iTunes is one of those apps that’s usually open on my computer throughout the day. I’m either using it to update the contents of my iPhone or simply playing music in the background. I really like the new features of version 9 and I am a fan of the app in general, however there are a couple of things in iTunes 9 that make me cheer and sigh at the same time:
Genius Mixes
Genius Mixes is a new feature that compliments the previous feature of Genius Playlists. This feature however is completely 100% automated. So much so that you can’t even see which songs are included in the Genius Mixes, which are automatically generated. I can live with not seeing the contents as for the most part the mixes are pretty good and play songs that I like, but haven’t listened to in a while. However, every now and then a song will start playing and I’m like "how the heck did that get in there?" For example, in one of my Jazz mixes, a Christmas song started playing. Of course I can just skip right by it, but it begs the question: "why can’t I simply choose songs in my library to NEVER be included in a Genius Mix? I know, I know, if I want more control that’s what Genius Playlists are for. I hear ya! However, for some reason I just really like the automation of the Genius Mixes more, I just wish that Apple would give SOME controls over it.
Another problem is that since you have no control over them and their scope is only limited to the size of your library, they can be quite large in size. This is good and bad. It’s good in that you can have music playing all day long. It’s bad in that since you can’t limit the size (number of songs), you may not have room to sync them to your iPhone/iPod touch. Yes, I can delete some stuff and make room and I did. However, I was only able to fit 2 of the 12 mixes onto my 32GB iPhone with everything else that I want to have on it. If there was a simple preference to limit the mixes to a set number of songs OR only sync a set number of songs, it would help. Yeah, I know Genius Playlists! You seem to be on a run with that. I get it, Genius Playlists offer control. Yes, OK. Let it go 🙂
Speaking of not having enough room for these great playlists, they are only currently compatible with iPhones and iPod touch players. I have a nice big iPod classic just sitting there with all kinds of room on it, but alas Apple hasn’t seen fit to allow syncing of Genius Mixes to their other iPods. Since you can’t really do anything with a Genius Mix on your iPod other than play it, I’m not sure why they don’t allow them to sync to all models? Yes, it would probably require firmware updates, but they’ve done that in the past to make all models work with new features in iTunes.
So YES, I do love the feature. Yes, I do use it! Yes, I do know that if I want more control I can use Genius Playlists instead, but I do still wish that Genius Mixes had a few more options.
Home Sharing
I had high hopes for this one, but I gotta say that I’m happy and again disappointed at the same time. If you have two or more computers, you know what a chore it can be managing the iTunes libraries on each one. I won’t even get into the complexities I have here at home, but let me simply say that Home Sharing is a good idea, but needs lots of work. To keep things simple here I’ll just talk about my main iTunes desktop computer (an iMac) and my notebook (a MacBook Pro). All of my music, movies, TV shows, etc are on the iMac. I have a smaller subset of songs and such on my MacBook Pro. Until Home Sharing in iTunes 9, it was a completely manual process moving stuff over from one computer to the other. Yes, I know there are 3rd party utilities out there that do this, but I’m going to keep this post within the scope of iTunes 9 for now.
When Apple showed the Home Sharing feature during their Music Event, I got excited. However, I had my reservations that the feature wouldn’t be fully cooked yet and I was right. The idea behind Home Sharing is that you can turn it on with any computer running iTunes 9 on your network. Great! You then log in with your iTunes Music Store credentials and you can then share music, movies, etc. with any other computer on your network logged in with those same credentials. Great! What’s not to like about this?
The feature is very basic. For example, once you have it setup you can then simply drag content from one library/computer to your other library/computer. So I can simply drag songs from the iMac to the MacBook Pro. However, I can’t drag playlists! Sure I can open a playlist and drag the songs from it into a newly created playlist on the other computer, but if those songs already existed on the other computer they will be DUPLICATED in the library without warning.
Since a lot of my music had been upgraded to iTunes Plus format on the iMac, I decided to start fresh on the MacBook Pro. I deleted all the music from my MacBook Pro. Then I wanted to have the contents of 5 different playlists from the iMac on my MacBook Pro (MBP). So first I created the 5 empty playlists on the MBP and went to the first one on the iMac, selected all the songs and drug them into the corresponding playlist on the MBP. No problem! It copied them. Then I repeated the same steps for the 2nd, 3rd playlists. No problem. It was working great. Then I thought about one of the songs I copied over in the 3rd playlist and I knew that that song was in both the 1st and 2nd ones too. I wondered what iTunes was doing in the background if I had already just copied that song over? To my dismay, every time I copied the same songs to a new playlist, it duplicated them in the Library. So some songs had now been copied over 5 times.
It gets worse! I did a search for duplicates (a built-in feature) and found all the songs that were in the Library more than once. I then proceeded to delete the extra copies of each song. It did it. However, what it also did was remove them from the playlists they were in too. So now I have 5 playlists that DON’T match the ones on the iMac.
A simple solution
To avoid all of this Home Sharing needs to allow YOU to choose which playlists you want to SYNC! It’s not rocket science. Apple’s already been doing this for years on iPods and iPhones. Now it’s time to do it between computers!
