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Five Features We Want to See in iTunes

lifehacker.com — Last week Apple released iTunes 9, and while the update brings a few nice feature improvements here and there, the popular desktop music player still has a lot of room for improvement. Here are five things we're dying to see from iTunes.

Who dugg this? Made popular Sep 18, 2009

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  • seraph1982, on 09/17/2009, -5/+121a memory footprint smaller than the summation of the great lakes
  • thelastknowngod, on 09/18/2009, -0/+63FLAC support for both iTunes and iPods
  • Monotonousblob, on 09/17/2009, -8/+66How about folder monitoring? I'm sick of having to fing 3rd party programs just to have it update my iTunes library. This is one of the major reasons why I switched over to Mediamonkey.
  • Walwyn, on 09/17/2009, -6/+62AVI Support!
  • Pxtl, on 09/18/2009, -3/+52An updater that doesn't try to trick me into getting every other product that Apple has ever ported to the PC. No, I don't want Safari you SOBs.
  • planetexpress, on 09/18/2009, -6/+48Before we get that i'd like a copy of iTunes that can:

    Load within a minute.
    Not crash within a minute.
    Be happy with me doing more than one thing with the application at a time.
    Oh, and whilst we're at it, standard Windows UI and behaviours please!

    Once they've got that lot going for them, then i think they can chop that 150 / 200MB footprint!
  • mattus, on 09/18/2009, -1/+39The ability to sync an iPhone with more than one computer. That restriction is inane.
  • scottybiggs, on 09/18/2009, -7/+44Is less suck considered a feature?
  • jimmypopjr, on 09/18/2009, -2/+38How about some of those 69-cent songs we were promised when they upped the cost of their catalog?

    edit: spent the timer countdown until I can't edit looking for 69-cent songs. ONLY ones I could find were some tracks from The Bloodhound Gang. Tracks like the lead singer coughing, or someone taking a *****. THAT'S IT.
  • xcpleprechaun, on 09/18/2009, -1/+28I'd like to see better duplicate recognition and removal tools.

    iTunes thinks some songs are duplicates just because they're the same track name, even if it's by a different artist, has a different play time, or is on a different album.

    Also, when I have a large quantity of duplicates, I have to go through and pick every other track that is listed in order to properly dispose of them. This can take hours sometimes!
  • CaviMike, on 09/18/2009, -6/+27There's enough crap on itunes as it is. How about removing some of this *****?
  • Altotus, on 09/18/2009, -4/+23The problem there is that you're using the Windows version. iTunes was designed and written for a different platform. The extra time to load, high memory usage, and mediocre performance stem form having to load so much additional supporting code. It should be plenty stable though (depending on the 3rd party codecs you have installed).

    Running on the MacBook Pro from work (ca. Jan. 2007), iTunes 9 takes about 4 sec to load and uses 40M of RAM -- and it plays plenty nice with other apps.

    I don't suspect you'll ever see Windows-standard UI and behaviors though. That'd would mean either forking the product or adding more bloat, and neither would make any sense from Apple's perspective.
  • Ica7us, on 09/18/2009, -3/+21Support for non ipods? Really?

    Apple cares about iTunes and the music store as a way to sell ipods. Letting other players sync with itunes accomplishes nothing for them because if you're not using an ipod, you didn't buy one. They are already the largest retailer of music in the world, and I think they're only happy about that because that means they'll sell more ipods.
  • muzzymate, on 09/18/2009, -2/+19iTunes 9 added an "Automatically add to iTunes" folder in your "iTunes Media"/"iTunes Music" folder. Check out the Apple support article here: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3832
  • freakjim, on 09/18/2009, -0/+15FLAC please.
  • Seng, on 09/18/2009, -2/+16I have 80, and 99% of it is ripped directly from CDs I own at 320k bitrate. It doesn't take long to reach that...
  • evilspleen, on 09/18/2009, -2/+166.) Remove nickelback from the itunes store
  • Areid10990, on 09/18/2009, -2/+16I'd like a shuffle feature that doesn't give me the same string of songs all the time. I'll probably get dugg down because nobody else I know seems to agree, but I can't stand it
  • RudeTurnip, on 09/18/2009, -2/+16They have it in the new version, but they don't make it obvious though. Take a look at Arstechnica's review of iTunes 9 and they'll tell you how to do it.
  • blackinthmiddle, on 09/18/2009, -0/+13What I would love is something I've never heard anyone talk about. A few of my songs have a little intro, then the song. Of course, they're listed as two separate songs. Nothing worse than hearing the song intro, only to have it jump to a completely different song. Sometimes when the intro starts, I force it to then play the song after the intro. However, I would LOVE to be able to flag a song and it's intro so that if it plays the intro, it has to play the song next. And if it was going to play the song, it has to first play the intro, then the song. A small feature, but I would love it.
  • TimtheTaxMan, on 09/18/2009, -1/+14DVD to Ipod
  • ALink2ThePast, on 09/18/2009, -1/+13Dugg, not because I'm and audio snob who only listens to FLAC (not true, most of my music is still mp3), but because I think the world should adopt FLAC as a universal lossless format the way that it has excepted mp3 as a near universal lossy format
  • scooterbaga, on 09/18/2009, -2/+12I've always preferred the method of adding it to iTunes and having itunes organize the music folder. To me, folder monitoring is so downloaded music can automatically go straight to the library and from there to the ipod.

