two-paned layout. Top part (movie project) can be for playlists and iPods, and the bottom part (video library) can be for the whole library. This could help with making custom and on-the-go playlists.
  5. You can double-click a playlist, folder, or library icon to open up another window showing the items in that playlist, folder, or library icon (there's no sidebar though). I'd like to be able to play up to one file per window (instead of one file per iTunes).
  6. When I have an "Apple" album and I want to change a song's album to "APQLE," I type in "AP," and it changes to "Ap," with "ple" highlighted. If I then type in "Q," I get "ApQ," not "APQ" as I had actually typed. (I think iTunes does that, and it might actually be a feature.)
  7. "Music"'s views are the default for all future playlists and folders. But changing Music's views don't change existing playlists and folders. I want to be able to do so.
  8. At least an option for auto-scrolling text that goes beyond the column width (like in the iPods).
  9. I'm not sure how well this would work, but auto-ratings. I just find ratings a little too subjective and their songs a little too outdated when newer songs come along. So an automatic rating generated by a formula that uses play count, play count in the last 30 days, skip count, etc. might do.
  10. The Browser needs to have an option to browse by tags.
  11. An option to have shuffle weights proportional to play count or the auto-ratings.
  12. Automatically make some sort of Smart Playlist for each tag. Created when the tag is created, renamed when the tag is renamed, deleted when the tag is deleted.
  13. A tag library. If I rename a tag there, it needs to affect every instance of that tag in my iTunes Library, including Smart Playlist conditions.
  14. Does anyone want the ability to Cut files in iTunes?
  15. Smooth scrolling.
  16. Scroll by name/artist/album/tag like in the iPods and iPhoto '08.
  17. Some kind of "Media Me" where I can access my iTunes Library from anywhere.
  18. The ability to manually change the aspect ratio of the "Now Playing" window. Most of my movies are not 1:1. (Yes I know it's for album art, but I don't use album art and I only have a 1024·768 screen.)
  19. A dedicated "stop" button instead of the "pause" button changing to a "stop" button every time I left the currently playing playlist.

Oh by the way, can we have an option in the [ LIST ] tags to start at, say, 20 instead of 1?
 
I would like an option to combine different entries for the same film or song in different qualities.

For example, I could have a movie that I have at HD and iPhone quality show up as a single thing entry rather than two.

With songs it would work the same, except with Apple Lossless (for your Mac and Apple TV), and 128kbps (for your iPod and iPhone).
 
Tilpots said:
And add support for FLAC.;)
Click to expand...

I heartily agree with that. Native support for FLAC would be amazing.

I"ll go ahead and second support for distinguishing between lossy/lossless libraries. That would eliminate a number of headaches.

I, too, would like better tagging options, perhaps the ability to create one's own tag fields?

I'll jump on board for stripping the application down and some sort of optional iMedia suite. I use iTunes for music only and have no interest in any of that other stuff. So if you're talking about bloat, most of it is bloat to me.


Another thing I would like to see, perhaps it would fall under iPod firmware, I'm not sure, is more options for the iPod screen. I have a 2 or 3G (can't remember) Nano and it has, I believe 5 different screens - volume, seek, artwork, rating, and lyrics. I tag my music heavily and would like a screen where I can basically view the tag information. For instance, if I'm listening to Dick's Picks 17, and in the comments field in iTunes I have that it is actually a show at Boston Garden from 1991, I want that information accessible. If I could edit this information on the fly and have it re-sync with iTunes, that'd be icing on the cake, but by no means necessary. I'd also get rid of the whole rating thing, or at least have an option to not display it on the iPod. I find ratings useless. I already know what I like, that's why I own it and why it's on my iPod already. I'm sure others disagree, but some sort of toggle would be great. I mean it's a view option that can be turned off in iTunes, why not on the iPod?
 
ziggyonice said:
I'm still waiting for an easy way to convert song formats. I constantly use iTunes to change a song to MP3 or AIFF, but to do this I must dig through Preferences to find the setting, and then change it back when I'm done converting. Why not just have a pop-out menu under Advanced that says "Convert song to...", and select AAC, or MP3, or whatever it may be?
Click to expand...

James17 said:
I second that. Sometimes I purchase songs from iTunes or download podcasts and my iPhone isn't exactly right beside my laptop plugged in so I would like the option to click "Sync Wirelessly" via Wifi possibly for iPhone and iPod Touch.
Click to expand...

