Most everyone is talking about the new iTunes upgrade (4.5) and how cool it is. It does have some nifty stuff, but I do still have some bitches about stuff. I’ll list below.
- Still not available in Canada, so many of the new nifty things may be cool, but how can I tell?
- Radio charts – I thought this was going to be a better version of the Radio Tuner part, but it looks like it gives you access to radio stations playlists and gives you links to buy those songs.
- Printing playlists. Mucho nifty, I never even thought of this and I shall be using it when I get home 🙂
- ITMS links in your own music library. Would be cool except for #1.
- Party Shuffle – neat idea, but not hugely different from a random mix playlist is it? I sort of expected a bit more “DJ” type stuff from it (different crossfade or something, I donno). I’m using it now, and it’ll probably help out people who use iTunes for their DJing or party mixes.
- Join Songs – sadly only available on import. I thought a better idea would be to allow you to join already imported songs, using an algorithm that would find the end of sound in one track and play the second track starting from where sound started it, eliminating the gap between songs in playback, not import.
- iMix – share your playlists. Can’t use it, see #1
- Free song from the Store – again, can’t use it because they need a US credit card when you sign up for an account, and you need an account to get the free song. See #1
- Lossless encoder. Sounds similar to FLAC, but it’s not of course, so there’s yet another music format out there now.
- Breaks playfair/fairplay (un-DRMing software so you can back up your legally purchased ITMS songs. Sucky for those who can use the store, but not entirely unexpected. I’m sure FairPlay will be back though.
- Viewing music videos and movie trailers right inside iTunes – nifty.
- Changes in burning/sharing of protected music – See #1.