How would you make iTunes better?

[tmtomh]

Great thread! My suggestions:

 

1. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned here yet (unless i missed it): Add a bit-Perfect mode to iTunes where it can take over the Mac's audio output and do on-the-fly resolution switching like the 3rd party audiophile apps do. This is by far the #1 sonic barrier for audiophile use of iTunes if your library contains high-res files. As many folks know, the $9.99 Bit Perfect app adds this capability to iTunes, so basically my idea is for Apple to purchase BitPerfect from the developer and integrate it into iTunes to make it 100% seamless. Currently BitPerfect is great, but gapless playback can be a little hit or miss because Apple has not made the "up next" function scriptable, meaning that sometimes BitPerfect preloads songs in the order they were added to the library, rather than in their actual play order.
2. Switch from Soundcheck to the standard ReplayGain method of normalization, and allow for, and respect, separate shuffle (track by track) and album ReplayGain normalization settings for each track.
3. Add FLAC support to iTunes and all macOS and iOS devices.

 

As someone who uses iTunes 99% for locally stored music, I am sympathetic to those who'd like to see iTunes split into audio and video apps, or who'd like to see the iTunes Store split off, etc. But I agree with those who say Apple can't really do that and still serve the majority of their users properly. I would like to see an "audiophile mode" or something in the Advanced section of the Preferences for iTunes - that checkbox would hide the Movies, TV etc sections, perhaps change iTunes' interface to some kind of "dark mode," and enable bit-perfect output with on-the-fly resolution switching as noted above. 

 

 

[foodfiend]

1 hour ago, tmtomh said:

Great thread! My suggestions:

 

1. I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned here yet (unless i missed it): Add a bit-Perfect mode to iTunes where it can take over the Mac's audio output and do on-the-fly resolution switching like the 3rd party audiophile apps do. This is by far the #1 sonic barrier for audiophile use of iTunes if your library contains high-res files. As many folks know, the $9.99 Bit Perfect app adds this capability to iTunes, so basically my idea is for Apple to purchase BitPerfect from the developer and integrate it into iTunes to make it 100% seamless. Currently BitPerfect is great, but gapless playback can be a little hit or miss because Apple has not made the "up next" function scriptable, meaning that sometimes BitPerfect preloads songs in the order they were added to the library, rather than in their actual play order.

I honestly do not believe that Apple would develop a bit-perfect mode to iTunes, for as long as the record industry does not allow Apple to sell lossless music. They are not a charitable organisation, developing software with no real payback, especially when the perceived market for this is relatively small.

 

Apple's licensing deadlock with the record industry majors has also resulted in their attempt at "Mastered for iTunes". I think this was Apple trying to make as much money from the music store, while within the confines of their licensing agreements with the labels. However, the real market for better audio-quality (the audiophiles) would rather pay for lossless and hi-res music, rather than AAC files that are optimised for iTunes playback.

 

Meanwhile, they are happy for the likes of BitPerfect to inhabit the market. Remember that at less than $10 a pop, the payback is small for Apple. It is also unlikely that Apple would be able to charge a premium over BitPerfect for their own version of the software.

 

1 hour ago, tmtomh said:

I would like to see an "audiophile mode" or something in the Advanced section of the Preferences for iTunes - that checkbox would hide the Movies, TV etc sections, perhaps change iTunes' interface to some kind of "dark mode," and enable bit-perfect output with on-the-fly resolution switching as noted above.

Out of curiosity, would you use such a thing, even if it were purely cosmetic (i.e. iTunes continues to take the same amount of RAM and HDD space, only that the movie and other bits do not appear)?

[tmtomh]

5 hours ago, foodfiend said:

I honestly do not believe that Apple would develop a bit-perfect mode to iTunes, for as long as the record industry does not allow Apple to sell lossless music. They are not a charitable organisation, developing software with no real payback, especially when the perceived market for this is relatively small.

 

Apple's licensing deadlock with the record industry majors has also resulted in their attempt at "Mastered for iTunes". I think this was Apple trying to make as much money from the music store, while within the confines of their licensing agreements with the labels. However, the real market for better audio-quality (the audiophiles) would rather pay for lossless and hi-res music, rather than AAC files that are optimised for iTunes playback.

 

Meanwhile, they are happy for the likes of BitPerfect to inhabit the market. Remember that at less than $10 a pop, the payback is small for Apple. It is also unlikely that Apple would be able to charge a premium over BitPerfect for their own version of the software.

 

Out of curiosity, would you use such a thing, even if it were purely cosmetic (i.e. iTunes continues to take the same amount of RAM and HDD space, only that the movie and other bits do not appear)?

 

Great point RE Apple not offering lossless/high res music and the licensing issue.

