A New iTunes?

I have got to the point where I have even bored myself predicting a new solid state storage based iPod model to replace the iPod Classic. If it happens, it happens - you heard it here first and a long time ago. Then I suddenly thought, what about iTunes itself?

History first. When Apple launched their first portable music player they relied on a non-Apple pice of software, MusicMatch. It wasn't bad, very mainstream computing interface. It was subsequently swallowed up by Yahoo, pretty much faded away. When iTunes hit it was a breath of fresh air, particularly compared with Microsoft's Windows Media Player. You could tell iTunes was built by music lovers, it did what people want when they enjoy music. And it put the track (not the album / CD) at the centre of the music library. Of course it was imbued with all the loveliness that so many people like about the Apple brand. It wasn't to everyone's taste, and there's still a cottage industry in non-Apple, non-WMP music playing and ripping systems. However for 95%+ of the tune loving populace, it has to be iTunes.

Just looking across the range of Apple's current applications, on a daily basis I use iPhoto, Aperture, Pages, address book and calendar, I get the feeling iTunes is creaking a little. So what next for the music monster?

First - CD ripping. OK, that's my business and it's where my thoughts turn first. I'd like ripping to be faster, maybe that will happen. For the typical iPod owner why do they even have to bother? Couldn't they just say they have bought a CD and allow Apple's vast music cloud to place that set of tracks into their library, to be downloaded as and when necessary?

Second - compression. When we started people had tiny hard drives against big record collections. Today the collections are only a little bigger, but iPod drives (not to mention laptops and desktops) are huge. If Apple could do to their Apple Lossless codec what they seem to have done to their jpg algorithm in Aperture, you'd get effectively lossless music quality in file sizes only a little larger than decent AAC files. Then, users wouldn't have to dance to the AAC, MP3, Lossless jig and agonise on what's right for them.

Third - DVD ripping. Movies are as much part of home entertainment as music, Come on Apple.

Fourth - bury the database. Yes, easier said than done, but all that wordage on the standard iTunes screen just confuses most users. Sure it needs to be under the hood but the look and feel of iTunes is dated and clunky. Apple is brilliant at interface design, this one needs an overhaul.