Taking cues from both of these suggestions, I think it would be cool it the supposed jukebox only iTunes could also function as a basic audio/video converter. You select a file and in the menu bar would be a section called convert. There, you could choose to convert your file into a selection readable by the iPod. Or they could just add the ability to read more file formats on iTunes and the iPod, that would be fine by me.
 
I don't like how song videos are put in the album on iTunes and my Touch, and I don't want to put them in Movies, nor TV shows.
Furthermore, I can't even play the video when I start it on the Touch, just the audio.
 
Some things I'd like to see which I don't believe I saw listed already.

1.) smarter Smart Playlists. I'd like the ability to do nested and/or functions rather than just one or the other.

For example I might want to have a playlist where it picks out all songs with "Sting" in the Artist field which I've rated 3 stars or higher along with all songs with "The Police" in the Artist field which I've rated 3 stars or higher.

The playlist logic would look something like

Artist contains "Sting"
AND
Rating is greater than "**"

OR

Artist contains "The Police"
AND
Rating is greater than "**"

Unless I'm missing something, the only way to do this right now is to set up two smart playlists (one for Sting and the other for the Police) and then have a third playlist which combines those two. Not very elegant at all. With nested logic, you could do a whole lot more interesting things.

2.) on the ipod, especially when listening to shuffled songs, I always thought it would be useful to somehow be able to access the currently playing artist's songs through some type of hyperlink.

So for example if a song comes up and you're struck by the desire to listen to more of those artist's songs, you could hit one of the buttons which highlights the name of the artist. Clicking down on that takes you directly to the song lists by artist. You could also do something similar by clicking on the album title.

3.) In the info boxes for each song, show a list of the different playlists that the song is currently a part of.

I would find this useful in a case where I may have a protected song which I want to replace with an unprotected version. It would be nice to see which playlists I had placed the protected version on so I won't screw something up or miss something with the replacement.

Jon
 
JPS2008 said:
2.) on the ipod, especially when listening to shuffled songs, I always thought it would be useful to somehow be able to access the currently playing artist's songs through some type of hyperlink.

So for example if a song comes up and you're struck by the desire to listen to more of those artist's songs, you could hit one of the buttons which highlights the name of the artist. Clicking down on that takes you directly to the song lists by artist. You could also do something similar by clicking on the album title.
Click to expand...

The iPod can do something close to what you're talking about, and I do it all the time. When I'm in shuffle mode and hear a song from an artist I want to hear more of right now, I just click the center button about 4 times and turn shuffle mode off. That way it will continue to play the rest of the songs in that album.
 
I'd like to see them add a button for "add to Party Shuffle." It would make it more like an actual jukebox when several people are adding songs. As it stands, you have to right click on the song and choose it from the contextual menu. Also, if they could create an locked down mode that I could use during parties it would be great. I'd like to block access to my computer and to changing playlists, etc. In other words, a jukebox mode where the only thing that works is the ability to add songs to Party Shuffle thru cover flow. Any other access requires a password. I've had too many playlists and songs deleted by drunken idiots!
 
JPS2008 said:
Some things I'd like to see which I don't believe I saw listed already.

1.) smarter Smart Playlists. I'd like the ability to do nested and/or functions rather than just one or the other.

For example I might want to have a playlist where it picks out all songs with "Sting" in the Artist field which I've rated 3 stars or higher along with all songs with "The Police" in the Artist field which I've rated 3 stars or higher.

The playlist logic would look something like

Artist contains "Sting"
AND
Rating is greater than "**"

OR

Artist contains "The Police"
AND
Rating is greater than "**"

Unless I'm missing something, the only way to do this right now is to set up two smart playlists (one for Sting and the other for the Police) and then have a third playlist which combines those two. Not very elegant at all. With nested logic, you could do a whole lot more interesting things.

2.) on the ipod, especially when listening to shuffled songs, I always thought it would be useful to somehow be able to access the currently playing artist's songs through some type of hyperlink.

So for example if a song comes up and you're struck by the desire to listen to more of those artist's songs, you could hit one of the buttons which highlights the name of the artist. Clicking down on that takes you directly to the song lists by artist. You could also do something similar by clicking on the album title.

3.) In the info boxes for each song, show a list of the different playlists that the song is currently a part of.

I would find this useful in a case where I may have a protected song which I want to replace with an unprotected version. It would be nice to see which playlists I had placed the protected version on so I won't screw something up or miss something with the replacement.

Jon
Click to expand...

