If there were one new feature that I could request in iTunes it would be to treat the computer’s hard-drive as a device that could be synced. With an ever increasing library of music, TV shows and movies, I, like many many others, have moved my entire collection to an external hard-drive. This is all well and good when you are at home (particularly if you are using a networked drive) however the problems begin when you get out and about – you obviously don’t take your 1TB drive with you…
This has led me to create two libraries for iTunes. When I am away from home, I load my laptop’s library and listen to music from that collection, or, more likely, watch the TV shows that I have saved locally. This would well enough except for two big problems. First of all, you have to store a local copy of a file that already exists within your main collection. Secondly, if you use the recently played feature of iTunes to keep playlists current, the play count doesn’t transfer across.
This whole problem could be resolved if you could set aside a folder on your computer’s hard-drive that iTunes would treat as a device. This would allow you to sync playlists with your computer from your main library without having to create copies of files or have redundant play counts and the like. If you set aside the space, you could even have iTunes fill it automatically with your favourite items, least played items, newest items, or some other criteria that you have selected.
Apple could counter my argument by saying that I could just use my iPod or iPhone for the same purpose and not keep any content on my laptop at all. This would cover 90% of the time that I am away from home, but for the other times where I want to use my laptop as an ad hoc TV (whilst traveling for example) the iPhone/iPod solution doesn’t work.
While this is highly unlikely to ever be included, it would make my mobile life so much more convenient and hopefully some bright Apple engineer is thinking the same thing as me and includes the feature somewhere down the track.
I love this idea. Twine is a way of getting your computer/phone/email/twitter/whatever to react and respond to a real world event. It’s a simple box with a collection of sensors all controlled with a simple web interface. Want to know when the dryer is finished? The accelerometer will tweet you. Want to know when a door is opened? Use the magnetic sensor to send you an SMS when it is triggered.