11 May iTunes Wireless Sync
Can iTunes sync over wi-fi and over the cloud?
Okay, I admit, I shamelessly worded the title to suck you in. But as long as you’re here, why not read on?
In the realm of awesome things we’ll probably never see, developer Greg Hughes has shown us what is possible. Since Apple will probably never let a 3rd party dev bring such things to the light of day, why shouldn’t Apple do it?
My fondest wish for iTunes and its ecosystem is for Apple to get their proverbial heads out of their metaphorical asses. They are sitting on a goldmine here, winning the war in the content consumption game. But there is so much more they can do, so much better it can be. And it’s all within their grasp, why not go for it?
Of course, maybe this is all their ace in the hole. When things start to slip, they’ll release something akin to what I’m talking about here and revitalize the brand. After all, that is kind of their milieu with the iPhone. They release feature-poor, and then over time bring on things that exist in competitors’ platforms, and for some reason everyone applauds. To be fair, the applause is in the form of “about time” and is meant to signify that the beloved iPhone is now just that much better! Meh.
In any case, here are a few things that Apple really should do in my opinion; things that are very possible and would be so beneficial.
First, there should be wi-fi syncing. The Zune can do it, so why can’t the iPhone/iPod/iPad? Heck, my AppleTV can sync over wi-fi, so Apple already has the technology in place, tested, tried, true. What’s the hold up? Imagine it, being able to come home, turn on wi-fi, and over the next several minutes your iPhone syncs photos, contacts, music, video, etc., all silently and all in the background.
Second, why not have cloud-based meta-data? Let me give a little background and we’ll move from there.
One of the most amazing and useful things about the Apple media-consumption ecosystem is the ubiquity of iTunes meta-data. If a song has been played 3 times, and then I play it on my iPhone and then on my iPad, after I sync, the play count will be 5. If I rate a song 5 stars, then after I sync, it will be 5 stars on all my platforms. And this is so for all of the meta-data.
This can be very useful. Say you are into putting TV shows (perhaps downloaded from the ITMS, perhaps ripped from DVDs you own, whatever) on your portable devices. Well, you don’t want to watch episodes several times, necessarily, so you set up an “unwatched TV” playlist which is a SmartPlaylist with the appropriate criteria (Kind is “TV Show” and PlayCount = 0). You could, say, limit this playlist to 10GB so that it will easily fit on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod. You get some time sitting on a train and watch an episode of a TV show on your iPhone. Later, after you sync up all of your devices, that episode no longer appears on any of them because it now has a PlayCount of 1, and iTunes removed it from the SmartPlaylist, which removed it from the portable devices, making room for the next episode that you haven’t yet watched.
This is extremely convenient. But it has an extremely inconvenient bottleneck in the middle of it all: the syncing. You have to sync all your devices, and then sync them again! Why again? Well, say you watched a TV show episode on your iPad and then you watched a different one on your iPhone. When you sync your iPad, iTunes still doesn’t know about the iPhone changes, so they don’t make it to your iPad. Then you sync your iPhone, which puts the iPad changes on your iPhone and the iPhone changes on your Mac (or PC), but then you have to sync the iPad again to get the iPhone changes. Mix in an iPod or 2 and you have a real nightmare.
So why can’t this meta-data be in the cloud? Apple certainly has the wherewithal to do such a thing. My contacts are kept in sync via the cloud and Google’s Exchange server. I can make a change to my contacts (add, edit, delete, etc.) and in a few moments, I can see that change reflected in Google as well as my other devices that are connected in a similar fashion. I do the same with email and calendar. It is extremely convenient!
So imagine how great it would be if you watched an episode on your iPhone and then your “unwatched TV” playlist on your iPad immediately reflected this. Or even better, imagine if you didn’t get to finish the episode on your train ride, so you get to the office and want to watch the rest of it on your iPad, and bingo! It picks up where you left off, without you having to scrub to the last-viewed position. How great would that be?
And I’m not talking cloud syncing of the videos and audio (although that would rock!). I’m merely talking about the meta-data (current play position, play count, rating, etc.). So the amount of data shoveled back and forth would be reasonably minimal.
Third, managing media should be possible on our portable devices. How often have you been playing a track and realize that an artist’s name is misspelled? Or your missing some album artwork? Or lyrics? Or you spelled it “ac-dc” instead of “AC/DC” and now that track isn’t grouped properly with the others by the same band? Today, you have to make a note of the erroneous data and fix it when you get home. Why not have the ability to do it immediately?
Portable devices, iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads especially, should have the ability to edit such data. Currently, the only meta-data that these devices can alter is rating and play count (which happens by playing the track). Imagine how great it would be to add lyrics and album art from your iPad, and then see it reflected immediately on your iPhone (via cloud syncing, see above).
Fourth, and finally, portable devices, particularly, the iPad, should have a full iTunes suite. Not just editing meta-data, but creation of SmartPlaylists, as well as all other iTunes functionality. The iPad’s larger screen and UI only serve to call particular attention to how crippled the iPod functionality is on it. That lessened functionality makes sense on a smaller device, or at least doesn’t stand out so much. The iPhone could easily have this functionality too, but I could see it not being as evident. But the iPad really should have the ability to do pretty much everything that iTunes on our desktop computers can. And then be able to sync up (via the cloud or wi-fi, see above) to all of your devices seamlessly.
Okay, there’s my short list of incredible enhancements that Apple should make to their media consumption environment. What sort of things would you like to see Apple do in this space? Let me know in the comments below.
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