 

I would indeed use an "audiophile mode" in iTunes, even if it just minimized things cosmetically. I would, however, value the feature more highly if it also enabled a bit perfect mode - because the main reason I want a streamlined interface is that I control my main stereo's iTunes interface remotely via Screen Sharing. I don't control it via Apple's "Remote" app from an iDevice, precisely because I need to use iTunes with BitPerfect - so it's all about the bit-perfect mode for me, one way or the other.

[Ralf11]

extrapolating a bit... how do music purveyors know if they are losing customers due to lack of Redbook, HiRes, etc.??

 

e.g. a poster here recently got fed up with Spotify's low SQ and moved to Tidal, despite the relative lack of program material - but I bet he didn't notify Spotify's marketing people...

[foodfiend]

1 minute ago, tmtomh said:

I would indeed use an "audiophile mode" in iTunes, even if it just minimized things cosmetically. I would, however, value the feature more highly if it also enabled a bit perfect mode - because the main reason I want a streamlined interface is that I control my main stereo's iTunes interface remotely via Screen Sharing. I don't control it via Apple's "Remote" app from an iDevice, precisely because I need to use iTunes with BitPerfect - so it's all about the bit-perfect mode for me, one way or the other.

I used to use Apple's "Remote" app, in the days when the likes of Amarra was tied to iTunes, and was missing it when both Audirvana and Amarra moved from iTunes integration.

 

Is there a reason why you are sticking with iTunes/BitPerfect, instead of the likes of Audirvana or Amarra? I honestly haven't used my copy of BitPerfect for some time, and did not realize that BitPerfect cannot be used with iTunes Remote. Not sure why this would be so, if I could use "Remote" with Amarra in iTunes integration mode.

[foodfiend]

3 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

extrapolating a bit... how do music purveyors know if they are losing customers due to lack of Redbook, HiRes, etc.??

 

e.g. a poster here recently got fed up with Spotify's low SQ and moved to Tidal, despite the relative lack of program material - but I bet he didn't notify Spotify's marketing people...

I would think that they would go by sales/subscriber numbers as well as market share data. Ultimately, it is $ that does the talking...

[tmtomh]

Just now, foodfiend said:

I used to use Apple's "Remote" app, in the days when the likes of Amarra was tied to iTunes, and was missing it when both Audirvana and Amarra moved from iTunes integration.

 

Is there a reason why you are sticking with iTunes/BitPerfect, instead of the likes of Audirvana or Amarra? I honestly haven't used my copy of BitPerfect for some time, and did not realize that BitPerfect cannot be used with iTunes Remote. Not sure why this would be so, if I could use "Remote" with Amarra in iTunes integration mode.

 

I stick with iTunes/BitPerfect because it enables me to keep my library management and music interface consistent across all my computers, and because BitPerfect is only $9.99 and works great; in short, it seemed the simplest solution for me. I also like to fiddle around online while I listen to music (as I'm doing right now in fact), and I'd rather do that via my MacBook Air than my iPhone anyway (I don't own an iPad).

As for not being able to control BitPerfect via the Apple Remote app, you actually might be right that, as long as my music server (a headless Mac mini) is running as normal with BitPerfect, the Remote app might indeed simply control iTunes, with iTunes routing bit-perfect output out of the mini's USB port via BitPerfect.

[foodfiend]

21 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

I stick with iTunes/BitPerfect because it enables me to keep my library management and music interface consistent across all my computers, and because BitPerfect is only $9.99 and works great; in short, it seemed the simplest solution for me.

I totally understand where you are coming from. For myself, my headless Mac Mini is attached to HDDs with all the AIFF files, which I use for music playback. I use my iMac to sync my iPhone, so the HDD attached there only has my ALAC files (yes, I rip two file formats all the time). A bit nonsensical of me, but I am used to it...

[Ralf11]

30 minutes ago, foodfiend said:

I would think that they would go by sales/subscriber numbers as well as market share data. Ultimately, it is $ that does the talking...

 

sure, but that doesn't tell them why people are coming or leaving

[tmtomh]

2 minutes ago, foodfiend said:

I totally understand where you are coming from. For myself, my headless Mac Mini is attached to HDDs with all the AIFF files, which I use for music playback. I use my iMac to sync my iPhone, so the HDD attached there only has my ALAC files (yes, I rip two file formats all the time). A bit nonsensical of me, but I am used to it...

 

I'm in a similar boat, with some variation. My headless mini only serves music to my main stereo. It's got a full macOS Sierra install of course, but I don't use it for anything else. My iMac is my "digital hub" (remember that Steve Jobs-ism from the early 2000s?  ). I sync my iPhone and my old iPod nano from it, and I do all my audio editing and CD ripping on it. The iMac's been upgraded with an SSD where the old optical drive used to be (it died a couple of years ago), and so the original 1TB drive holds a copy of my music archive, which is all stored in FLAC format. And the iMac is the machine to which I connect my external HDDs to maintain backup copies of that archive.

 

On the one hand it's confusing and inefficient - but on the other hand it's also redundant and great for backups and security.

