Annals of Monadic Deadlock

iCloud/iTunes Match and metadata

I'm (obviously) going to be paying for an unlimited iTunes Match account. I still have a lot of music ripped from CDs that I later sold used that's at 160 or 192 bps, so iTunes Match is basically just a cheap way to upgrade all of that music.

What I'm really curious about, though, is how iTunes Match and/or iCloud will deal with metadata. I invest inordinate amounts of time in getting the tags of my music files just right. My genre system doesn't map to iTunes, exactly, so does that mean that iTunes Match won't be able to match those songs? Also, what if I change a song's metadata (id3 tags)? Will that music file be re-uploaded to iCloud and then downloaded to my other devices?

Finally, what about playlist syncing? This is my number one most desired feature. I want to be able to make a playlist on my iMac, and then be able to match it exactly on my Macbook Air--and use a playlist as an algorithm for what music gets synced over, since my MBA get hold my entire collection.

 

My problem with iTunes genius playlists

Predictability and repetition. To illustrate the first, here's what iTunes genius came up with when I used U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" as a seed track. This is using an iTunes library with 8404 tracks, by the way, nearly all of which should be indexed iTunes genius since they're music that's generally available--so there shouldn't be any lack of options for iTunes to choose from.)

iTunes Genius: Sunday Bloody Sunday
	Track	Time	Artist	Album
1	Knockin' On Heaven's Door	2:30	Bob Dylan	The Essential Bob Dylan
2	Blowin' In The Wind	2:49	Bob Dylan	The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
3	Just What I Needed	3:43	The Cars	"The Cars"
4	A Long December	4:58	Counting Crows	Recovering The Satellites
5	Lovesong	3:29	The Cure	Disintegration
6	Close To Me	3:23	The Cure	The Head On The Door
7	Boys Don't Cry	2:35	The Cure	Standing On the Beach: The Singles 1979-1985
8	Heroes	6:08	David Bowie	Heroes
9	Let's Dance	7:37	David Bowie	Let's Dance
10	Monkey Wrench	3:51	Foo Fighters	The Colour and the Shape
11	Can't Stand Losing You	3:00	The Police	Outlandos d'Amour
12	King of Pain	4:59	The Police	Synchronicity
13	Don't Stand So Close To Me	4:04	The Police	Zenyatta Mondatta
14	Nightswimming	4:18	R. E. M.	Automatic for the People
15	Fake Plastic Trees	4:51	Radiohead	The Bends (Collector's Edition)
16	Paranoid Android	6:23	Radiohead	OK Computer
17	Karma Police	4:22	Radiohead	OK Computer
18	Higher Ground	3:23	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Mother's Milk
19	America	3:36	Simon & Garfunkel	The Best of Simon & Garfunkel
20	Tonight, Tonight	4:15	Smashing Pumpkins	Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness: Dawn To Dusk
21	Today	3:20	Smashing Pumpkins	Siamese Dream
22	Desire [Hollywood Remix]	5:23	U2	Desire (Single)
23	Sweetest Thing [B-Side Version]	3:05	U2	The Joshua Tree (bonus disc)
24	Sunday Bloody Sunday	4:39	U2	War
25	New Year's Day	5:36	U2	War

This playlist at least does a good job with diversity of genre and decade--there's 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 00s music all represented, and while most of it is alternative rock, there is some classic as well (Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel.) However, my issue with this selection of songs is that it's a lot of pretty predictable, burnt selections. With only a few exceptions, most of these songs you could still hear these songs on good ol' FM radio. 

Of course, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was a pretty big song for U2, so let's try a more obscure track from the same album.

iTunes Genius: Surrender
	Track	Time	Artist	Album
1	You're All I've Got Tonight	4:14	The Cars	"The Cars"
2	Since You're Gone	3:30	The Cars	Shake It Up
3	Rain	3:57	The Cult	Love
4	A Night Like This	4:16	The Cure	The Head On The Door
5	The Hanging Garden	4:34	The Cure	Pornography
6	Jumping Someone Else's Train	2:56	The Cure	Standing On the Beach: The Singles 1979-1985
7	The Perfect Kiss	4:50	New Order	Low-Life
8	Shellshock	6:31	New Order	Low-Life (bonus disc)
9	Secret Journey	3:34	The Police	Ghost In The Machine
10	Synchronicity I	3:23	The Police	Synchronicity
11	Walking In Your Footsteps	3:37	The Police	Synchronicity
12	Message of Love (Live At the Santa Monica Civic, CA, 1981)	3:28	Pretenders	Pretenders II (bonus disc)
13	Talk of the Town (Live At the Santa Monica Civic, CA, 1981)	3:18	Pretenders	Pretenders II (bonus disc)
14	Finest Worksong	3:50	R. E. M.	Document
15	Driver 8	3:24	R. E. M.	Fables Of The Reconstruction
16	Can't Get There From Here	3:40	R. E. M.	Fables Of The Reconstruction
17	Talk About The Passion	3:22	R. E. M.	Murmur
18	We Work The Black Seam	7:01	Sting	Bring On The Night
19	Love Is the Seventh Wave	3:32	Sting	The Dream of the Blue Turtles
20	Swamp	4:30	Talking Heads	Stop Making Sense
21	Girlfriend Is Better	5:06	Talking Heads	Stop Making Sense
22	Wire	4:18	U2	The Unforgettable Fire
23	Seconds	3:11	U2	War
24	Two Hearts Beat As One	4:03	U2	War
25	Surrender	5:34	U2	War

