With the idea of iTunes 8, I personnally think that a face lift would be a bad idea, if its not broken, don't fix it. Features wise are always welcome. If iTunes is still using old code, then it would be an idea for it to be re-written. Its slower & lags behind Media-Monkey & Winamp with features file types & speed. Every app Apple has produced has been enjoyed by many & nothing will be perfect & be 100% enjoyed by all users, as with the iPods. The only lacking feature on the iTouch is no xBox 36o support, but then that will come as will other features.
One thing you have to remember, is that programming is difficult & takes alot of time. If a iTunes 8 were to be written from scratch they could implement alot more into the code, instead of adding in features & creating more mess & taking up more & more space on the HDD.
Tagging would be a brilliant idea, I have alot of CD's I've ripped to my library so a Moods tag would be good, a better random feature whereby it uses the BMP to match the next song better, or uses the mood tag. I know you can do this by creating playlists, but they would then be easier to create with more tags. Also,
signal built in would be a good feature plus the ability to stream your music to your iTouch/ iPhone. If hooked up to an iPod dock, you don't have to worry about the power being drained.
I also think a server version should be implemented into iTunes. This way you could have the music on one drive & shared among other clients, yes you can do that already, but something where its stored on one drive, like one machine or on a NAS. This way nothing gets stored locally to any machine keeping the startup time quick & then the server unit has the indexing fully loaded. Then, if your taking the laptop away with you on holiday, you can either put it on your iPod or sync a playlist to an iTunes client like software that simulates our iTunes of today (7.6) and sync's like an iPod. That way the whole family can enjoy the music. This could be achieved by ripping the CD in the kitchen on the laptop & then stored on the server drive. This would stop the sharing feature as it can slow down either or both machines, especially with large libraries. I have 2 machines in our home, my dads is connected to a firewire800 ext HDD with nearly 30,000 mp3's & I have nearly 5,000 .aiff tracks, when we try to share, it takes a while to index them. At least this way, sharing will be more fun. & the same could be said for video files. But then you could have each user being able to only access certain files? Like for example, if you have a child with an iMac or MacBook who is under the age of 13, you could have his account only access music that does not have explicit lyrics or a film rated 13 or below. Might sound daft, but a nice feature about the 36o is that when friends & family come round & the kids want to play on the 36o or watch a film on the 36o, they can only watch & play items within their age range.
Just few ideas
