Today is the first of September, and if the Kevin Rose rumor is true, a major update to iTunes could be just over a week away. What could be in store for us with the next version of iTunes? That is a very good question, here are some of the things I would like to see.
Yearly Subscription Service – It’s a simple concept. Pay a set about per year to be able to download as many songs to iTunes as you want. $120 – $150 per year would be a nice price point. The big question here is what happens to the tunes after your year is up. The most likely answer is you lose the ability to play those songs.
Buy Songs / Movies From Apple.com – A while back TiVo partnered with Amazon.com to allow you to buy or rent Amazon Unbox items and have them sent directly to your TiVo.
Once my TiVo is linked to my Amazon account, this service allows me to buy or rent almost any movie Amazon has available and have it sent directly to any of my TiVo’s. It’s that simple, and it doesn’t cost me anything other than the price of the movie listed on Amazon’s website. Of course, if I’m sitting at my TiVo, I can also order movies from Amazon right there.
Not to get to far off topic here, but the movie rentals from Amazon and Apple are cheaper than Comcast OnDemand. 
Apple could pull something like this off with iTunes and Apple.com. Log into an online store, buy a song, album, or movie and tell it to download to a speciffic PC/Mac or even Apple TV.
iPhone / iPod Touch App Arrangement – Ask anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch who has downloaded a few applications from the app store, and they’ll tell you two problems. The first is that moving apps from screen to screen is a PITA, and updating apps is even more frustrating. When you update an app, it moves from where you had it to the first free location. So then you have to move the app back to where it was, and lord help you if you have multiple screens full of apps.
A solution I’ve implemented to “fix” this painful issue is to leave one free spot open on each screen. It works, but surely something could be done that makes things less painful. Of course, the first thought is “don’t move my fraking apps when I update them!!!!” Well, yeah that would work. But here is another idea…
Create an iPhone “app manager” in iTunes that allows you to move, arrange, and organize apps while you are syncing. The apps align however you have them setup in iTunes. This way when an app is updated, it knows where it should be. New apps that are synced in simply go to their own page until they are locked into place via iTunes.
Re-download Purchases / iTunes Insurance – One of my biggest complaints about iTunes, and I actually hear this from other people as well, is that when I buy something on iTunes if my computer dies a yoctosecond later, I cannot re-download the song without having to buy it again. Why?
Shit happens, and in face it’s happened to me a few times. Thankfully I’ve got a decent backup scheme running now, and I’ve not lost much. But the thought is always in the back of my mind… most of my “new” music collection is on my PC. What would I do if my PC fails and the backup doesn’t restore? Would Apple seriously make me pay the several hundred dollars again to re-download the music I’ve already purchased?
Sure they would. How is it any different than if your LP got scratched, or your tape melted sitting in your car? It really is no different, but then this is the digital age, we shouldn’t have to worry about stuff like that. The games I buy and download from EBGames.com or Direct2Drive are still available for me, years after purchase. I don’t have to rebuy them.
I’d gladly pay a minimal fee for what I’d call “iTunes Insurance”. Insurance is one of those things you pay for and hope you never have to use, but it gives you the peace of mind just by knowing it’s there.
Sure, a subscription based service would mean that something like this wouldn’t be needed. It’s really an “either or” situation here.
Clean Up The App Store Mess – I love the app store, but it is a serious mess. Both via the iPhone and inside iTunes. It needs more filters, custom views, and sorting options. It could also use a “similar apps” and “people that use this app also use…” listing.
That’s everything I can think of right now. I’m sure if I had thought about this more before my evening workout, I would have come up with a few other things that I’d like to see in iTunes 8. What are your thoughts? What would you like to see in iTunes 8.0?
Tags: Amazon, App Store, Apple, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTunes, Kevin Rose, rumor, TiVo