March 29, 2010
There are two ways to share content from your media library in iTunes 9. The first, sharing via streaming to anyone on your local network, is not new. You can enable it on the Sharing tab in the Preferences panel, which will allow your computer to look for the libraries others are sharing and let you choose whether to share your whole library or just selected items and playlists. When Sharing is turned on, shared libraries on your local network appear in the Shared section of the iTunes window's left-hand column. You can play the content that appears there as if it were on your own computer.
The other kind of sharing, Home Sharing, is new to iTunes 9. In addition to streaming, it lets the users of up to five computers on a home network copy over music or any other item they'd like to have in their own library. Then they can then enjoy it even if your computer is no longer on the network, and they can sync it to their own devices. To turn it on, use Turn On Home Sharing in the Advanced menu on each of the computers, and use the same active iTunes account to activate each one. Copying is then a simple matter of dragging from a shared library and dropping into your own.
March 22, 2010
The DJ built into iTunes lives at the top of Playlists in the left-hand column of the iTunes window. By default, it selects 15 tracks from your music library to start things off. Behind the scenes, it keeps track of the last five songs in rotation, and adds a new track to the end of the list each time a song has been played. At the bottom left of your track list, there's a menu that lets you choose any of your playlists as the source for new tracks. At the bottom right of your track list, the Settings button lets you adjust how many recently played and upcoming songs are displayed and whether you'd like higher-rated songs to be played more often.
The rest of the Settings panel underlines what a flexible and accommodating soul the iTunes DJ is. Not only can you drag tracks around and drag in new ones as the spirit moves, but any of your iPhone/iPod touch-carrying guests who have the Apple Remote app installed can also add new songs to the list. You decide whether they can request songs from your whole library or a particular playlist, and they also get a chance to influence what plays next by tapping the voting heart to the right of each track.
March 15, 2010
In addition to the Internet and your local network, iTunes is also alert to a different kind of network -- the one made up of the iPhones, iPods (and soon iPads) that it runs on, as well as the computer you sync them with. Whether tracks have been played since the last sync is part of the information that gets updated when you sync. As a result, smart playlists using criteria such as "most often played" and "least recently played" update based on your overall experience and not just what you've done on any one particular device. By the way, if the play count for tracks ever gets out of whack, it's easy to reset it. Just select the track(s) in list view in your library, right click (or control-click on a Mac), and choose Reset Play Count.