[Galley]

Dunno if anyone mentioned this, but the beta versions of iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra support playback of FLAC files from iCloud Drive.  Perhaps it will be added to iTunes eventually. 

[foodfiend]

2 minutes ago, tmtomh said:

On the one hand it's confusing and inefficient - but on the other hand it's also redundant and great for backups and security.

Talking about redundant, while I have all the ALACs on the external HDD attached to my iMac (4TB worth), and AIFFs on the external HDDs attached to my Mac Mini, I also have both ALACs and AIFFs backed-up to my NAS!

 

3 minutes ago, Galley said:

Dunno if anyone mentioned this, but the beta versions of iOS 11 and macOS High Sierra support playback of FLAC files from iCloud Drive.  Perhaps it will be added to iTunes eventually. 

That is cool! I guess that FLAC is so pervasive that Apple, in this Job-less age, will adopt it (I wonder what Steve would think!). I wonder if they would also adopt APE, since that is the other commonly used music file format, especially in China.

[foodfiend]

9 minutes ago, Ralf11 said:

 

sure, but that doesn't tell them why people are coming or leaving

If they know that they are losing subscribers and market share, to a particular competitor with a richer feature set, I think they would be able to put 2 and 2 together to make 4. I am sure they do their SWOT analyses...

 

It is not as if subscribers would leave because of customer reps... It is not one of those things where customer interaction with sales staff would be an issue.

[Ralf11]

that is exactly what they don't know

[foodfiend]

7 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

that is exactly what they don't know

What makes you think that? How sure are you that they either do not care enough about a certain segment (due to their business model), are are crippled by certain legal agreements to change their offering?

[Ralf11]

they don't know that they are losing subscribers and market share to a particular competitor - think about how they would know that

[foodfiend]

1 hour ago, Ralf11 said:

they don't know that they are losing subscribers and market share to a particular competitor - think about how they would know that

Finance analysts and market watchers keep a look out on financial reports, as well as consumer surveys. Yes, it may not be 100% accurate, but you do get a sense of market sentiment. In that way, companies actually get an idea of how the market is taking to their business model versus current competition. Data analytics nowadays goes beyond just face-to-face surveys and form filling. You'll be surprised how much a company like Amazon or Google knows about you, even without interviewing you.

[Kalnoc1498576214]

One thing I'd like to see is some file management features. For example I'd like the ability to select a track in iTunes and select move and select a destination and have iTunes update the database automatically. These days I really only use iTunes to sync with my iPhone7 so there not really anything I need to have these days.

[foodfiend]

On 27/07/2017 at 0:06 AM, Kalnoc1498576214 said:

One thing I'd like to see is some file management features. For example I'd like the ability to select a track in iTunes and select move and select a destination and have iTunes update the database automatically. These days I really only use iTunes to sync with my iPhone7 so there not really anything I need to have these days.

Well, I think most iTunes users have all their music stashed within the internal drive of their computer in the form of mp3s and AACs, and are unlikely to run into the issue of these files taking too much space. For them, having a few hundred GBs of music is already a lot, and that would comfortably fit into the internal HDD or even a larger SSD.

 

It would occur, I admit for us with extensive libraries and lots of lossless and hi-res music. We are not a large group of users though, so may be Apple does not see it as a user problem. I do foresee that it may be an issue for home-movie buffs who buy their movies on iTunes, since each movie eats up about 6 GB of disc space for a HD movie. So may be Apple may start looking into these advanced file management options, although I am not holding my breath for it!

[kirkmc]

Speaking with someone on the iTunes team at Apple a couple of years ago, I asked what the average library size was. The person said a few thousand tracks. We're outliers. 

[semente]

Is there a limit to the number of tracks in an iTunes library?

[kirkmc]

28 minutes ago, semente said:

Is there a limit to the number of tracks in an iTunes library?

 

Theoretically, no. I know people with several hundred thousand tracks. A large library will slow down iTunes, especially if you have a lot of smart playlists, but I don't know anyone who has found a limit. 

[semente]

Just now, kirkmc said:

 

Theoretically, no. I know people with several hundred thousand tracks. A large library will slow down iTunes, especially if you have a lot of smart playlists, but I don't know anyone who has found a limit. 

 

Thanks.

My music is split into 9 different and I will probably never get to the hundred thousands anyway...

[foodfiend]

32 minutes ago, semente said:

Is there a limit to the number of tracks in an iTunes library?

I have a library with more than 110,000 tracks, and have no problems with iTunes.

 

1 minute ago, semente said:

 

Thanks.

My music is split into 9 different and I will probably never get to the hundred thousands anyway...

Then you should never have any problems at all!

[nicholasg]

(This might be user error rather than a feature request)

 

I would like to be able to sort albums by title when in the Composer view. The default is to sort by artist then title.

 

I would like to see all my recording of Mahler 1, then Mahler 2 etc. etc..