iTunes Music Sharing – Count Me In, Please?

Users of iTunes whose computers are connected to a network probably know about iTunes’ music sharing feature, where you can access the music of any other user on your network, and listen to that music. iTunes streams the music from one computer to another, with the source or destination computer being either a Mac or PC. This is a pretty seamless operation; the remote user simply sets their copy of iTunes to search for shared music (in the Sharing preferences), and any shared library (to share your library, you also set this in the Sharing preferences) shows up in the Source list. Remote users can access playlists, or they can browse the shared library, though they can’t create playlists from shared music. They can also listen to protected media – either music or audiobooks purchased from iTunes. However, they cannot listen to audiobooks purchased from Audible.One of the main interests of using iTunes music sharing is to set up a central library for all the users in a home environment. (It’s also useful in companies, but I’ll just look at home use here.) If you have a central server, either Mac or PC, you can put all your music on the server, share the library, and allow everyone to access it when they want to listen to music on their computers. You can even stream the music to an AirPort Express using AirTunes. This is a great use for a Mac mini, though the size of the hard disk in the Mac mini is a bit limiting for some music fanatics.

There’s one drawback to iTunes music sharing, however; when you listen to music from a shared library, the play count doesn’t increment. Now, there is certainly a logic here – if you have 5 users, do you want the play count to increment each time any user listens to a song? Actually, you may; you may want to set up smart playlists based on the play count, so you can keep a constantly-updating playlist of what the entire family is listening to most.

Personally, the one thing that keeps me from using iTunes music sharing is the lack of play count incrementation. I want to know when I’ve listened to music; it may be a bit obsessive, but I have lots of CDs, and I regularly rip more of them. So after ripping music, I want to know if I’ve listened to it. I also download a lot of live concerts, from bands like The Grateful Dead, moe., String Cheese Incident and others who allow taping and trading of their music. I’d like to know which concerts I’ve listened to so I can make a note of which I especially like.

Apple should add an option in the Sharing preferences: Increment play count when a track is played. This would allow users to choose whether they want the play count (and, most likely, the last played date) to change. This option would allow for greater flexibility in using music sharing, and in managing large iTunes libraries. It’s a simple option to implement, and I think many users would like to see this.

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