Making an Apple Music playlist

The task: I have a list of songs that I want to make into an Apple Music playlist using iTunes on my iMac.

Step 1: Search My Music. If I already have the song in my library, that is likely the version I want in the playlist.

If it weren’t for step 2 below, this wouldn’t need to be a full, separate step. I’d search My Music and—if the song wasn’t there—one click would switch me to searching all of Apple Music.

The good news: If I find the song in My Music, it is easy to add it to my playlist. On to the next song. Otherwise...

Step 2: Search Wikipedia for the song to find which album (or other information) will distinguish the version I want.

Apple Music almost never has just a single version of a song, but it gives me precious little context to help me distinguish them from one another. I’ve learned from experience that things go a lot smoother when I check Wikipedia before searching Apple Music or the iTunes Store.

I’m not suggesting that a service should choose a definitive version for me, but it would be nice if it gave me some useful context. This sort of context seems in-line with Apple and Beats’ “people over algorithms” stance. In fact, I’d argue that this fits it moreso than mere curation.

Step 3: Add the song to My Music. Apple Music doesn’t allow you to add a song to a playlist unless you add it to your My Music first.

Well, I did find ways to do it, but it didn’t really work. The song wasn’t added to the playlist. Or if it was, it remained invisible.

Step 4: Search for the song (again) in My Music, and add the song to the playlist. Finally go to the next song on the list.

Compared to Spotify: Doing the same task in Spotify suffered, of course, from the issue of step 2 as well. Although it benefited from not having steps 1 or 3. Once I’d found a song, I could add it directly to my playlist. My biggest complaint about Spotify when creating a playlist was not being able to see the search results and the playlist side-by-side—which is also a problem in iTunes.

So... Even leaving out step 2, creating an Apple Music playlist with iTunes is shockingly clunky. It is hard to believe creating a playlist wasn’t an important enough use case to get better treatment. And a music service that wants to truly differentiate itself from the competition should perhaps look farther than just algorithms and farther than just curation.

A side note: Apple Music’s curation (over competitors’ algorithms) is touted as a distinguishing feature. I’d argue that Spotify’s shared user playlists are more useful curation that all of Apple/Beats “experts”. The ideal service would have both and ensure they both worked well.

App Store Genius

John August, “Topping the charts and racing to the bottom”:

What you really want is a list that shows what apps that people like you are using and enjoying. That’s the kind of information that companies like Amazon and Netflix are terrific at leveraging.

Um...isn’t that what that Genius option does?

Classic Doctor Who on Amazon Instant Video

I have edited my “Classic Doctor Who on Netflix and iTunes” article with a separate list of episodes available on Amazon Instant Video. It looks like they have five serials that aren’t available elsewhere.

Fire HD v. iPad first thoughts

Let’s assume for the moment that the Kindle Fire HD lives up to the expectations Amazon has given us. Perhaps the most interesting part is how Amazon differentiated themselves from Apple and other Android tablet makers. Amazon said they want to make money off the content they sell you for your devices rather than on selling the devices themselves.

Now, I’m not going to say that you can’t create on a Kindle Fire HD. Creative people will find creative ways to use any tool. But while Apple sells Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and GarageBand for the iPad; Amazon tells us that their tablets are about selling books, music, movies, and games.

(However much you think creating text content on an iPad doesn’t make sense, consider presentations, music, and graphics. Oh, and thanks to Posts, I’m creating this blog post entirely on my iPad.)

So, for instance, it seems (note “seems”) doubtful that the Fire will ever have the range of music production apps and accessories that the iPad has.

So, if you’re wondering why you should buy an iPad instead of a Fire HD, the big question is how much you want to use it to create and consume. If, for you, a tablet is mostly about consumption, a Kindle Fire might be the best choice for you.

And if you buy an iPad instead, Amazon still wins, because you can still buy your content from them and use it on your iPad. In fact, if you’re thinking about buying content to consume on your iPad from Amazon or Apple, you’re probably better off buying it from Amazon because, e.g., you can read Kindle books on nigh everything, but you can only read iBooks on an iPhone, an iPad, or an iPod touch.

Sell me video

If you’d like me to pay your company for video, here’s three ways you can do it.

1. Put it on iTunes.
2. Create an iOS app for it, and—this is crucial—support AirPlay and wired video out. Do not make me log in with my AT&T credentials unless you are AT&T. I shouldn’t need a cable, satellite, or U-verse subscription to view your content unless you actually are that company. Ensure that I can view your content through this app anywhere in the world where I have a wi-fi connection.
3. Partner with Apple to provide your content directly to my Apple TV. The relevant caveats from #2 apply here too.

Wait! Before you start telling my why these things aren’t possible, understand this: I don’t care. If you want my business, figure out how to make it happen. If you can’t, get as close as you can, and I’ll consider it.

Classic Doctor Who on Netflix and iTunes

A little project I finished up today. I tried to find all the classic Doctor Who serials available through Netflix (streaming) and iTunes and sort them in chronological order.

Classic Doctor Who serials on Netflix and iTunes

The file is in CSV format, which any spreadsheet app—like Numbers or OpenOffice† or Excel—ought to be able to open. (If it matters, the character encoding is UTF-8.) It has the...

• Number of the serial
• The title
• Which Doctor it features (this is blank for multiple Doctor episodes)
• Whether it is available through Netflix or iTunes (or both)
• What story arc it is a part of
• And any notes I thought to make about it

Note that, in general, you don’t really need to watch them in chronological order. Although, I think it is still nice to know the order. The story arcs are probably best to watch in order, though.

You might think that it would be in Netflix’s, iTunes’, and the BBC’s interest to make this kind of information easily available and up-to-date. Instead, all you can do—as far as I can tell—with Netflix or iTunes is search for “Doctor Who”, pick the classic serials out of the results, and cross-reference the titles against Wikipedia or another list of the serials. The BBC seems uninterested in letting you know that these are available via Netflix or iTunes much less giving you any guidance about this subset.

I didn’t include Amazon streaming since I’m not set up to use it yet. There are some episodes on Facebook, but I haven’t gotten that working yet. If there are any other ways to stream classic Doctor Who or purchase them as downloads in the US, I’d be interested.

†Is OpenOffice still the open source “office suite” of choice?

Update (31 March 2013): I put together a list of episodes available on Amazon Instant Video. Tomb of the Cybermen, Robots of Death, Horror of Fang Rock, Earthshock, and Vengeance of Varos appear to only be available through Amazon. (I didn’t recheck the Netflix and iTunes episodes, so what’s available there may have changed.)