With the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 tight approaching , Applereleased iTunes 9.2 on Wednesdayto provide reenforcement for the fresh phone and O . The only general improvement Apple lists is making album artwork appear more quickly when explore you iTunes depository library .
So what ’s next ? Whither iTunes 10 ? Traditionally , Apple holds a medicine - related event in the fall , announcing new iPod models , and sometimes introduce new characteristic in iTunes . We ’re a few calendar month out , but it ’s worth speculate on what types of feature could amend the software . Here are some ideas for where iTunes can go .
New content types
As thing stand now , iTunes has cover passably much every eccentric of digital message useable . With medicine , video , podcasts , apps , audiobooks , einsteinium - books , and ringtones , there ’s not much Apple could add .
Perhaps as the iPad grows , there will be one or two newfangled subroutine library in the iTunes sidebar : Periodicals , or Newspapers and Magazines . If this were to be the case , it would be interesting for iTunes not only to manage those files ( as it make do e - volume ) , but also be able-bodied to display them . I ’m not certain I ’d want to take a “ newspaper ” on a Mac using iTunes — I’d likely just as soon go to a Website — but consume that capability might be utile at time .
And why not let users show e - books on their computers too ? Amazon ’s Kindle app for Mac already lets read books on your computer , plus it can sync your last - read locations across devices .
Streaming content
One popular speculation is that Apple is planning a music ( and , perhaps , television ) stream service . This is base on the company’sacquisition and closing of Lala , a swarm - base euphony cyclosis service . Will Apple bestow a new Streaming program library , where users can add links to file cabinet they desire to take heed to or view ? Or will this be more of a two - path service , where you could upload your own music to Apple ’s next data point center in North Carolina ? ( If it ’s the latter , I wonder how long it would take me to upload my library of more than 300 GB of music ? ) But that would n’t be novel message , just a fresh way of get at live material .
Improved file support
One matter a deal of iTunes users would roll in the hay to see is bread and butter for more music and video formatting . TakeFLACfiles , for example . While there are some ways to play FLAC files in iTunes , they ’re not ideal . On the television side , there are a number of popular formats that iTunes should plunk for : some of the codecs used in AVI file cabinet , for example , or the popular MKV format used often for HD video file .
I ’m not holding my breath for native financial support , however . Steve Jobshas pointed outthat while such formats are perhaps “ open ” they are not needs unencumbered by submarine patents , or , simply , by patents that have n’t been enforced yet . It ’s very possible that patent owners are just waiting for some big ship’s company , like Apple , to set about using such data formatting to file cause .
Yet Apple does n’t have to summate bread and butter itself , just allow third parties to do so — something QuickTime already enjoys . With an add - on like Perian set up , you’re able to play all sorts of sound and TV file formats using QuickTime . Why ca n’t iTunes play those files too ? I suppose a wad of it has to do with syncing — iTunes only accepts file that you’re able to copy and meet on an iPod , iPhone , iPad , or Apple TV ( although some file will sync to some gadget but not to others ) . But Apple could slow score those files in some way within iTunes . And even for those data file iTunes ca n’t make for , if it ’s speculate to be your cental mass medium library , it could at least stack away them .
This becomes all the interesting when you look at the new Mac mini . Its HDMI embrasure allow you unite it easily and directly to an high-definition television — if iTunes could lay in more types of single file , and countenance for their playback , it would make thesteeper toll compared to the Apple TVeasier to live with .
Other areas
A few other musical theme that might make iTunes better :
What would you like to see in iTunes 10 ?
[ Senior contributor Kirk McElhearn writes about more than just Macs on his blogKirkville . ]
