An iTunes RFE | Our Story

Dear iTunes Developers–

iTunes rocks. Here’s a RFE that I hope will make it rock more.

Go to the iTunes Music Store, click on any album. Below is a list of songs in that album. For each of those songs is a whole set of columns (album, genre, artist, etc.). For a few of those columns, there is a little arrow that, when you click on it, will take you directly to the iTunes Music Store listing for that artist/album/whatever.

Go to your music library, click Browse. Click on any album. Below is a list of songs in that album. For each of those songs is a whole set of colums–but no arrows. It would be tremendously helpful for organizing and navigating if there were arrows in the same columns as there are in the iTMS. Those arrows should take you directly to all the songs you own under that artist/album/genre/etc.

Additionally, it would be cool to right-click a song in my library and find the iTMS listing for the song’s artist/album/genre. This is a feature that, I think, would mean *real money* for the iTMS. There are several songs in my library that are illegitimate in the eyes of the RIAA. I’ve been periodically “legitimizing” them by going to the Music Store and purchasing them. Such a feature would make this process easier. It also might encourage me to buy more music by my favorite artists.

Oh, and please support Windows 98. I want to buy my wife an iPod someday, but I don’t want to shell out $100 to Microsoft for a new operating system.

Thanks for making music fun.

–Ken

14 thoughts on “An iTunes RFE”

Ken,

Great ideas for the iTMS. I’m not sure if you are aware, but your acronyms don’t seem to be working in Safari 1.01. They work great in Camino (of course), but you may have trouble attracting Mr. Jobs’ technology advisers if this bug persists .

Yeah, now Sarah can post again!
Oh, and goodbye “Of Interest” links.

I don’t understand how your first request would be useful in the library. Click on the little arrow in itms takes you to the artist of the album of song. But that information is visible and available to you right above the song listing in browse mode. No need for the little arrows.

Now, if those little arrows took you to the itms listing for the artist that would be slick. But that might clutter the interface.

And as for windows 98 … ditch it. its EOL’d and was never all that good anyway. Windows 2000 is the only viable windows out there, IMO. Its stable~ish and fast~ish on good hardware. Granted it doesn’t do anything that I would like it to, but as far as windows goes its the best your gonna get.

You could just move her to linux, or buy her a mac Both are better than windows 98. Mac is prolly the better choice, but linux is free and usable once its all setup nicely .

… and a Happy New Year

re: “But that information is visible and available to you right above the song listing in browse mode.”

True, but that requires extra navigation, and it’s not that simple if I’m in another playlist. Say I’m in a Smart Playlist (“Top Rated,” or something) and I see a song that doesn’t have an album cover image. I want to find all the tracks in that album and do some general cleanup (add year, track, disc information, etc.). I have to click on the Source pane and select Library. Then, I have to hit Browse if it’s not already open. If I’m smart, I click on the Artist pane and start typing the name of the artist–if not, I use the scroll bar. Then I find the album. That, or I click a single arrow that jumps right to where I want. Sounds like a no-brainer feature to me.

I agree that there should be some way to find an iTMS listing for a given song, but I think they should tuck it in the context menu.

Windows 2000: $300. iBook: $1,200. Linux: doesn’t run iTMS, so that defeats the point. I was thinking, though, about taking our tax return and putting it towards a new iBook, then selling Sarah’s Thinkpad to make some of that back.

This, by the way, seems pretty interesting:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtunes4/

Didn’t think about when one is in a play list. Which, I think goes back to a usage issue. I don’t use playlists myself and keep iTunes in the library all the time.

However, I’m still not sure that I would want another arrow there. I’m comparing the itms and the “Purchased Music” playlist. If the arrow was there it would display less of the artist name than it does now, and would require “….” So i’m not sure I would like the arrow to be there. I also find the arrow the be a little on the ugly side … while that is fine in the music store, I don’t think it should be in the playlists. At least not by default.

I guess I just don’t find the extra navigation required to be all that big of a deal. When i’m using a GUI I kind of expect to be inconvienced with navigation. Command line frame of mind i guess

concerning ibooks … I’d go for the 1Ghz model. Anything slower seems kinda iffy to me.

