[defaultmike]

here's the function I want:
it'd be a "go to this song next whenever the current song is done" function
like, say u don't want to jump to another playlist after the current song is done. simple, tag it and u don't have to worry about it any longer. Call it being lazy, but I think it'd be really helpful, especially for iPods

[johnq]

Add an item to the contextual menu:

"Play This Song Next" (or even Album/Artist)

...from any Playlist, Party Shuffle or the Library.

[Jim S.]

I've been pondering all the good ideas in this thread...

Apple includes free software with new Macs (iLife) and gives away iTunes to everyone. One of their subtle objectives is to get you to move up to their intermediate or pro software. In the case of iTunes, they want you to buy iPods and music from the iTMS.

What if they continued to make a free version of iTunes but introduced a new $49 deluxe version (iTunes Pro?). This version would have many of the advanced codecs and (gulp!) would be compatible with Windows Media. In theory, use of this version of iTunes would enable software in the iPod to play Windows Media as well.

A primary reason for this strategy would be to provide a path for people who bought the wrong music player and the wrong music. It must be hard for people who have several hundred dollars sunk into Windows Media to make the switch. Apple wins new customers and rakes in some cash.

Am I crazy?

[Barto]

Yes. Yes you are.

I don't think it's a crazy idea, but I don't think it would work. Post iTunes, WMP and WinAmp, not many people are still willing to fork over money for music players. Like web browsers post-IE.

[Jim S.]

Yes Barto, I feel your pain... but the reason people would fork over the money is because they have already spent a bunch of money on incompatible music and this is a way to make their investment compatible.

But another major opportunity is to build new functionality into the software so people would want it for other reasons as well. For example, perhaps it would provide advanced DJ capabilities. Also, more flexible and advanced encoding and decoding options. Perhaps more/flexible interface options.

If it adds value, people would buy it. Maybe.

[Jim S.]

On second thought, what if this was modelled after Quicktime versus Quicktime Pro where you could buy a key and enter it in a registration field to gain new functionality. The rumor below says the new Quicktime Pro will be reduced to $19.99 so what if some of these codecs (including Windows Media) were available for a $20 toll? That sounds more feasible.

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/...09142551.shtml

u fecking newbs u h4v3 no 1d3a th1s is all und03n b3cau4e s73v3 j0bz 1s no2t [g0nna4 sh0 u5 cau3 h3 1s t3h l4m3

[Luca]

Hey um... hax0r, would you mind not ALWAYS posting in hax0r/l33t speak?

[HOM]

Here's a brain-dead simple idea...

Why doesn't the browse area filter out based on the search field?

[Jim S.]

HOM, could you elaborate? The song list does filter on what you enter in the search field.

[Luca]

Jim, have you tried using Browse mode? The button in the upper right corner of the iTunes window, labeled Browse, will drop down a few fields that let you browse your songs. Choose the genre in the first column, and all the artists that appear in that genre will show up in the second column. Choose the artist, and each of their albums will appear in the third column. It progressively narrows down your choices.

HOM is saying that if you type something into the search field while you have certain browsing criteria selected, it automatically unsets any selected criteria and searches the entire song list. So let's say you have your browsing criteria set to show the Beatles. You want to play "Penny Lane" so you start typing in the search field. As you type, it unsets the browse criteria, finding ALL songs in your entire music library containing the word "Penny." This can be fixed by putting all your Beatles songs into a playlist and then doing a search of the playlist, but I don't see why they have to mess with the browsing behavior like that.

[Bubbles]

The only thing that I can think of that I'd like to see is that the party shuffle actually shuffles through all the songs you have. Mine seems to shuffle through the same songs over and over again, even though I have thousands for it to choose from.

[Jim S.]

Originally Posted by Luca Jim, have you tried using Browse mode? The button in the upper right corner of the iTunes window, labeled Browse, will drop down a few fields that let you browse your songs. Choose the genre in the first column, and all the artists that appear in that genre will show up in the second column. Choose the artist, and each of their albums will appear in the third column. It progressively narrows down your choices. HOM is saying that if you type something into the search field while you have certain browsing criteria selected, it automatically unsets any selected criteria and searches the entire song list. So let's say you have your browsing criteria set to show the Beatles. You want to play "Penny Lane" so you start typing in the search field. As you type, it unsets the browse criteria, finding ALL songs in your entire music library containing the word "Penny." This can be fixed by putting all your Beatles songs into a playlist and then doing a search of the playlist, but I don't see why they have to mess with the browsing behavior like that.

Thanks, Luca. I had never used that feature before now I understand what HOM was talking about. I noticed that there are a couple of options in iTunes preferences to see genres and compilations while browsing. It's a pretty nice feature but I'm not sure how much I will use it. We'll see...

[BuonRotto]

Bubbles, make sure that when you go to the Party Shuffle source, the checkbox at the bottom of the list labeled, "Play higher rated songs more often" is left unchecked.

[Bubbles]

yeah it is unchecked, and I haven't rated my songs actually

[Jim S.]

If the rumored Apple-Sirius iPod is true, wouldn't it make sense that iTunes would be enabled to stream Sirius from the internet? Seems like you would need to enter subscription information in preferences similar to .Mac.

Perhaps the iPod wouldn't really need a built-in receiver... maybe it would just be podcast material downloaded to the hard drive. That would allow all existing iPods to take advantage of Sirius.

http://www.ipodder.org/whatIsPodcasting

What do you think?

[Paul]

Sirius/XM support in iTunes would be absolutely amazing...

