What’s still missing from iTunes?

[topmounter]

I'd like to see a rejigger of the interface with ways to customize the look, layout and content.

I'd also like to see more robust content management capabilities, especially the ability to maintain a single copy in a loss-less format and transcode to a specific format on a per device basis when sync'ing.

I'd love to see a subscription music service, I have a couple Macs and half a dozen iPods of various vintages, but I just picked up a Zune HD for the Zune Pass and the depth and breadth of music you have access to is amazing.

 

[David Househead]

fields for...
Song Key
Label

Add House Music as a genre!!!

 

[whooleytoo]

A quality Upnp server.

The ability to stream music & video to any Upnp client (PS3, Xbox 360, media extenders, or even the iPhone); rather than just to AppleTV, or rely on 3rd party solutions.

 

[jazzbo]

I like to way to define a track as being on more than one album without having to duplicate it.

I'm been ripping my box sets by Miles Davis and John Coltrane lately but think of them as 'album' collections, so I end up reorganizing everything, putting the original albums together and finding actual artwork. But in doing so I lose the structure of the original box set, which I might want another time. So 'virtual albums' -- basically playlists that appeared in with the other albums and had their own artwork would be great to have.

Or is there some feature/add-on that allows me to do that? -- Associate a track with more than one 'album'.

 

[dXTC]

Simple thing copyright laws prevent US copyrightholders from selling their stuff in the UK (and in Germany etc for that matter) because there is somebody in that country who paid probably an obscene amount of money to get the right to sell this stuff in that paticular country. You need a credit card from the country you want to buy. Same with audible and the likes. That is not likely to change in the near future

This unfortunate situation makes it really difficult for broad-minded music lovers to get the international music they want. I'd love to be able to get Etienne Daho's "La Notte, La Notte" album, but I'm in the USA, so even though I can "see" the French store I get the Big Ixnay. (Strangely enough, his "L'Invitation" album is in the US store.)

 

[Jolly Jimmy]

Search functions for specific words or phrases would be great. Like a proper search engine.

 

[PlaceofDis]

my biggest complaint with iTunes right now is that you're restricted to one genre. why not open it up to multiple genre tags, music can rarely be defined down to one specific and this makes sorting through my music all that much harder.

 

[dXTC]

I like to way to define a track as being on more than one album without having to duplicate it.

I'm been ripping my box sets by Miles Davis and John Coltrane lately but think of them as 'album' collections, so I end up reorganizing everything, putting the original albums together and finding actual artwork. But in doing so I lose the structure of the original box set, which I might want another time. So 'virtual albums' -- basically playlists that appeared in with the other albums and had their own artwork would be great to have.

Or is there some feature/add-on that allows me to do that? -- Associate a track with more than one 'album'.

This would most likely require a near-total rewrite of the app. The iTunes library, the core data file of iTunes, is an XML document-- much like expanded HTML. It is not a true database; at best, it's a pseudo-database when parsed correctly by the iTunes engine.

Your request would be possible under a true relational database model. A single track could have an indefinite number of albums related to it-- or artists or genres, for that matter. If this database scheme were adopted by Apple, launch times would be greatly reduced (only those fields that initially display would have to be read, not the entire XML file), and users would enjoy an unprecedented level of organizational flexibility.

There would be only one caveat: The metadata saved by iTunes in each media file would most likely become nonstandard. Apple would have to create some sort of code to ensure ID3 backward compatibility.

 

[jazzbo]

This would most likely require a near-total rewrite of the app. The iTunes library, the core data file of iTunes, is an XML document-- much like expanded HTML. It is not a true database; at best, it's a pseudo-database when parsed correctly by the iTunes engine.

Your request would be possible under a true relational database model. A single track could have an indefinite number of albums related to it-- or artists or genres, for that matter. If this database scheme were adopted by Apple, launch times would be greatly reduced (only those fields that initially display would have to be read, not the entire XML file), and users would enjoy an unprecedented level of organizational flexibility.

There would be only one caveat: The metadata saved by iTunes in each media file would most likely become nonstandard. Apple would have to create some sort of code to ensure ID3 backward compatibility.

Thanks for the explanation. I knew of the .xml file, but didn't quite grok how tied into the ID3 standard all of iTunes was.

As far as tying to an indefinite number of artists -- ultimately I would like to see that in the media player of the future -- complete queryable credits for a track I'd like to be easily generate a smartlist of "every track Coltrane played soprano sax on between April 1958 and December 1963" or whatever. (I realize all of the discographical data would have to be entered and the fields for recording dates and instrument credits aren't in the iTunes interface currently.)

Anyways, thanks again.

 

[dXTC]

The playlist interface could be a little cleaner.

Are smart playlists broken in the most recent version of iTunes? I tried to create a nested playlist and its just not working.

Match Any:

Artist is Prince
Artist is Prince & The Revolution
Artist is Prince & The New Power Generation

Match all:

Playlist is not Duplicates

Match any:

Grouping is Full Albums
Grouping is Singles
Grouping is Bootlegs

I get a list of EVERYTHING that matches the last criteria only. If I remove two of the artist rules so that I only have "Artist is Prince", the playlist works.

I have tried re-ordering the rules, nothing. What am I doing wrong here?

You could try Match All: Artist starts with "Prince" for the first part.

 

[StruckANerve]

I have zero complaints with Itunes so far.

 

[GGJstudios]

You could try Match All: Artist starts with "Prince" for the first part.

That brings to mind another feature that would be helpful: The ability to restrict searches to particular tags, so I could search for "Beatles" in the Artist and Album Artist fields, and not get "Beatles Influence" by Billy Joel.

It would also be great to be able to search lyrics in native iTunes, without add-ons or scripts.