Davbeck

iTunes has become a junk drawer for Apple. Things that would normally occupy 10 different pieces of software on the iPad are all thrown together into one big glob. My thoughts on how it should be broken up:

• Model syncing off of the current photo syncing. You don’t have all your photo’s managed by iTunes. You either have them organized by iPhoto or sitting willy nilly in folders. iTunes doesn’t care, it just communicates with other software when syncing.
• iTunes should be for media playback, that is music and video, only. Basically if you can’t say “playback” followed by the media, it shouldn’t be in iTunes. (playback music, playback movies, playback audiobooks, playback apps? playback books?)
• Syncing with devices should be handled outside of iTunes. It use to make sense for iTunes to sync with an iPod, it was a stretch to sync with the iPhone. The iPad doesn’t really make sense. Music and videos is hardly the primary use of the iPad so why is it dependent on a music app?
• The iOS App Store should be it’s own app. Just like the Mac App Store. Leave the music and videos store in iTunes. Apps ≠ music.
• There should be an iBooks for Mac. I may not want to read an entire book on my Mac, but I definitely would want to look things up or refer to it occasionally. It should also manage my books instead of iTunes. Leave audio books in iTunes.

Why doesn’t Apple do this? My guess is because they don’t like making software for both Mac and Windows and so they have been limiting the number of cross platform apps by putting everything in 1. Boo.

To summarize, iTunes should become 4 different apps, iTunes, iSync, iBooks and iOS App Store.

In order they appear on my iPhone, excluding Apple apps, my own apps, and apps I never use.

• Calcbot - A complete and better replacement for the default calculator. If you have ever had a problem or limitation of the default calculator app, this probably fixes it.
• Facebook - Only because it is the only option. Why are there no decent third party Facebook apps?
• Twitter for iOS - Really great app. I have been using it since it was Tweetie 1.
• Reeder - I use this on my iPhone, iPad and Mac. Best RSS/Google Reader app out there. If you use Google Reader, you should get this app. If you don’t, you should start so you can use this app.
• ESV Study + - A bible app that has really good commentary. The paper version of the commentary is $30 on Amazon.

Moving to page 2.

• Flashlight + - Uses the iPhone 4’s led flash as a light.
• Bible - Another bible app that includes almost every version and reading plans.
• Consume - Tracks AT&T usage. Does other stuff.
• Deliveries - Tracks package deliveries. Includes tracking of Amazon and Apple orders. Syncs with Mac widget.
• Pandora - This was useless until iOS 4.0.
• MapQuest - This is a horrible app. It’s UI is buggy and it has trouble searching for addresses. But it is free and the turn by turn directions work well once you start them. It is just sad to see such a well done backend wasted on such a horrible front end.
• Mint.com - Not the best app out there, but there have been some improvements recently. The service is wonderful.
• WellsFargo - Puts the app in crapp. Nearly useless.
• Birdhouse - Not for every Twitter user, but if you like to draft and revise your tweets before you send them, this is for you. I use it for about half of my tweets.

Moving on to page 3 (all in folders).

• Dropbox
• Square
• Scan
• Emergency Radio (Police Scanner)
• Autostich Panaroma
• Everyday
• IMDb
• Domai.nr
• Pastebot

Honerable Mention:

• iBooks - The selection isn’t great, but if it isn’t here, I either don’t buy it or buy a paper version.
• Game Center - I never use this, but it designed extremely well. Whoever designed this, please keep making apps.
• iTC Mobile - I use this almost everyday, but it is poorly designed. I would be happy to redesign it for free Apple.