Some interesting shit going in in iTunes 9. I just upgraded (not really putting 2 and 2 together about the latest announcements from the Big (but thin) Steve-o.).
Underwater Basket Weaving from Home? Awesome!
Outside of the new interface (which in the store, especially, takes some getting used to…yes, you can double-click the name of the artist or album to go to it but if you miss and hit some white space you’ll end up listening to the sample, fun), they added something interesting: iTunes U. There you can find audio tracks from lectures and transcripts/notes. There is also a battery of other items related to campus life and the like. While pickings are a bit thin if you’re hoping for, say, an interesting lecture from MIT (there are basic bio and such courses available), you’re a bit out of luck…for now.
Seems like prep for a tablet geared towards colleges and the students therein. Better yet, while they’re using PDFs for now, I could imagine a annotating reader app that could also be used as a notepad with handwriting recognition…now you’ve just killed Amazon’s little Kindle and dove head first into the high price world of textbooks. Bookstore out of stock? No problem, for $4.99 you can “borrow” a copy for a quarter or a semester or pay $29.99 for a lifetime copy…you just need to wait for Apple to invent the iBookPress to actually print the whole thing in the comfort of your dorm room.
Another thing of note is the sudden disappearance of my favorite little Shopping Cart. I guess Apple got frustrated with people like me who dumped items they were interested in buying but weren’t. Now, there’s a Add to Wish List option that drops that little nugget into a Wish List (accessible from the little arrow next to your Apple ID in the upper right of the screen…just hover over it and you’ll see it). How do I know they built this sucker for me (the same guy who broke iTunes a while back because I had items in the Shopping Cart for too long)? Because all my items that I left in my Shopping Cart back in iTunes 8.x are in my wish list now! Magic!
You can also use that little menu to the right of the Buy button to gift, copy the link, and…wait for it…share the song on Facebook or Twitter. Look who decided to go iSocial (<– look a new trademark!). Those options will drop iTunes Store links with relevant info (and album covers) and everything. Not bad. I could’ve used that a couple weeks ago…thanks.
I’m not sure I’m TOO happy about the whole Wish List thing. Why? Because I liked being able to just click the fucking buy link and deposit my loot in a place where I could go later and pick out the best bits for purchase. Now, it’s click, click and another couple more clicks to dig into the Wish List and buy that bitch.
So far so good…we’ll see if there is anything worth ranting about (my favorite pasttime) but for now, let’s just call it an interesting release.