    The random idiotic crap that people put into there mp3 tags is the number one reason I'd never use a folder monitor. A lot of times the track info is dumped directly into the song field, no artists, no albums, nothing.

    I prefer dumping tracks into a new playlist in itunes so I can fix all the ridiculous ***** people do to their mp3 tags. (Which is greatly facilitated with doug's apple scripts)
  • Rudegar, on 09/18/2009, -0/+10think they make some money on the music store too
  • lydiasky, on 09/17/2009, -5/+14Yes! that's the reason why I stopped using iTunes and stuck with WMP. I got tired of always having to drag in folders so it would update itself.
  • alazapram, on 09/18/2009, -1/+10Sounds like you want iTunes for Mac. It's iTunes for Windows that's the bloated beast from hell.
  • clippclop, on 09/18/2009, -2/+11Altotus

    Using the standard windows API would not "add more bloat". It would reduce bloat significantly. And, if it is programmed properly, that should just be a matter of replacing the presentation layer.
  • Hoogs, on 09/18/2009, -1/+10I just wish it was more snappy. Whenever I click on something, especially menus on the side, there is a slight delay and everything is just sluggish in general.
  • trizzleatl, on 09/18/2009, -3/+12I'd like to see it stop pegging one of my processor cores @ 100% when I close it.
  • Myotis85, on 09/18/2009, -0/+8@everyone that wants folder monitoring. Its a folder your itunes music library folder called "Add to iTunes". Just make a shortcut to that folder and place it anywhere you want. iTunes automatically monitors this folder.

    Although I don't know why Apple didn't just give the user the ability to add which folder could be monitored.
  • scooterbaga, on 09/18/2009, -0/+8You mean Handbrake?
  • mochaman, on 09/18/2009, -0/+8For me my most wanted feature is WiFi synch, I don't want to be dealing with cables lets cut them loose. I'm surprise it didn't make it into the list.
  • crashlock, on 09/18/2009, -0/+8Perian

    http://perian.org/
  • ryanosborne, on 09/18/2009, -3/+11 iTunes has playlist abilities. Use them.
  • LuCiFer6, on 09/18/2009, -0/+8I think he meant having your library stored in one central location like a media server or on TimeCapsule and all your computers being able to point to that locally stored library and being able to make changes to your library from all of your computers and of your computers being able to see that change.

    Right now I have my library stored on an AirDisk through my APE; and only one Mac can use the library at a time because you'll get the "file lock error" when trying to open the library from a different pc/Mac.
  • Pxtl, on 09/18/2009, -0/+7This. The metadata is really cumbersome when you start getting into bootlegs and concert recordings - managing that stuff alongside the official album music is a massive pain.
  • ripter, on 09/18/2009, -0/+7Or how about a shuffle that doesn't play the same band every other song when I have 50 bands in the list!
  • SouthsideIrish, on 09/18/2009, -0/+7That's probably why the person included iTunes Lite! Next time read the article.
  • HerrSchnuff, on 09/18/2009, -1/+8Haha, oh wow...
  • adamb10, on 09/18/2009, -2/+9How about a major rewrite?
    Native windows application?
  • MacBandit, on 09/18/2009, -0/+6You have two options currently part of iTunes although they aren't quite as good as your idea. 1st you can tell iTunes the song is part of a gapless album then not to shuffle gapless albums so that they always play as a group. 2nd when ripping the songs from a CD you can rip multiple songs into one file.
  • scooterbaga, on 09/18/2009, -0/+6That's brilliant.
  • MacParrot, on 09/18/2009, -1/+7Fortunately you also have that ability!
  • Monotonousblob, on 09/18/2009, -1/+7iTunes is not the only place I buy music, I would rather buy a CD and rip it myself or use Amazon. iTunes is not the onlt place that sells music, plus I have a Zune, gave my father my iPod.

    If iTunes doesn't have folder monitoring because they want a monopoly on how people get music, and not a technological inability, then that's pretty upsetting. I understand why they would want that, but it doesn't make it right to take away features in order to control people's music.
  • cosworth99, on 09/18/2009, -1/+7I only need one feature in the Windows version:

    SPEED or better yet a lack of molasses like slowness.
  • DCdigging, on 09/18/2009, -0/+6amen.
  • raynar, on 09/18/2009, -2/+7so use picasa, douche
  • scooterbaga, on 09/18/2009, -0/+5@desertDenizen: playlist folders?
  • fury420, on 09/18/2009, -0/+5yeah, iTunes support for all the codecs/formats that Quicktime Player itself can support would be awesome
  • Pxtl, on 09/18/2009, -0/+5Or at the very least, good support for adding a FLAC to iTunes and keeping it side-by-side with an automatically transcoded version that can be used on the iPod. When I play it in iTunes, use the FLAC. When I play it in the iPod, use the autogenerated AAC.
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