

iTunes should be a platform, not a bloated app - a4agarwal
http://sachin.posterous.com/itunes-should-be-a-platform

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Legion
I kind of get the feeling that that's coming. I have no proof, of course, but
I just have the feeling that Apple isn't satisfied with the current setup,
either.

Indeed, we saw the Mac App Store launch as a separate application instead of
being jammed into iTunes.

It's a lot easier to make new things separate than to break up all the
existing stuff. I imagine the iTunes break-up will come, I just hope it
doesn't take too long to get there.

~~~
Kylekramer
I can't see that happening. The problem is iTunes is Apple's Trojan horse to
get on Windows. They were able to separate the Mac App Store because by nature
they don't need it on Windows. But almost everything else iTunes does (music,
TV, movies, device management, apps, etc) needs to be cross platform to work
out economically. If they were to break it up, they would have to fight to
make each program popular on Windows.

iTunes will probably have to remain a monolith until iDevices can be self
sufficient machines, which I don't see coming in the near future. Of course,
there is no reason why they can't make it a better monolith in the mean time.

~~~
jokermatt999
Honestly, if iTunes is Apple's Trojan horse, they really need to improve it.
It is, without exaggeration, one of the worst programs I've used. I've heard
it's much better on Mac, but the experience of having used it daily for years
really put me off of Apple in general.

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pmjordan
More than that - you shouldn't even _need_ a full blown PC or Mac to use an
iDevice [1]. Syncing should largely be over-the-air, with a Time
Capsule/Airport Extreme style device. OS updates could be done from such a
device, too - they have USB ports after all.

Although it's risky as Apple might shut you down, I think it _could_ be done
by a third party with some effort. If our startup ends up going nowhere and
nobody has done it by then, we will.[2] The potential is insane, IMO. It's
crazy how many people we know who either _have_ an iPad as their main
computing device, or who would be served well by it if they didn't have to
maintain a classic personal computer to back up/update the iPad.

[1] Syncing should still be better than the current iTunes situation if you
do.

[2] Maybe, _maybe_ we can eventually do it as a side project without losing
too much focus. I think the market is bigger than for our current product, but
it's also much riskier, and would realistically require investment, whereas we
can in theory bootstrap indefinitely right now.

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MatthewPhillips
I seem to recall having to give them a credit card number to activate the
iPad, am I wrong on this? If so, that's a good incentive for them not to offer
OTA updates, etc. It puts consumers in front of content for sale, at worst.

~~~
pmjordan
They could move the activation into an on-device app that launches on first
boot before proceeding to the home screen. In any case there currently exist
hacks for activating your iDevice from a _Linux_ (!) box [1], so it clearly
works without a credit card, additional restrictions imposed by iTunes itself
notwithstanding.

[1] <https://github.com/posixninja/ideviceactivate>

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k7d
You can already do some of those things in a 3rd party app via API (except for
in-app purchases and iTunes authentication). Of course there are downsides
like the AppleScript API kind of sucks and you need iTunes app running for it
to work.

However to really become a platform iTunes needs to move to the cloud. Let's
hope Apple will get it right with their rumored iTunes streaming service.

~~~
hsmyers
Is there a reason to not use the Apple COM SDK for iTunes? link:
<http://developer.apple.com/sdk/itunesvisualsdk.html> Or are we (you) talking
about something more app store oriented?

~~~
spicyj
That's just for writing visualizers.

