Idea of the Day - A new idea each day. Some Don't Suck!

Our Latest Posts About: iTunes

iTunes Needs a Backup Payment Option

Wednesday, July 20, 2016 1:00 AM By Joe Crescenzi

If your credit card expires or is declined, you can lose all your iCloud files because there is no backup payment option.

The cloud is a wonderful thing. It lets you sleep at night knowing all of your valuable files are safe and secure. You don't have to worry about hard drive crashes, power surges, viruses, or even natural disasters like fires or floods. You can even lose your entire computer and you won't lose your data.

I pay about $10 per month for Apple's iCloud Drive service which gets me 1 TB of storage, allowing me to secure all my most important files, photos and videos all in one place. There's a pretty good feeling knowing that all my files are safe and secure.

Unfortunately last week I got a rude awakening. I tried to create a simple spreadsheet in Excel an... [More]

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Tag and Shuffle Multiple Artists, Albums or Playlists

Monday, February 8, 2016 1:00 AM By Joe Crescenzi

There should be a way to mix your music by tagging more than one thing.

One of the most popular features of today's music players is the ability to shuffle your music. The trouble is you only have a few ways to do it. You can select an individual artist, album or category... or shuffle your entire collection. So in a nutshell, you don't have that much control.

Let's say you're in the mood for some Pink Floyd, but you'd also like to hear The Beatles and maybe Tony Bennett. Right now, you can shuffle any of them individually, but there's no way to create a mix that contains all three.

The solution is to offer a way to tag multiple items with a checkbox, then combine them on-the-fly into an instant mix. The only way to do that right now is to create a new Playlist, then i... [More]

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Use iTunes Cards in Apple Stores

Friday, December 25, 2015 1:00 AM By Joe Crescenzi

Have you ever tried to use an iTunes card in an Apple Store? You can't.

I find it odd that Apple has two kinds of gift cards. One card is for making purchases in the Apple Store or on their website. The other card is for buying digital media such as music, movies, books, and Apps on iTunes.

The trouble is, you can't use the iTunes Card to make purchases in the Apple Store or on the website. This makes it difficult for some people to tell the difference when they are picking out a gift for somebody who loves Apple products. If you intended to give somebody a card they can use towards Apple hardware, such as a Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple TV, or an accessory, and you accidentally buy an iTunes card, they can't use it.

The mixup is a bit easier if you intended to give somebody... [More]

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iTunes Purchases Should Be Downloadable Forever.

Sunday, September 13, 2015 1:00 AM By Joe Crescenzi

What good is a digital purchase if you can't find it?

If you've been using iTunes for a while, there's a good chance that some of your earlier purchases are no longer available in the iTunes store. Whenever those items are removed from the store, they also vanish from your online library, which means that unless you make copies of the original files, there's no way to download them again. How dumb is that?

So, many of your old music, movies, books, apps, and audiobooks may be missing right now, and you won't even notice until you look for them.

I first discovered this after I purchased a bunch of Audible audiobooks from iTunes.

Since audiobooks tend to be pretty big files, I would periodically delete them from my local computer, under the assumption that I could re

... [More]

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Apple's iTunes Radio is a Mess. They Need a Community of Music Curators.

Sunday, November 23, 2014 1:00 AM By Joe Crescenzi

WKRP In Cincinnati was a lousy radio station until they brought in Andy Travis, the new Program Director to help them pick better content. iTunes Radio needs people like that, because it's a mess right now.

Full disclosure. I love Pandora Radio. I've used it from the first day it popped up in the iPhone App store mainly because I love music and it does a great job of finding music that fits my mood.

When Apple introduced iTunes Radio, I had high hopes. I picked a few of their hand picked "Stations" and I was impressed by the songs it played. The trouble is, in spite of the huge catalog of music in the iTunes store, the songs it picks are sometimes completely out of the genre I was trying to listen to, and they repeat the same songs within an hour or so. If I wanted to he... [More]

Continue...Apple's iTunes Radio is a Mess. They Need a Community of Music Curators....

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* Note: The ideas on "Idea of the Day" were posted without any formal research into existing inventions.

In some cases, patents may already exist for these ideas, in other cases, there may not be any existing patents and you are free to develop and explore the viability of developing and patenting the ideas.

The authors make no claim that any of the ideas are safe, practical, or suitable for any particular purpose. You are responsible for the results of trying, developing, patenting or using any of the ideas on this site.

For some people, our ideas are just an interesting read, but our goal is to encourage you to take action. If you see an idea that you like, do something with it... Take action.

- Joe

Idea Of The Day. A new Idea Each Day. Some Don't Suck.