I really like iTunes and the Apple Music Store, the interface to both of them is perfect. I have daily arguments with my Linux geek office mate about this. He uses Amarok, which is fine unless you want to do simple things like fast forward podcasts. I know the Apple combination is a little too proprietary, but it works that well that I’m prepared to put up with this.
The one problem I have with iTunes and in particular the store, is that the whole social aspect of it isn’t really working. Why does nearly every song get a rating of four and a half stars? It doesn’t make sense to have explicit user feedback about songs. Most people tend to buy singles, so they know they like the song before they buy it, so why would they ever give it a bad review? It’s not like Amazon, where you don’t really know if you like the book till after you’ve read it. I also think much more could be made of people’s playlists, they’re even more important when you end up buying lots of individual songs, the value is in compiling your playlists, not just the actual songs.
I also think that their officially prepared playlists (iTunes Essentials) are really weak. They’re all obvious song selections and I don’t think they are done by people who are really in to their music. The celebrity playlists are usually worse, a mixture of plugs for their label mates songs, their own and obvious songs that I already know about.
The current iTunes Essentials Summer Classics is a typical example. It’s tagged as, “… if ever Summer had a soundtrack, this is it”. I think they created by searching for all the songs with Summer in the title. It probably took about 5 minutes to put together. Surely they know that most Summer songs are about the sound and feeling of them, not that the lyrics have Summer in them. I have my own Summer playlist (I have one for every season), which has things like TwentyFourSeven, Drinking in LA, Pure Shores, Will You Catch Me and La Isla Bonita in it. None of them have Summer all over them, but they’re so much more Summer songs than Summer Holiday could ever be.
With it being such a big business, I wonder why Apple don’t employ some of the people who pick songs for TV and films to come up with playlists, the sort of people who would put a little more imagination in to things. I’m thinking of the people who pick songs for The O.C. or the BBC’s World Cup coverage. Until then, thank the geeks for Lastfm.
[...] They did it with Summer and today I see they’ve done the same with Autumn. iTunes essentials are really bad. How do they make a Autumn mix? Search all songs for words like September, October, November, Autumn, Leaves, Rain and Misty. Brilliant. I can’t wait for the Winter Essentials. [...]
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