You can do 1 and 3 now, although not as elegantly as the solutions you've described.

1) Using your example, just add Sting to the grouping or composer for the songs for the The Police and Sting. Then use group or composer instead of artist in smart playlist. This is how I create smart playlists for same artist/different groups scenario.

3) You can right click on any song and mouse to "Show in Playlist." This will show all of the playlists in which the song resides.
 
JPS2008 said:
Some things I'd like to see which I don't believe I saw listed already.

1.) smarter Smart Playlists. I'd like the ability to do nested and/or functions rather than just one or the other.
Click to expand...
Oh yes, that would be awesome! And the ability to copy playlists and folders would be good.

More:
  1. "Remember playback position": Have an option to "forget" the playback position from 0:00 to 0:10 or so, and remember the playback position any other time. Helpful when skipping songs.
  2. Full-screen Cover Flow: Let me switch between playlists and folders.
  3. Visualizer: Keep the Apple logo in there all the time unless I turn it off.
  4. Show/hide items in a playlist/folder/library based on certain conditions.
  5. Multi-select playlists and folders.
  6. When I've selected a playlist in a folder, and then create another playlist, the created playlist appears at the bottom of the playlists, not in the folder. I want it to be in the same folder the selected playlist was in.
  7. A simpler mode that has the main features of iTunes but not all of them. (Separate from "Media Me.")
  8. Mini-mode with "Now playing" box too, so I can see videos.
 
phairphan said:
You can do 1 and 3 now, although not as elegantly as the solutions you've described.

1) Using your example, just add Sting to the grouping or composer for the songs for the The Police and Sting. Then use group or composer instead of artist in smart playlist. This is how I create smart playlists for same artist/different groups scenario.

3) You can right click on any song and mouse to "Show in Playlist." This will show all of the playlists in which the song resides.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I was thinking when I originally wrote that there might be ways of doing some of these things already, which I never figured out how to do. (This is especially true since I have one of the older ipod models which doesn't support coverflow etc.)

Jon
 
bsheridan said:
Make songs or albums that start with 'The' or 'A' be sorted according to the first word and not the second by default! Or at least an option to change it.

I get the reasoning behind artists being sorted as such eg. Beatles, The, but not for albums and songs.
Click to expand...

You can do this already, but you have to change the "Sort by" field in iTunes.

Personally, I like that iTunes sorts by the "second" word instead of "The" or "A." It's always been a pet peeve of mine. To each their own.
 
I thought of another pet peeve of mine about iTunes. Why is everything in the music folder? I have a Movies folder for a reason: to store my movies in! how about something like this?

  • Music - ~/Music/iTunes
  • Movies - ~/Movies/iTunes/Movies
  • TV Shows - ~/Movies/iTunes/TV Shows
  • Music Videos - ~/Movies/iTunes/Music Videos
  • Album Art - ~/Pictures/iTunes/Album Art
  • Podcast - ~/Music/iTunes/Podcasts
  • Mobile Applications - /Applications/Mobile (or something like that)

I love the file hierarchy in Mac OS X, and I wish iTunes would utilize it! I understand that the current setup is nice from a portability aspect (backing up or moving one folder instead of 5+), but the beauty of Mac OS X is its compartmentalization: everything is separate from other areas of the system. It is a nice safety measure.

Heck, even put the iTunes Library, iTunes Music Library.xml, and Previous iTunes Libraries directory in ~/Library/iTunes. I would love to not see any iTunes files other than my content; just like how it is across the rest of the system.

Also, why did the get rid of ~/Applications in Leopard? That would've been a perfect place to store Mobile Apps. I never used it in Tiger, but I can see the purpose of not have apps available to all users.

Is there any practical reason why this shouldn't be done? Maybe some of you developers could teach me a thing or two before I open my mouth. Haha. :)
 
jmadlena said:
I thought of another pet peeve of mine about iTunes. Why is everything in the music folder? I have a Movies folder for a reason: to store my movies in! how about something like this?

  • Music - ~/Music/iTunes
  • Movies - ~/Movies/iTunes/Movies
  • TV Shows - ~/Movies/iTunes/TV Shows
  • Music Videos - ~/Movies/iTunes/Music Videos
  • Album Art - ~/Pictures/iTunes/Album Art
  • Podcast - ~/Music/iTunes/Podcasts
  • Mobile Applications - /Applications/Mobile (or something like that)

I love the file hierarchy in Mac OS X, and I wish iTunes would utilize it! I understand that the current setup is nice from a portability aspect (backing up or moving one folder instead of 5+), but the beauty of Mac OS X is its compartmentalization: everything is separate from other areas of the system. It is a nice safety measure.

