Two Suggestions for iTunes
I’ve been using iTunes for quite some time now, and I must say that I’m pretty pleased. It’s easy to control, it’s automatic file organization is fantastic, and the Party Shuffle is very intuitive and flexible. There are a few things, however, that I think could make it an even better product, while not taking away from it’s ease-of-use.
Prompt on Duplicate Songs in Playlists
I manage a few playlists that are pretty large, and when I’m updating them, occasionally I’ll drag something into the playlist that’s already there. iTunes doesn’t tell me this, it just creates a duplicate entry. While I am flattered that iTunes thinks that I always know exactly what I’m doing, it would be nice for it to double check every now and then. I can see why one might want multiple instances of the same song in a playlist, but I wouldn’t.
I would like to see iTunes prompt me if I’m adding a duplicate and ask if I want to create a duplicate entry, or just use the existing song. Perhaps a “Do this for the rest” checkbox could be added so you wouldn’t have to verify each duplicate separately.
Playlist Specific Track Timeline
iTunes already gives you the option of specifying the track starting point and ending point using the “Get Info” section. I would like to be able to specify unique starting and ending points on a per-playlist basis. I have several live albums in my collection, and when I’m listening to the album as a whole, I like the dialogue and additional running-time of the songs. But when I’m listening in a playlist where the songs are not in sequential order, it seems awkward to have Lindsey Buckingham introducing the next song, giving some background history on it’s creation, segueing directly into Franz Ferdinand.
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Published March 23, 2005 by:
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So far there are 13 comments.
I’d also like to be able to run Party Shuffle from a connected iPod…
March 23rd, 2005
Something else I would love to see is have it find the mp3’s already on my machine and be able to do stuff with them. I have 9G on a network drive, and iTunes won’t see them. :(
March 23rd, 2005
Topher, have you tried mounting the network drive? In DOS:
net use z: \path\to\network\share
You can change the Z: drive to whatever you want. This will cause your, in this case, drive Z: to pull from the network drive. From there, ask iTunes to search that drive. It works for me.
March 23rd, 2005
I would like to see it capable of exporting audio files in multiple different formats. As it stands it will export files as .mp3, and it keeps them standard as an .m4a, but I have some audio softwares that require things to stay as .wav or .acc files. I would love more export options..
March 23rd, 2005
Those are great suggestions, Steve, I’ve wished for something like #2 myself many times. (I keep having a hilarious experiences like the Grand Ole Opry DJs introducing Neil Young and Crazy Horse…)
While we’re on the subject: I’ve been wondering for a while if it’s possible for me to have specific playlists of tracks that I can go to and listen to when I like but NOT have those tracks appear in the main library so they’ll never come up in full shuffle mode (where 90% of my time in iTunes is spent)...
I would find this incredibly useful for dealing with a good sized batch of stand-up comedy tracks and some play-along music instructional tracks that I’ve got on the machine. Is this possible?
March 23rd, 2005
I’d like them to let me download my songs more than once! They let you authorize 5 machines to play the music, but only can downoad the file one time!! In my case, right now I can’t burn CD’s at home so having an the ability to downlaod them to a 2nd machine (at my office) would be great. I understand the concept…when I buy a cd, I only get one copy.. but then again a CD it’s not being held hostage in side my computer!
March 24th, 2005
I wish that my iPod had a backwards button, or perhaps a “reverse-it” option so that I could listen to the Satanic underpinnings and hidden messages on all my 70’s rock albums.
March 24th, 2005
Personally, I think there is nothing that can be done to make me enjoy i-tunes. Winamp, Coolplayer, and MediaPlayerClassic 4-life!!!! Now, stop wasting your time reading my nonsense and go do something productive.
March 30th, 2005
On your first suggestion – I’d prefer this as a preference on a per playlist basis. I have one playlist that I use as a shuffle source in which I use duplicates to get some songs to play more frequently. Perhaps this wouldn’t be needed if the party shuffle checkbox “Play higher rated songs more often” were a slider instead (and the iPod had similar party shuffle ability).
I’ve had a similar idea for your second suggestion that may be available in high end DJ systems. It’d be neat to be able to specify how one song transitions to another (track start/stop and cross-fade settings based on the song before/after). The user interface and other implementation details would be very difficult, so I doubt something like this is likely to be seen in iTunes.
April 3rd, 2005
Unless i’m missing something then the function to list one song under several albums would be great and free up my hard drive considerably. If you collect an artist’s back catalogue you end up with exactly the same song several times.
May 17th, 2005
Someone mentioned party shuffle from an iPod; the same is true from Bonjour connections. I hardly ever listen to anything but shuffling, so it’s really annoying when I can’t do that from my Powerbook when listening to my Mac mini.
June 11th, 2005
How about iTunes being able to moniter for new music added to specific folders? It would be very convienient to not have to go look for the music on the computer. And also, how about being able to delete music right inside of iTunes, instead of going to the folder and deleting it?
June 24th, 2005
Hi, I also would like to change something on iTunes. I have the iPod Shuffle, and would like to have a battery meter while in iTunes songs list area. All there is to show me my battery is the light on the back, which can change quite frequently, when you’re not paying attention. There is a song space meter, so I see where they could add one, under it, where it shows the battery for your iPod.
October 28th, 2005