Splitting Up iTunes
iTunes is a monstrosity.
It was originally a music player that you used to manage the music on your iPod. An application that did two things well. Then a music player with a music shop. Then they added device syncing, movies, movie rentals. iTunes is not the appropriate lace to manage device syncing. Photos, contacts, the iOS app store and eBooks simply don’t belong in what should be, through and through, the best media application in the world. iTunes’ bulk makes it horrible to use.
On an iPad, iPod or iPhone, all these features are managed by separate applications. If I want to buy an application, I go to the App Store app. If I want to play music, I go to the iPod app. Ditto for buying books and music. This is how things should work when syncing on OS X.
The Windows version probably rightly has everything rolled into a single app. Apple doesn’t control the Windows desktop, so that’s not something I want to touch on. On OS X, however, this is how I’d like to have things work.
So this is the current iTunes layout with my iPhone plugged in. In the same way you manage all your photos in iPhoto rather than iTunes, apps and books have no place here. One could argue that books should be left in, but only for lack of an OS X iBooks app. Devices? Shouldn’t be managed here at all. iTunes should be where you manage, buy and play your entertainment media, and not much else. Let’s cut out the guff.
There. Much nicer. Although to be honest the layout of iTunes is incredibly stale, so a complete redesign of the interface is probably the best bet at this stage. But taking out things that aren’t directly related to music or movies is a great place to start.
So how do you buy apps for your iPhone, iPod and/or iPad now it’s gone from iTunes? The same way you buy apps for OS X, in the App Store:
All app purchases and management is done from a unified App Store. All updates also come through this channel. Once an iOS device is synced, though, checking for app updates would need to be done and whether the App Store pops up to do this, or it’s done in the device management interface (more on this soon) I’m not sure. Any which way, Apps come through the App Store. Simple.
So how are iOS devices managed on OS X? Through tight integration with the operating system, from the desktop. Below is my concept on this. I’m sure people with even the slightest of design acumen could do a better mock up than I:
In this mock-up, I have my iPhone and iPad plugged in and they’d sync automatically in the same way they do when I plug them in today (sans iTunes launching and taking over). The management interface seen above would come up from a single or double left click, or a right click, or some such. If I want to managed my music manually instead of syncing via albums, artists, playlist and the like, it’d simply be a matter of dragging the desired media from iTunes onto the iPhone icon. Ditto with apps, from the app store and photos from iPhoto. This is the device interface directly ripped out of iTunes. Managing playlists would need a new tab which I forgot to include above.
That’s my basic concept. Whether we’ll see a rethink like this from Apple for OS X Lion or later is unclear, but as iTunes stands now (in all its 32 bit glory, mind), is simply below par for Apple.
