What's new about 'Home sharing'?!?!

[jk000]

Is it me or is home sharing nothing new?

I can't seem to understand what's new about the feature...

Apple says you can now authorise up to five computers in your home to share together with purchases. Couldn't we do that before with iTunes 8? Or not? Can we do this ACCROSS iTunes accounts within the home? (That would be understandably cool).

Even if this sharing purchases within the home is a new feature....surely it's being over-hyped?

 

[ethical]

Before, all you could do was access and listen to the music on another iTunes in your network... now (I think) you can copy the files onto your computer for offline use....or at least that's how I've understood it, I'm yet to try it out.

 

[moseleyite]

I've tried it and found it makes the job of sharing music easier, My wife and I purchase music independently of each other and keep it on two computers - a MacBook and an iMac (we have an account each on each machine).

Previously, sharing music could be a bit of a chore but now we can access each other's libraries and import and music which we want to share. You need to authorise each library to share content and I think that you have to use the same storeID each time (perhaps somebody could clarify this).

This feature seems to me to be another step in the media-hub direction. I know that's a much-trodden rumour but Home Sharing would seem to be an evolutionary step towards it perhaps as part of an tv "hub".

 

[jamesdmc]

Before, all you could do was access and listen to the music on another iTunes in your network... now (I think) you can copy the files onto your computer for offline use....or at least that's how I've understood it, I'm yet to try it out.

I have three macs. I make my purchases on the Mac Pro since that's where I do most of my listening. Previously, I had to drag newly purchased tracks from the Mac Pro's library to Dropbox, then transfer those tracks to the iMac and the MacBook. With Home Sharing, the other two macs show up in the side bar. I can filter out the newly added tracks and transfer them to the other two computers from iTunes, keeping my libraries in sync. It's neat. Not groundbreaking, but neat. I like it.

 

[moseleyite]

I can filter out the newly added tracks and transfer them to the other two computers from iTunes, keeping my libraries in sync. It's neat. Not groundbreaking, but neat. I like it.

I agree - the ability to view only the tracks in the shared library which you don't have in your own library is, as you say, "neat". I can now identify any tracks which my wife has bought and not have to trawl through thousands of other tracks which I already have.