IPhoto organization in iTunes? It IS supposed to be a LIBRARY you know.

Question

When are we going to see some kind of multiple library function in iTunes similar to the way iPhoto is set up with "Events" organizing the photos. Having one gigantic list of songs that is the only way of viewing your main library (no playlists don't count) is now outdated. Imagine being to have a library for each person in your family all within ONE iTunes, that you can enter like a room? Maybe a cross between Magic Garageband and iPhoto in terms of interface, and an organization combination of Coverflow and Events?
For people who want to have a media center, all their families music in one library but don't want to have to sift through hundreds of Panic! At The Disco songs from your younger siblings when you want to see your own music, you may agree with me that the regular system of scrolling to see songs is as bad as the old iPhoto. Yeah, you can make more than one library, but the software can and has done better, home media organization needs to be the next big step.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

I hardly think expressing frustration and some possible solutions for a certain aspect of a software is 'complaining'. If it sounded like I was complaining I apologize. I actually like iTunes a lot, HOWEVER:
The problem with the way you (and many others) organize your 12,000-tune library (I have 15,000+, but this isn't a contest) is that like iPhoto 6 and earlier versions, the only way to organize/view the HOME location of your photos was in the huge long list of photos, which could be organized by date, title, film roll, etc. The issue has been fixed in iPhoto 7, by having "events", the home location of the photos in your iphoto interface can be viewed in the classic style of a long list, but also through smaller portals, "Events", which also lead you to the home location, rather than an organization of individual photos from different film rolls, which is essentially what an "album" is in iPhoto, or "Playlist" in iTunes.
The problem is not the file structure, the file structure of iTunes is perfect IMO. iTunes->iTunes Music->Artists->Albums->Songs. Perfect. It's just the interface, which has already in a conceptual sense been solved between garageband and iphoto. Some kind of combination of the "Audition" interface, and the classic list of songs, would be a cool way to view in a digital interface something more similar to a physical "Library". Of course, it'd have to be made in a less little-kid-game type of way, more streamlined and cool than simply entertaining. But if one could 'enter' into your library, or I guess, your 'room' of the library and view your music, then you could organize it all in one place and view it like the traditional iTunes library list we have now, while having multiple people's music in one Library, easily backed up, easily accessible with multiple iPods, it'd be great.
Also, it would give way to a iPhoto/Aperture type interface, where there are more buttons... a button for quick "Convert" file types for people who keep most of their library in Lossless but need to convert fast to fit on iPods (seeing how large personal computer HD's are getting hopefully more people will have Lossless-formated libraries in the near future), a button to add to iDisk on MobileMe or something, a button to view what playlists an individual song is currently included in, a button to publish a compilation to iWeb making some kind of Apple designed music-blog. Just something more dynamic, there's tons of cool things that could be built in. All the other iLife apps are super dynamic now, iTunes needs to catch up, at least for the Mac.
I hope I have described the problem well enough, and in at least a vague way described my solutions. Cheers.
Max
P.S. Additions: If there were some kind of "Event" type interface, where you could scroll back and forth over the key photo and view the album artworks (like the way you view the particular Event's photos in iPhoto), then it would bring an importance back to Album Artwork, which I've also posted about, and make viewing album artwork again regular part of listening to music. Not enough people use Coverflow yet, and hopefully as digital music develops, more people will legally obtain music (even if it's free, but legally free), which will include booklets and artwork.