This time, genius does a better job with predictability. Instead of picking the biggest hit from the album, it seems to have gone with the second or third biggest hits (which, in a sense, is a bit predictable, so perhaps I should have said that iTunes did a better job of not picking burnt songs.)

The other problem I have with these two playlists is lack of artist variety. This may not be true for all iTunes users, but if I pick a U2 song, that doesn't mean I want to a playlist of all U2 songs. In fact, I would prefer that in a playlist of 25 songs, there be no artist repetition at all. In the first playlist, there are 13 unique artists, and in the second only 10. To me, that feels like a lack of imagination. Especially since in my library there are many artists that I think relate to U2 in style, genre and era. 

There are some things I really like about the genius feature, like it's convenience and the idea of quickly generating a playlist of related tracks, but I wish it allowed a bit more granularity in its controls. I'm thinking of sliders (or even checkboxes) that would allow one to adjust the variety of artists and the relative obscurity of the tracks it plays. 

Apple tablet use cases and predicted pricing

At this stage in Apple's development as a company, a new hardware product needs to become a huge (billion-dollar plus) business in order to justify the investment, and more importantly, the opportunity cost, especially that of senior executives' time. When I've heard about rumors of an Apple tablet computer, I"ve always been somewhat doubtful that the potential market was big enough to warrant Apple's attention. This post is an attempt to inventory potential use cases and see if my opinion changes.

Gaming: bigger screen equals more fun. I can't really imagine playing SimCity or Civilization on the iphone. Both those games worked great, though, on my Mac IIci's screen. Any game that's played on the ipod touch or on facebook will benefit from being on the larger screen of the Apple tablet.

Music: ipods are great for solo use, but not for a group. Also, live DJ'ing with an ipod sucks, since finding songs is difficult and there's no way to manage a song queue. If the Apple tablet supports itunes DJ I will buy one just for that reason. Also, an apple tablet seems like an ideal place to enjoy itunes LP covert art and bonus features. Who knows, maybe the tablet will even be a good place to clean herb (as the jacket for Rastaman Vibration famously proclaimed.)

Magazines/newspapers: one of the things I was surprised about with my ipod was how much I read on it, especially the NY Times app. With the app store, Apple finally has a payments system that will work for content on the web, since they've made it feasible to charge a small amount (1-3 dollars) on a one-time basis. Nobody but nobody wants to sign up to be charged on a recurring basis for internet content. They will, however, buy it on a one-time basis when they are especially interested or know they have time to read it (like stocking up on magazines at the airport bookstore before heading to Hawaii.) Eventually, if they like something enough, they will have the opportunity to get a subscription, at which point the recurring charges will feel like a feature (convenience) instead of a bug.

Books: Steve Jobs has pooh-pooh'ed the idea of Apple making an e-book reader almost as many times as he said that video wouldn't work on an ipod. Amazon's kindle has validated the e-book space, and there's no reason why Apple can't make something 90% as good that will also do much more. 

Web surfing: with a larger screen and more usable keyboard, the tablet becomes just as good a web-surfing experience as a Macbook.

Kids: most tech analysts are angry, child-hating loners, so they underestimate the kinds of factors that parents look at when buying a computer. If the tablet is solid state with few ports and a touch screen, that means it will be very hard to damage, and will survive dropping much better than a laptop since it doesn't have a hard drive. Also, the tablet will be much more locked-down than a Macbook, and thus parents will feel safer giving it to their children or teenagers.

There's probably a lot more use cases, but that's enough for now. Having written these, I am now agreeing with John Gruber's analysis. The Apple tablet will be positioned as a universal personal content consumption device, and for many users in the consumer space will replace the Macbook.

Predicted price breakdown:

64gb SSD: $899

128gb SSD: $999

(it won't be cheap when it first comes out--no important Apple product ever is.)

woah, posting from my dashboard? crazy

Rain is coming!

via www.intellicast.com

Batten down the hatches!