The top of this list would probably be the Apple TV, but recent rumors of an imminent refresh of the device, perhaps built on iOS, has bumped the “hobby” project in favor of some other devices and features that are waiting for a little love from Apple.

Airport Express

The Airport Express was last updated in March 2008 when Apple added 802.11n capabilities. The Airport Express was the first device to sport AirTunes remote speakers so you could play iTunes audio in another room, but it is the last device to still have 100baseT ethernet. When 802.11n can hit transfer speeds of 150-300 megabits, it seems silly to be bottlenecked at 100 megabits on the ethernet side. The Airport Express would also benefit from AirDisk support in addition to the printer facilities it currently provides through the USB port. Simultaneous dual-band Wi-Fi as found in the Airport Extreme would also be a nice update.

30″ Cinema Display

[inline-ad align="right"]A lot has already been said about the lack of updates to the 30″ Cinema Display, introduced in June 2004. The 30-incher is still a great display, but the newer 24″ LED Cinema Display sports a lot of upgraded technology that needs to make its way into the 30″ model too. The 30″ is crying out to be updated with LED backlighting and Mini DisplayPort inputs. I know it is a bit un-Apple-like, but I would really like to see multiple HDMI and Mini DisplayPort inputs so that the next 30″ display could be connected to a MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and/or a Blu-ray player, game console, etc. While we’re at it, both displays could use an upgrade to a higher resolution iSight sensor and Firewire 800 connectors.

Front Row

Front Row is not exactly a product, but this feature of Mac OS X provides a 10 foot interface for your iTunes content. Unfortunately, it has not been updated since Mac OS X 10.5 in November 2007. Front Row does not even understand newer content like iTunes U or iTunes Extras. The new interface on the Apple TV introduced with version 3 would be a good place to start, but frankly the whole thing could be redone. Adam Jackson pointed out to me that a new Front Row would be great for the Mac mini because the new HDMI output makes it the perfect Mac to connect to an HDTV — where you actually need an interface that you can use from across the room with a remote.

Apple Remote Desktop

Speaking of remotes, Apple Remote Desktop is supremely useful for managing large numbers of Macs in a school or enterprise setting. But the last major update was April 2006 and has only seen three minor updates since then, the most recent coming out last summer which consisted of bug fixes and sending function keys to the remote machine.

Apple TV

OK, I know I said I was going to leave this alone since the Apple TV update is rumored to be coming soon. Still, I love my Apple TV and I have to point out a few things that need updating in the next release. Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n at 5GHz, 1080p video,  HDMI bitstreaming of advanced audio codecs, and support for iTunes U are a few of the features that I really want to see in the next Apple TV.

Other Thoughts

• I know the Finder has been a frequent contestant on these lists of things to be updated but I am never sure if anyone really knows what needs to be done. Most of the Finder wishlists I have seen look like notes from the Norton Commander fan club, but there might be something here.
• iTunes Home Sharing should evolve into a more general iTunes content server.
• It is great that iBooks 1.1 lets you read ePUB and PDF files on your iPad and iPhone, but iBooks for Mac is still missing and publishers cannot submit PDF books to the iBookstore.
• Geoffrey Goetz wants to know why you can control presentations on your Mac with Keynote Remote, but not presentations on your iPad.
• Andy Boothe wants key rebindings for every feature in Mac OS X.
• Chris Ryan wants consistent features across the iPod lineup — cameras from the nano, voice over and speech from the shuffle.

What Else?

I have probably only touched the surface of Apple products and features that have been languishing. What products or features do you want to see Apple update this year?

As someone who works in the broadcast industry, I like to load my iPod with videos to refer to as references. Oftentimes, I find myself spending hours importing and sorting videos, which come in a myriad formats, just so I can get them onto my iPod.

Designed as a companion application for iTunes, VideoDrive lets you batch convert, import and tag videos to add to your iTunes library in as few steps as possible.

Typically, importing a video into iTunes requires a user to perform these steps:

1. Drag and drop a video file onto iTunes.
2. Right-click the video now listed in iTunes and click on ‘Get Info’.
3. Go about renaming or, more often than not, filling in empty fields such as Title, Year, Artist, Genre, Sorting Kind, etc.
4. Search on the Internet for cover artwork and then adding that to the video.

Step 1 is possible only if the video is in a format recognized by iTunes. If it isn’t, you will have to either convert the video with QuickTime Player or create a reference file to import into iTunes, a manual process that can quickly take up a lot of time.

VideoDrive strives to eliminate steps 2 to 4 by automatically doing all that for you. You can choose to import videos on an ad-hoc basis, by dragging files into VideoDrive, or as a batch operation; VideoDrive can be set to watch a folder for incoming videos, automatically import them as they are added, or queue them for processing later.

Once the videos are in iTunes, VideoDrive will, with an Internet connection, search for and add the correct metadata and cover art for your videos. It can also do this for existing videos already in your iTunes library. For the control freak, worry not; you can specify exactly what kind of metadata you want VideoDrive to add to your videos. Finally, as a convenience, it can bundle recently-added movies into its own iTunes playlist.

VideoDrive recognizes all major video formats such as mov (QuickTime movie), mpg and mpeg (MPEG-1), m2v (MPEG-2), mp4 and m4v (MPEG-4 or H.264), avi, wmv, wma and asf (Windows Media video and audio), swf and (Flash), mkv (Matroska), and DivX (a variant of MPEG-4). VideoDrive also recognizes videos with SRT or SUB subtitles (commonly found in videos ripped from DVDs), and can toggle subtitles on and off in the videos in your iTunes library.

VideoDrive is currently at version 1.66 and is available from Aroona Software for €14.99 (approximately US$20). As someone who likes to load up videos into my iPod before a flight or long commute, VideoDrive is just the kind of set-and-forget application I need, the conveniences it offers are worth every penny. What’s more, you can use your license of VideoDrive on two computers, allowing you to stuff your iTunes twice as fast.

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Picture messaging for the iPhone – Send free, unlimited picture messages and geo-tagged location to any mobile phone in the world. Have the convenience of sending multi-media messages (MMS) to virtually any mobile phone number in your iPhone contact book.

Front Row 2.1.6 Update – Provides improved iTunes 8 compatibility for the nine people that use Front Row. Available via Software Update or Apple’s website.

Things That Podcaster’s Rejection From the App Store Is Not About – Great bit by Gruber in response to claims that the Podcaster app’s rejection should have been expected. I’m with Gruber on this one.

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To play movies in Front Row from your Time Capsule (or any networked or external hard drive) follow these instructions:

1. Download and installPerian (this let’s quicktime play divx and avi’s)
2. Navigate to the folder where all your movies you want to play are
3. Right click on the folder and select “make alias”



4. Drag the alias into your local movies folder



5. Fire up Front Row, and navigate to the “Movies” section. Inside the movies section you should now see the alias folder with all your movies inside!

I took it one step further, and made an alias for my TV shows too, so I could easily find and watch. Please help me in my quest to create my ultimate mac media center and post anymore fun Front Row tricks to the comments. Thanks!

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iTunes 7.6.2 “provides bug fixes to improve stability and performance.” One of Apple’s least-helpful (and, these days, all-too-frequent) software update explanations.

Similarly, Front Row 2.1.3 “provides for bug fixes and improved iTunes compatibility.”

Reboot required, so plan ahead.

If you experience any issues post-update, drop a note in the comments.

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