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but… Don’t you find it ironic that you want Apple to support Windows 98 when Microsoft has announced they are phasing it out?

Otherwise, I like your ideas.

Hi Mark. I agree that it’s ironic, but this is the territory Apple ventured into by writing applications for the PC. I really think that there’s a decidedly strong business case for Apple to add support for Windows 98. According to this article http://slashdot.org/articles/03/12/13/149235.shtml?tid=109&tid=185&tid=187&tid=190&tid=201 submitted to Slashdot, 80% of business computers still run either Windows 95 or 98. Supporting these “legacy” operating systems means a potential increase of 80% in their Windows retail business. With competition from the new Napster and now Wal-Mart, what marketing director wouldn’t find that number compelling?

What’s more, I think Apple’s lack of support for these OSes is more damaging for their long term goals (namely, to persuade users to buy iPods, or move altogether to the Mac). Their strategy makes users want to say, “maybe it really /is/ better on a Mac.” Right now, their business model forces me, as a Windows 98 user, to buy a copy of Windows XP (about $100) or a machine capable of running OS X (about $1,000). Just looking at the numbers, I’d opt for the WinXP path–being able to run the latest version of iTunes isn’t a good enough reason for me to go out and buy a new computer.

Windows 9x users are the ones on whom Apple wants to focus their switching campaigns; they are the ones who will be looking into buying a new computer over the next year. Anyone with Windows 2000 or greater has a vested interest in making their investment last.

Kenny,

Part of the issue may be the development and support costs that are involved producing a quality version of ITFW for Win 98. From what I understand, so much of the hardware access and other controls are so different in 98 from 2000/XP that Apple may not want to expend the effort. This could especially be the case seeing that Apple won’t stand for an application that isn’t stable. They would be better off to leave it unsupported than to produce something that receives bad PR. Do you know if Musicmatch supports Win 98? That could be an iPod solution for her.

“Supporting these �legacy� operating systems means a potential increase of 80% in their Windows retail business.”

Following this logic, all websites should still support netscape 4 or IE 5.5 because a large number of people still use them. (from my works website stats, 64% of the users use netscape 3.x or 4.x, and 2% use IE 5.5. 30% use IE 6.0 and the rest are ‘niche’ browsers like firebird.)

At some point you have to help people move forward. If you want to run itms on windows, you need a modern~ish computer with a newer version of windows … or buy a mac.

I’m sure apple really wants the “buy a mac” option.

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Darin on December 29, 2003 at 9:54 pm said:

Ken,

Great ideas for the iTMS. I’m not sure if you are aware, but your acronyms don’t seem to be working in Safari 1.01. They work great in Camino (of course), but you may have trouble attracting Mr. Jobs’ technology advisers if this bug persists .
Tom Wilkinson on December 29, 2003 at 10:45 pm said:

Yeah, now Sarah can post again!
Oh, and goodbye “Of Interest” links.
altp on December 30, 2003 at 12:26 pm said:

I don’t understand how your first request would be useful in the library. Click on the little arrow in itms takes you to the artist of the album of song. But that information is visible and available to you right above the song listing in browse mode. No need for the little arrows.

Now, if those little arrows took you to the itms listing for the artist that would be slick. But that might clutter the interface.

And as for windows 98 … ditch it. its EOL’d and was never all that good anyway. Windows 2000 is the only viable windows out there, IMO. Its stable~ish and fast~ish on good hardware. Granted it doesn’t do anything that I would like it to, but as far as windows goes its the best your gonna get.

You could just move her to linux, or buy her a mac Both are better than windows 98. Mac is prolly the better choice, but linux is free and usable once its all setup nicely .
sean on January 2, 2004 at 12:04 am said:

… and a Happy New Year
Ken Walker on January 2, 2004 at 9:58 am said:

re: “But that information is visible and available to you right above the song listing in browse mode.”