Home Sharing does allow you to sync new purchases, but that’s just not enough. Nor do I want every new purchase on my MBP. Home Sharing in its current form is great for copying the occasional song or movie over, however it’s not really there yet for managing music collections between computers.
One more thing…Only one Home Sharing account at a time?
Another problem I ran into is that while your Mac or PC can be authorized to multiple iTunes accounts, Home Sharing for some strange reason is limited to one at a time! For example, my iMac is authorized to my iTunes account and each of my two daughters. So on that one iMac I can play music that I have purchased or music that they have purchased. Your iTunes DRM’d music can be authorized to play on up to 5 computers per account. It’s been that way for years. When it comes to Home Sharing though, I can only sign in as one user at a time. This is not the end of the world, but it’s just odd that a computer that is already authorized for more than one account to play music can’t be authorized at the same time to share music between those same accounts.
The Bottom Line
I DO LIKE iTunes 9! I like the interface changes and the new features. For example, being able to organize your iPhone apps/screens right inside iTunes is KILLER! However, some of the new features feel very 1.0ish right now. Hopefully Apple will continue to improve these areas of this app.
You can download iTunes 9 here.
I agree i love Itunes, not had a chance to try the new feature but i will after reading this.
Good call on the Genius Mixes. I have all of my music on an iPod Classic, and I would love to have those mixes listed in playlists.
For the most part I’m very happy with it … but I’d *love* to see “albums” added as an option along with “playlist,” “artist” and “genres” when syncing. Minor point, but would help an old foggey like me who still listens to albums and finds it a pain to go check and uncheck a bunch of stuff in the list. Just my twopence!
I like the additions to iTunes 9, but I hate how it breaks the syncing of smart playlists to the iPhone. Anyone else noticed that? If you have a “Top 40 Rock” or “Recently Added Music” smart playlist, it’ll look fine in iTunes 9, but will display all the wrong songs on your iPhone. The problem didn’t exist until iTunes 9 came out.
Has anyone else noticed that when you copy tracks using Home Sharing, it doesn’t seem to copy any artwork you might have added. Or is it just me?
Yes I’ve got the same problem. Works on songs added B/4 itunes 9. but not after. Any clues?
Somehow Madonna and Justin Timberlake ended up in a Genius Mix called “Alternative and Punk”…
Just to add one more wish to you Genius Mixes list. AppleTV support also. Would be nice to be able for me to listen in other rooms where i have music streamed to my AppleTVs
The AppleScript “Dumb Down Genius Mix Playlists” will allow you to copy music from a Genius Mix playlist a to a regular playlist for syncing to older iPods.
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=dumbdowngeniusmix
Thanks Terry!
Haha! That’s dead on Terri! I tried out the new Genius Mixes the day it came out, because I had a large amount of editing to do that day, and would be sitting in front of my computer. It went great, and I would hear a song and think, “now where did that song come from?”. Right up until it started playing Christmas tunes and A LOT of them! I thought,they should have a playlist of their own! Or at least a way to regulate them, without having to go to my library and turn them all off. I also agree about the number of songs that could be regulated per playlist. I know about genius playlists, but somehow this seemed more appealing…
Hi. I agree with you about the sharing and I also like it though the applications need to sync with updates. I bought an app and put it on dads iPhone as well as mine and when he gets told by the phone that there is an update, he goes to the update section and it says “no updates available”. I the becomes a pain to remove it off his computer and the iphone and the computer and then reinstall it.
I quite like the genius mixes in that i get to hear things i wouldn’t normally listen to.
Home Sharing works with content from multiple accounts, it’s just limited to the 5 computers for the account you use to set it up. But if those 5 computers are authorized for multiple iTunes Store accounts you can copy the content for all of them.
Yes, and no…
Computer A is authorized to play content from Computer B. However, Computer B is NOT authorized to play content from Computer A. So Computer B can only log in with Computer B’s iTunes account. Therefore since Computer B is NOT logged in with the same iTunes account, Computer A can NOT copy content from it UNLESS Computer A logs out of Home Sharing and logs in with Computer B’s iTunes account.
Here’s a problem now with doing a sync with Podcasts: if you have a lot of them, and want to sync ALL of the unplayed plus SOME of the already-played episodes, you can’t do it! Checking the box in front of the individual episodes seems to accomplish nothing. I can no longer decide which podcasts I sync, just the ones Apple chooses to let me do (e.g., last 5, all unplayed (only), all of all (way too big for my ipod touch). No one can figure it out on Apple’s itunes discussion page- lots of looks, no answers. Anyone with an idea here?
Rick, try this: podcasts can now be in playlists. So create a playlist with the episodes you want in it and snyc that list in addition to the other options you want.
Terry – I’m with you on the “love the Mix, but need more control” aspect. For me i have bene using the mixes to discover stuff i haven’t heard in a while and it’s been GREAT, but when a song is playing (on windows anyway) i have no way to rate up or down, or uncheck if i hate it – i can, as you noticed, just “skip” it
also the thing that i find the weirdest is that there is no way to control the size of them – for instance, on my 8gig 3g iphone each mix appears to take up approx 2 gigs, but whos to know? i would love it if i had the option to “fill remaining space with mixes” and it would take the checked mixes and fill the space evenly with them.