Tech Blog

[#1]

When I received my first iPod a few years back, I cursed Apple. iTunes didn't work as I expected, it kept wanting to 'fix' my library by rearranging my carefully crafted file structure, and essential features were either missing or I couldn't find them. At that time, in my mind, iTunes was broken, and one of the worst pieces of media managing software on the planet. I came from a PC background and couldn't understand how Apple couldn't simply take a look at Winamp and 'do the Apple thing' to it. I was not pleased.

Today's iTunes still has the bones of the previous versions, and yes, some things are still kinda broken: try rearranging your icons on your iPod Touch, then launch iTunes on your PC and sync it -- and watch all your icons decide they don't like where you put them and select new homes.Frustrating

But I digress. There are two things that almost make any other iTunes pain go away.

Thing One - Home Sharing
In a nutshell, Home Sharing allows Mac or PC owners in a household to share anything purchased through the iTunes store amongst themselves. That includes Apps, ringtones, music, podcasts, audiobooks, and video.

My shared library as seen from another computer

Simply enable Home Sharing on one computer with an iTunes account and library, then enable it on the others. You'll need to enter the iTunes account credentials of the first computer into the others, but when you do that, the content in the first computer's iTunes library is available to the other computers -- and their devices.

This lets you buy one app or other iTunes product and share it within the household, which is great for multi-player games like Flight Control. Kudos to Apple for allowing families to share this way.

Thing Two - Multi-iPod sync from a single library
Feeding media from a single iTunes library to multiple iPods; not something I'd really tried before iTunes 9 (the current version) but it's pretty simple to do.

Each iPod appears under the Devices section in the left hand pane, and has its own categories for Music, Movies, TV Shows, etc. Plug a couple of iPods in and wait for iTunes to recognize them.

If you're like me and have your media centralized on one computer and catalogued by iTunes, then it's a simple matter of dragging the media to the appropriate device, and then syncing the devices, one at a time.

Ok, it's been a few months since iTunes 9 came out and I've still not played with all the features -- I'm looking to get into LPs some day. But I'm sure there are other things about iTunes that rock YOU. If so, let me know! I need something to help lessen my frustration at the mysterious moving icons on my iPod Touch.

Message Edited by bgrier on 10-28-2009 12:44 AM

[#2]

How about AirTunes? My roommate and I use it all the time with our macs, time capsule and airport express station. It works beautifully, and either one of us can stream our music to the stereo in the living room.

The best part is probably using iTunes DJ though. It uses Genius to generate a good playlist for a party, and then users can request songs either by computer or by iPod touch/iPhone using the Remote app, and that song will go to the top of the list. Combine that with AirTunes and your guests never even need to see your computer, it's great! 

[#3]

Nice, sounds like you've got a great little system there, and you've taken advantage of the features of AirPort and iTunes...Something I should try sometime

[#4]

Can I do what you said above if I have a macbook and PC in the house or will this only work if you have all PC or all mac?

The PC has hundreds and hundreds of songs in itunes. The macbook not nearly as much. 

I want to somehow get the music from the PC into the macbook because we use the macbook to synch the iphones and ipod touch

help?

[#5]

@when: Yep, it'll work with a mix of PC and Mac, as home sharing depends on your iTunes account information...and since iTunes knows which songs you've bought through the store, it knows which to share via home sharing.

If you've ripped your own CDs into iTunes though, you may have to copy them to the other computer through a network connection, then manually import them into that computer's iTunes library.