iTunes 8.1 update fulfills my desire for “social music”
// March 17th, 2009 // Uncategorized
“With iTunes DJ, iPhone users that have Apple’s Remote application installed can request songs to be played. Users can also vote to control when songs are played. The DJ feature even has its own preferences, so you can send a welcome message to users and control whether voting is turned on or off. You can also require users to type in a password to access iTunes DJ’s features.” – Macworld
Thank you Macworld, that is so cool! Why didn’t that feature get more press coverage? Since the first Bluetooth connectivity was announced for the iPod I’ve been dreaming of a way to have a room full of people collaboratively controlling the music playlist.
Back then I was thinking about a Bluetooth or FM transmitter dongle that would assign you a unique ID within range of the DJ’s master dongle attached to his Macbook and running a controller app. The DJ could choose to accept a song playing back from any one of the unique IDs within range or queue up a playlist from the songs being suggested by the audience.
But that would be hard. This ought to be much simpler; just setup an AppleTV, or a Macbook with a direct out to a stereo, or via an Airport Express, and the party be started.
…oh, people would need an iPhone or an iPod Touch, naturally, but really, who doesn’t need one anyway? 
The voting system could add some spice to the interaction. I can see Twitter being used as a backchannel (as it inevitably is) on people’s musical taste (or lack thereof.)
I must take some time out this week to set something up at the new Pollenizer office — this could be great fun at our welcome drinks.
Nice work, Apple!
[UPDATE:] With Apple’s announcement of broader support for Bluetooth, third-party hardware and apps, Steven Levy of WIRED magazine had a very interesting question about serving iTunes songs from one iPhone/iPod to another over Bluetooth. The Apple guys fielding questions didn’t say ‘yes’ but they didn’t entirely say no either… could my dreams of a giant, collaborative music party be closer than I imagined? Stay tuned!
