yulek's Journal: iPod and iTunes enhancements

this is my log book of things that the iPod and iTunes interfaces could do a lot better. most of it revolves around playlist management. there are still very few good playlist managers out there and a lot of really really crappy ones. feel free to add your own comments

sound check and track volume

[yulek]

problem: one of the most frustrating things about the iPod and iTunes is the broken way that it seems to determine the proper volume for a track when the sound check option is on.

it's almost always wrong.

i do, however, like the idea of being able to use a relative volume in tracks, as not all tracks are mixed equally. so the ability to adjust the volume relatively is nice. however, it shouldn't be done on import. it should be done when i'm LISTENING. especially when i'm listening on the iPod.

solutio

shuffle

[yulek]

problem: the shuffle option is global. this is so lame. why? because there are many albums/playlists that i want to hear in a specific order, and many that are designed to be shuffled so i get a nice surprise when listening.

as a result, i have to change the shuffle setting depending on what i'm going to be listening to, and then remember to change it back.

solution: shuffle should be an option in the playlist itself. both simple and smart playlists should have it. the global one could be used to over

playlist/album/artist/song hiding

[yulek]

problem: once your ipod is loaded you probably have hundreds of artists, albums, thousands of songs, etc.

scrolling through these lists can be incredibly frustrating. i have over 50 playlists (see my sort comment for why (meta lists)) but i only actually need to see around 10 of them.

solution: while it's nice to have instant access to each item, it would also be nice to have an option to hide that playlist/album/artist/song and then have a global option to hide/unhide all the marked objects.

this is espe

pruning

[yulek]

problem: at some point you will run out of room on your iPod. it's time to get rid of some songs. the obvious thing that comes to mind is to check whether or not the song has ever been played. if all songs on your iPod have been played, then sort by Last Played and delete the stuff you haven't listened to in a while.

the problem is that this approach may work okay if you're a mindless "hits of the 80s" style listener. but sometimes, albums need to stick together, or a song simply hasn't made it to a pla

party shuffle

[yulek]

problem: Party Shuffle is so broken.

solution: actually, there are many things to fix:

• allow a source of "nothing" so you can just drop stuff in
• allow multiple sources instead of forcing someone to drag and drop playlists into the "mix" which doesn't have the same effect at all as the Party Shuffle
• for Party Shuffle to truly succeed, iTunes needs to become a better sounding player. i mean, how many people actually use iTunes to play mp3s? me, i use it to manage my iPod, and that's it. if i'm going to l

smart playlist criteria

[yulek]

problem: smart list criteria are hailed in iTunes help and hot tips as very flexible, but they are not. for example, try making a smart list that includes all Electronica + Electronic genres but exludes Thomas Dolby. can't do it (unless you do it with a meta list (see my other comments)).

solution: the amount of criteria is awesome, it's combining the criteria that sux. you can either have an AND or an OR condition between all the criteria. this is pretty useless except for very simple playlists. ther