Heck, even put the iTunes Library, iTunes Music Library.xml, and Previous iTunes Libraries directory in ~/Library/iTunes. I would love to not see any iTunes files other than my content; just like how it is across the rest of the system.

Also, why did the get rid of ~/Applications in Leopard? That would've been a perfect place to store Mobile Apps. I never used it in Tiger, but I can see the purpose of not have apps available to all users.

Is there any practical reason why this shouldn't be done? Maybe some of you developers could teach me a thing or two before I open my mouth. Haha. :)
Click to expand...

I agree with most of this except the Applications. Why would you want your iPhone apps (that can't run on your computer) mixed in with your Mac apps? I can understand the other files stored in more logical locations because those work on the iPhone/iPod as well as the Mac, but the Mobile apps should just be kept in a library folder where you won't touch them on your computer.
 
I want iTunes to trans-code tracks as it downloads them into mu iPod. iTunes currently does this for the iPod Shuffle. It will convert them to 128Kb.

I have many of CDs ripped to Apple loseless and I'd like to be able to compress them automatically and not have to keep multiple copies in the library
 
tuffluffjimmy said:
I agree with most of this except the Applications. Why would you want your iPhone apps (that can't run on your computer) mixed in with your Mac apps? I can understand the other files stored in more logical locations because those work on the iPhone/iPod as well as the Mac, but the Mobile apps should just be kept in a library folder where you won't touch them on your computer.
Click to expand...

Duh (on my part). I was thinking more about the name of the location than the logic of it. Good idea to keep it with the Library files. Users can't hurt what they don't see.

I change my vote for Mobile Apps to ~/Library/iTunes/Applications.

ChrisA said:
I want iTunes to trans-code tracks as it downloads them into mu iPod. iTunes currently does this for the iPod Shuffle. It will convert them to 128Kb.

I have many of CDs ripped to Apple loseless and I'd like to be able to compress them automatically and not have to keep multiple copies in the library
Click to expand...

Agreed. When you are listening to music in earbuds or other non-state-of-the-art headphones, lossless isn't really needed. All of this power sitting idle in my Mac should be harnessed!
 
jmadlena said:
I thought of another pet peeve of mine about iTunes. Why is everything in the music folder? I have a Movies folder for a reason: to store my movies in!
Click to expand...
Yet another reason why iTunes needs to be more like iMovie '08.

I think a rewrite or at least a revamp is coming up; it needs to be aimed at the future yet grounded in the present. September with the new iPods or January at MWSF 2009.
 
iMacmatician said:
Yet another reason why iTunes needs to be more like iMovie '08.

I think a rewrite or at least a revamp is coming up; it needs to be aimed at the future yet grounded in the present. September with the new iPods or January at MWSF 2009.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go so far as to say iTunes needs to be like iMovie '08, mainly because I don't care much for '08 compared to the previous versions, but I can see picking some of the better features and integrating them into iTunes 8.

A rewrite, or at least a revamp does seem imminent. I am getting tired of iTunes updates that focus on security and DRM fixes, and the latest features seem kind of 'eh' (Cover Flow being a big one I care little about).

We need full cocoa and ground-up rewrite. Start from scratch. Make iTunes great again.
 
iMacmatician said:
Yet another reason why iTunes needs to be more like iMovie '08.

I think a rewrite or at least a revamp is coming up; it needs to be aimed at the future yet grounded in the present. September with the new iPods or January at MWSF 2009.
Click to expand...

I think that a complete rewrite of iTunes is what's really needed, it's getting a little bloated (and dated like the old iMovie [worst piece of junk app ever])

I can see Apple rewriting iTunes, but releasing it side by side with the old one. So you'll still have the old iTunes since the new one is bound to be missing things (like the new iMovie) and Apple will continue to support both, but slowly faze out the old iTunes as the new one improves.
 
jmadlena said:
I wouldn't go so far as to say iTunes needs to be like iMovie '08, mainly because I don't care much for '08 compared to the previous versions, but I can see picking some of the better features and integrating them into iTunes 8.
Click to expand...
Yup. Things like skimming, multiple library support, an "Advanced mode," hiding files, and fast playlist (movie in iMovie) editing using two-pane view are some things that iTunes could take from iMovie.
 
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