nerdnet

This really is getting to be a very Apple-centric blog of mine.... I'm going to probably be writing about Xserve / OS X Server next! But for now, I thought I'd chime in about iTunes, the sometimes intelligent master of the ubiquitous iPod. I like iTunes, it makes it a breeze to organize our huge CD library into digital format that we can access around the house or even from anywhere in the world. I have iTunes set up on a 1.5Ghz Mac Mini with 1GB of RAM and plugged into that is a 500GB Buffalo LinkStation Live where all our digitized music lives. Currently we have just over 9000 songs from our CD collection imported into iTunes. This comes to about 60GB of total music data, and a 14MB iTunes library file. I also try to make sure I get all the CD art loaded into iTunes as well. Coverflow is pretty cool. So whats wrong with this situation? Speed, mostly... and the occasional network quirk.

I can't figure out, and maybe someone else can help me out here, why iTunes is painfully slow to use at times. For example, say I want to change the album name or artist of 25 songs. I simply highlight those songs, go to
"Get Info" and make the change. Clicking OK sends iTunes on its mission which for some reason can take several minutes at times. Changing album artwork? Go nuke some popcorn, this might take a while. It seems simple operations like these should happen much faster than they currently do. Adding MP3 files to the library from a folder on the same drive can also take a considerable amount of time. I am not sure where the problem lies, but it seems to get more annoying the larger the library gets. Perhaps storing the iTunes metadata in a file is part of the problem. Perhaps iTunes has just gotten too bloated and slow. Maybe we just have too much music!

The other problem I experience is with network sharing of the iTunes library. On our network, any computer running iTunes can access the library with a password and listen in. Lately, the iTunes share disappears entirely and no one on the network can see it. Restarting the iTunes share on the Mac Mini corrects the problem but eventually it just disappears again. I've recently upgraded iTunes to the newest version and the same problem persists. I also make sure the the compuer / network and drives don't go to "sleep." If I connect via a secure tunnel, I never lose the library, so I am wondering if maybe my network router is to blame. I recently updated the router's firmware as well, but I haven't found anyone else with the same problem. Hopefully, I'll get that worked out.

Speaking of network access to iTunes, wouldn't it be great to have an iTunes "server" version and the iTunes "client" can connect over the network and listen in? Also, wouldn't it be even better if you could manage your iTunes library from the remote clients? Changing info, adding new music, artwork etc? I really hope this is the direction Apple takes with iTunes. I am rarely sitting at our Mac, I prefer to remote access it over my laptop. I would love to be able to work on the network music library from iTunes running as a client from my laptop.

We love our iPods, we love our music, we'd certainly like to love iTunes as well :) Heres to hoping that there are some improvements coming, or we may have to start looking for a different solution!