True, but that requires extra navigation, and it’s not that simple if I’m in another playlist. Say I’m in a Smart Playlist (“Top Rated,” or something) and I see a song that doesn’t have an album cover image. I want to find all the tracks in that album and do some general cleanup (add year, track, disc information, etc.). I have to click on the Source pane and select Library. Then, I have to hit Browse if it’s not already open. If I’m smart, I click on the Artist pane and start typing the name of the artist–if not, I use the scroll bar. Then I find the album. That, or I click a single arrow that jumps right to where I want. Sounds like a no-brainer feature to me.

I agree that there should be some way to find an iTMS listing for a given song, but I think they should tuck it in the context menu.

Windows 2000: $300. iBook: $1,200. Linux: doesn’t run iTMS, so that defeats the point. I was thinking, though, about taking our tax return and putting it towards a new iBook, then selling Sarah’s Thinkpad to make some of that back.

This, by the way, seems pretty interesting:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtunes4/
altp on January 2, 2004 at 11:59 am said:

Didn’t think about when one is in a play list. Which, I think goes back to a usage issue. I don’t use playlists myself and keep iTunes in the library all the time.

However, I’m still not sure that I would want another arrow there. I’m comparing the itms and the “Purchased Music” playlist. If the arrow was there it would display less of the artist name than it does now, and would require “….” So i’m not sure I would like the arrow to be there. I also find the arrow the be a little on the ugly side … while that is fine in the music store, I don’t think it should be in the playlists. At least not by default.

I guess I just don’t find the extra navigation required to be all that big of a deal. When i’m using a GUI I kind of expect to be inconvienced with navigation. Command line frame of mind i guess

concerning ibooks … I’d go for the 1Ghz model. Anything slower seems kinda iffy to me.
Mark on January 4, 2004 at 9:04 pm said:

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but… Don’t you find it ironic that you want Apple to support Windows 98 when Microsoft has announced they are phasing it out?

Otherwise, I like your ideas.
Ken Walker on January 4, 2004 at 9:43 pm said:

Hi Mark. I agree that it’s ironic, but this is the territory Apple ventured into by writing applications for the PC. I really think that there’s a decidedly strong business case for Apple to add support for Windows 98. According to this article http://slashdot.org/articles/03/12/13/149235.shtml?tid=109&tid=185&tid=187&tid=190&tid=201 submitted to Slashdot, 80% of business computers still run either Windows 95 or 98. Supporting these “legacy” operating systems means a potential increase of 80% in their Windows retail business. With competition from the new Napster and now Wal-Mart, what marketing director wouldn’t find that number compelling?

What’s more, I think Apple’s lack of support for these OSes is more damaging for their long term goals (namely, to persuade users to buy iPods, or move altogether to the Mac). Their strategy makes users want to say, “maybe it really /is/ better on a Mac.” Right now, their business model forces me, as a Windows 98 user, to buy a copy of Windows XP (about $100) or a machine capable of running OS X (about $1,000). Just looking at the numbers, I’d opt for the WinXP path–being able to run the latest version of iTunes isn’t a good enough reason for me to go out and buy a new computer.

Windows 9x users are the ones on whom Apple wants to focus their switching campaigns; they are the ones who will be looking into buying a new computer over the next year. Anyone with Windows 2000 or greater has a vested interest in making their investment last.
Darin on January 4, 2004 at 10:01 pm said:

Kenny,

Part of the issue may be the development and support costs that are involved producing a quality version of ITFW for Win 98. From what I understand, so much of the hardware access and other controls are so different in 98 from 2000/XP that Apple may not want to expend the effort. This could especially be the case seeing that Apple won’t stand for an application that isn’t stable. They would be better off to leave it unsupported than to produce something that receives bad PR. Do you know if Musicmatch supports Win 98? That could be an iPod solution for her.
altp on January 5, 2004 at 7:16 am said:

“Supporting these �legacy� operating systems means a potential increase of 80% in their Windows retail business.”

Following this logic, all websites should still support netscape 4 or IE 5.5 because a large number of people still use them. (from my works website stats, 64% of the users use netscape 3.x or 4.x, and 2% use IE 5.5. 30% use IE 6.0 and the rest are ‘niche’ browsers like firebird.)

At some point you have to help people move forward. If you want to run itms on windows, you need a modern~ish computer with a newer version of windows … or buy a mac.

I’m sure apple really wants the “buy a mac” option.
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