iTunes should moonlight as an iPod
At the moment, iTunes allows for a library to be shared over a local network. Although it is convenient, there are some fairly major flaws in this feature. The most obvious flaw is that when the serving computer is powered down or absent, the music files are unavailable. The next less obvious but incredibly annoying issue is that the client computer has no administrative privileges (nor any option) over the songs on the server. One cannot manage playlists, rate songs, and even add to the master library.
Apple could address most of my gripes by adding in an iPod emulator feature to iTunes. For instance, iTunes on my laptop (client machine) could appear to be a 'soft iPod' over the network. In this way, I could actually sync my 'soft iPod' to the master iTunes library (server) over the network. I could then modify playlists, add to the master library and rate songs and these changes would automatically be synced with the master library once they came in contact again, in the same way that the iPod syncs with a master library.
I suggest this, because no change would be necessary for iTunes on the server side other than being able to recognize a network-attached 'soft iPod'. On the client side, they would simply need to add code to iTunes already present on every iPod so it could emulate. The same sync restrictions could apply and they would need to add the ability for the 'soft iPod' to merge new tunes into the master library. Probably not much of a feat for those clever Apple engineers.
Oh, and the final added benefit? Even if the song server was gone, or I'm off at a coffeeshop, my wife and kids would have the full library at home while I'm away. In my opinion, this it the missing link for iTunes, and it's technology that is already sitting in their laps.
So I expect comments like....take your iPod to the coffeeshop. I own an iPod. I own a phone/pda combo. Having my full master library on my computer is what I want. I need to have my laptop with me for my business constantly anyway. Keeping a separate device charged and synced is just one more inconvenience in life.