[Unbeliever]

what i REALLY want is an improved songs management for my iPod.
and by song management i mean to check if a song is allready on my iPod and NOT copy if it`s on the iPod. I need this in manual sync mode.

i have around 20gigs of tunes and my 15gigger can`t hold it all, so i`m using the manual sync.

the thing that ticks me off is that you can drag a SAME album as much time as you want on the iPod and it will copy the files on the iPod even thought they`re allready there. And if i put an album on my iPod, and then add a playlist that has some of the songs from the same album on the iPod, those songs gets doubled, or tripple, quadrupled, and so on, if i have the same songs in other playlists.

So when browse to an album i get this:

Song1
Song1
Song1
Song2
Song3
Song4
Song4

and so on. And the "Find doubles" in iTunes 4.7 doesn`t work on the iPod >.<

Also an option to auto search for songs if they have been moved to another location, or at least remove all songs with "!" would be a God given.

Sorry for a lil rant, just spent 20 mins cleaning my iPod from doubles

[Messiahtosh]

Seen this?

iTunes Producer patent application reveals interface
December 23 - 11:27 EST** Apple has filed for a patent covering its iTunes Producer application, which is used by record companies and artists to encode and send music to the iTunes Music Store. "The patent includes screenshots of the application, which Apple only distributes to authorized musicians and record labels," reports Waxy.org. "One screenshot includes some interesting fields, such as Parental Advisory warnings, BPM, and various sales and copyright information. There's a button for adding Lyrics, which may indicate future support for lyric searching in iTunes Music Store.

[TednDi]

Yup,

Here is the screenshot.

Note: I don't have an NDA, Don't work for apple in any way, this is a public record therefore... Don't bother to name me in any suit or I will counter for harassment and seek damages.

Damn iPoenas,

Now here is the link of the image,


http://waxy.org/random/images/weblog...nt_figure6.gif

[rasmits]

Music video searching! I said that already I think, but today I was trying to find one but I couldn't. I knew it WAS there, but now it's lost somewhere... Oh well. I need something to replace Yahoo Launch, which I used a lot until we got rid of our last windows computer.

There's a feature in Musicmatch Jukebox, which I would looooooove to see in iTunes: the ability to "guess" the MP3 tags from the filename.
For example, if you have the file "David Bowie - Reality - 01 - New Killer Star.mp3", iTunes would automatically write the tags: "Artist=David Bowie", "Album=Reality", "Track=1", "Title=New Killer Star"...
That would be awsome!

A new feature that I think could be useful would be the ability to seamlessly swap batches of songs to an iPod.

Scenario: I have a 20gb iPod, and I would like to remove all of its songs, and replace them with a completely different set of 20gb worth of songs from my library. Connect the iPod, push magic button, and it happens.

Most people probably dont have a need for this function, due to not having massively huge libraries. But this function would be very useful if you have a mini, or if Apple does indeed create a lower capacity flash based player.

Of course the feature would need to have some way to influence what is transferred - maybe you can build playlists that will always be there, and flush everything else.

Maybe call the feature something like easyswap.

[irchs]

Please give us some official Ogg support, with streaming, and hopefully iPod support too. Rumor has it that the new newer processors going into the iPod have the power to decode Ogg as a reasonable rate, so this feature wouldn't go unappreciated.

And for informative purposes, Ogg is much better at lower bitrates than any other codec, particularly the newer versions.

Thanks

Jan

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Unbeliever what i REALLY want is an improved songs management for my iPod. and by song management i mean to check if a song is allready on my iPod and NOT copy if it`s on the iPod. I need this in manual sync mode.

So you want manual sync to be more automatic?

[atomicbartbeans]

Yes, shuffle is weighted, probably because Apple subliminally wants us to use *their* format and *their* music service. I suggest popping in a CD-RW, set burning CD's to "MP3 CD" in preferences, and burning that with all your AAC/iTMS downloads (each burn holds 150 or so). Do this by making a smart playlist of AAC files. After you burned it, delete them from your library and re-import them from your CD (you can erase the CD afterwards). iTunes has a good MP3 encoder, so you won't notice any quality difference. Then, all of your collection will be in mp3 format, including your iTMS downloads.

[Kickaha]

Originally Posted by Bubbles The only thing that I can think of that I'd like to see is that the party shuffle actually shuffles through all the songs you have. Mine seems to shuffle through the same songs over and over again, even though I have thousands for it to choose from.

Did you set it to select from all, or some subset? Check at the bottom of the screen that Source is set to Library and not a playlist, and ensure that 'Play higher rated songs more often' is unchecked.

atomicbartbeans, I don't suppose you have any confirming evidence of your assertion? It certainly isn't the case for my library that I can tell.

[atomicbartbeans]

What I just told you how to do is convert all of your AAC downloads to mp3 format, so shuffled play works properly. Nothing too fancy?

[Kickaha]

I meant your assertion that shuffle is weighted towards iTMS AAC files. Do you have any data to back that up? I'm not seeing it on my system, and the number of people who have been confused by the concept of 'random' with respect to shuffle has been large. ("OMG! It played two Justin songs back to back! That is like sooooo not random!")

[Unbeliever]

Originally Posted by Kickaha So you want manual sync to be more automatic?

no i just want iTunes to check in iPod's database if a song i'm trying to add is allready there.

I have 25gigs of music and a 15gig iPod so automatic update is out of the question. It's annoying as hell to add 2 playlists and if there`s a song in both of those newly added playlists, iTunes will add it TWICE on the iPod

If i make 2 playlists in my iTunes and add "Norah Jones - Sunrise" in both of them, after i add the playlists to my iPod and go Music>Artist>Norah Jones>Feels Like Home, song "Sunrise" will appear TWICE in the list. I can add that song to million playlists and when i add the playlists to iPod, it will list them a million times.