“iTunes was originally based on SoundJam MP, an MP3 player and sync app Apple acquired in 2000. The launch of iTunes in 2001, alongside the iPod and, eventually, the iPhone, drove Apple’s resurgence and led to the greatest financial comeback in the history of… history. Yet our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses, and while iTunes continues to serve more people in more ways than ever before, it’s now become the poster app for Apple’s ‘software problems,'” Rene Ritchie writes for iMore. “So, what can be done about it?”
“Certainly everyone inside the Apple feels the same pains as we do on the outside,” Ritchie writes. “We have the luxury of complaining about it, though. They have the equally impossible task of actually doing It… As much as we all say we want change, the vast majority of us are still going to hate it in whole or in part. Because it will be different. And it will hurt.”
“When you need to replace a bridge, you don’t simply blow up the old bridge and then start work on a new one. Not unless your goal is absolute disaster. Instead, you start building one or more new bridges first and then you carefully start redirecting people onto them,” Ritchie writes. “The first new bridge for iTunes feels like it needs to be iCloud.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yes, and we agree with Ritchie, when the switch is flipped, make sure it’s clearly marked “beta.” We don’t need another Maps fiasco.
Hallelujah!
Voice of reason..’When you need to replace a bridge, you don’t simply blow up the old bridge and then start work on a new one. ”
Not only that you keep them both up till the new has proven itself worty and solid .
Same holds true about abandonment of file info and organization system i IOS
Dont take the wheels off before you have a Viable levitation system apple.
Icloud drive does not cut it…its not a viable solution yet… It does not work offline… And it costs (Storage and data streaming)
One step I would like to see is to split out the store and syncing. The store could just be folded into the App Store app, and they could bring back iSync. You could still have links to them within iTunes, but just get rid of the code and also it would allow you to use iTunes and a store at the same time.
Once and for all, iTunes is not the issue. Splitting iTunes doesn’t make it run faster. A piece of software can have many modules in it. Speed has nothing to do with heft. The ability to run at performance speed has nothing to do with the size of an app. An app only makes the call to the appropriate code when asked. It’s not an old Appletalk server chattering away.
rene ritchie is full of shit.
I vehemently disagree. iTunes is a problem.
One of iTunes’ main problems is that it is piss-poor slow for large libraries. It is so slow, it is unusable.
Absolutely true George. And with that large library, iTunes absolutely refuses to sync.
That has nothing to do with iTunes being one app.
“The first new bridge for iTunes feels like it needs to be iCloud.”
No, that’s a bridge that needs to be blown up.
2012 wants your iCloud hate back.
For me iCloud has been almost totally reliable and extremely useful over the last year or two. I love having access to contacts, calendars, photos, music, movies, notes, bookmarks, books, browsing history, reminders, passwords, and more on all my devices without any effort on my part. Even iCloud Drive is pretty good now, though DropBox is still a little better.
I agree. It just works. And I have a ton of stuff “up there.”
I run my office though iCloud services- everything. 99 cents a month. It’s been fast and rock solid. Considering how easy and fast it makes everything, it’d be worth it for $100 a month.
I just want to be able to mount my iOS device as a thumb drive and drag and drop my files freely! Be nice to see a home folder like OS X has with Documents, Photos, Contacts, etc. and simply drag files on and off to transfer!
Somewhere I have every “Skin” ever released for SoundJam. It’s probably next to Napster.
I’m not really wanting a browser based cloud music service. I much more interested in breaking iTunes up into separate modules. For example:
Sync – also handles file transfers.
Music player, cd import and export
Video player (Movies & TV shows)
Podcasts
Music & Video Store
My biggest complaint about iTunes has always been that it’s two Windows-y. It fills the screen with so much information and color and options and and and that it’s a little overwhelming.
Apple has always been fantastic at simplifying. I think they need to deconstruct again and not just build a new bridge but totally reinvent iTunes.
It’s just a little to difficult to navigate between music, app’s, radio, etc. I preferred tabs rather than tiny icons and … for other stuff
I started managing an Apple Reseller store in 1989. I quickly learned one important fact and taught it to all my people. –
What is a computer do? It does what is most important to that particular customer. To a publisher it is a publishing machine, to a writer it is a word processor, to a musician it is a music manipulator. To a geologist it is a powerful data engine. If you start showing the publisher all the music capabilities you will lose him. Our job was to give the customer what he needed to do his job.
I once had a rare customer who used all 6 Nubus slots in his MacIIx. He ran a small weather network. He was a busy and focussed guy. We had a brand new IIfx all tricked out to demo voice recognition and midi inputs. I was showing him how crazy cool and fast this fastest computer on the planet was.
He patiently waited out my enthusiam and said, “I don’t need all that.”
I want iTunes to do what I want to do, and not try to sell me everything else I don’t have time for. I don’t think making me dependent on a cloud connection is something I am interested in. To me iTunes is a tool to play my music files and to put them on my IOS devices.
I don’t need all that – other stuff.
(Of course I would not use iTunes to put files on my IOS devices if I wasn’t forced to. I would just drag them there if I could.)
“…..“When you need to replace a bridge, you don’t simply blow up the old bridge and then start work on a new one. Not unless your goal is absolute disaster. Instead, you start building one or more new bridges first and then you carefully start redirecting people onto them,” ……
Couldn’t DISAGREE MORE! Yes. Apple has always “blown things up” over its history…. iMovie? Final Cut Pro? OS X Server? to name just three… Build a brand new iTunes that does what customers want, instead of what Apple wishes to sell, and stop support for the old one.