I think it’s safe to say that I put iTunes through its paces more than most people do. As of this writing, I have more than 27,000 tracks in iTunes. That’s not a complete representation of my music collection. I’ve got another 40 or so CDs that I’ve acquired in the past month which will get ripped, and I’m in the process of re-ripping my existing CD collection to ensure that everything’s in ALAC. I mostly like iTunes, but there are some things that I wish would change.
Over-the-air podcasts
Once I have listened to an episode of a podcast on my iPhone, I’d like to be able to update that podcast to get the next podcast in the queue. I feel this pain most acutely on the weekends, when I’ve run out of podcasts on my iPhone but I can’t update since I sync my iPhone with my work Mac. I know that there are apps like Podcaster, but they require that I only listen to podcasts on my iPhone.
Device-independent podcasts
Related to the previous point, the only reason that I sync my iPhone to my work Mac is podcasts. I have some podcasts that I like listening to on my Mac while I’m working, such as the All Songs Considered live concert podcast. I shouldn’t have to think about where I’m going to listen to a podcast and decide which of my Macs/iPhones/iPods will be with me when I am going to be there.
Better auto-complete
Since I have a massive iTunes library, there’s a lot for auto-complete to draw from. But auto-complete also gets in the way.
This is most noticeable when capitalisation between what it’s trying to auto-complete and what I’m actually typing differ. Once I get past the point where iTunes gives up on auto-complete because my new entry isn’t in its database, it keeps the capitalisation that it already had. For example, I was entering the band name ALO today. I typed A, and it came up with Al Franken. Then I typed L, so it kept Mr Franken, but changed my upper-case L to a lower-case l. And then I typed O, but it still had the lower-case l there. In other words, I entered that information, don’t lose it.
Another potential improvement for auto-complete would be to match the composers field with the artist field. If I’m in the composers field and start to type the first letter of the artist’s name, don’t give me the first entry that matches that alphabetically. Give me that artist; if I keep on typing more, then maybe the song’s composer isn’t the artist. But it usually is, so save me a little bit of typing.
Improved ability to update an album
As I mentioned earlier, I’m going through my CD collection. Since I’ve been using digital music for years and years, my music is in a variety of formats. As I re-rip my discs, I delete the old version. I’d love to be able to select the old version and tell iTunes that I’m updating this album, and thus keep its tags and metadata. I know that I can do this if I’ve kept all of its tags the same as what’s in the CDDB, but I correct the tags on my files when there’s incorrect or incomplete information in them. I don’t want to lose the metadata because the CDDB is wrong.
Better handling of the “composers” field
Today, the composers field is just treated as a single text-entry box. But modern music usually has multiple composers. I’d like them to implement some kind of delineator (slash or semicolon would work well). Then I could have auto-complete work on the individual composers of a song, instead of the whole list of composers of a song. For example, Michael Stipe’s sister Lynda has writing credits on a song on Fables of the Reconstruction, so I’d love to be able to type “Bill Berry; Peter Buck; Mike Mills; Lynda Stipe; Michael Stipe” for that song and save myself a little bit of typing since everyone but Ms Stipe is a composer on another song in my library.
Carriage returns in comments
I love the comments field. It makes my geeky little heart sing with joy. I’d love to keep more information in the comments field, but it’s hard to do so because I can’t use a carriage return to provide visual separation. I don’t want to write a novel in the comments field. For example, I have a smart playlist for “covers”, which looks through the comments field for that string. I also use the comment field for live songs, to note when and where they were recorded. Without a carriage return, a song which has both of these pieces of information is messy. It’s keeping me from using the comments field for other smart playlists, too.
What improvements would you like to see in iTunes?
