iTunes store needs a redesign: 10 changes I want to see

Following on from my article iTunes needs a redesign: 10 changes I want to see, I wanted to look deeper at the actual iTunes store. Now being an avid user of iTunes and iTunes there are many things I want to see changed within the store, I thought I'd try to narrow it down to 10 things that I want to see.

1. Completed my Series/Show

As a person who has brought the odd episode from iTunes I often want to complete a season. I hear this is being rolled out in the US to complete a series much as I would an album but I'd like to see this taken a lot further. I'd like to get discounts for buying the next series of a show. 

2. Pricing of TV & Film

I can buy the complete DVD boxset of The Sopranos for around £50 on iTunes it would cost me £150. I can also get most old movies for £3 on DVD cheapest I can get them is £3.99 but in most cases £6.99. There are cases I can buy cheaper than DVD but I dont want to replace my DVD collection at that price I'd prefer to import my DVD's like I do with CD's. Though I have to admit I still have a large VHS collection I'm replacing with iTunes purchases. 

3. HD

HD is a big thing that needs addressing. Firstly I tend to buy SD versions of shows as the extra price of HD is ridiculous. They can range from £2 to £15 for a TV Series and £2 to £4 for a film that to me is the cost of an album or another show. At the moment these are only 720 HD not 1080. I'd like to see HD as standard price and the ability to upgrade all my shows available in HD for a small fee, like the 20p a track for music. In addition all movies should have the ability to sell at HD so why aren't they, its SD for some and both for others they should all be sold at HD. 

4. Rental

When I was young I used to regularly rent from local video stores. £1 a night rental was normal and I'd rent two or three things at a time. Then prices rose and it was £4/5 a night I could buy the move for £10 watch it twice and make my money back hence the reason I still own 200 VHS tapes I've not replaced. Today I could stream unlimited rentals to my TV for £6 a month so why does apple insist on rentals being  so 2.49 SD and 3.49 at HD. I prefer their 99p SD  or even £1.99 HD rentals. I think if they want rentals that aren't subscription based they need to drop them to 99p for SD/HD, especially when I can buy a DVD for £3. 

5. Previews

I can preview a song before buying it but when it comes to movies and TV shows apple are falling a little flat. A movie has a preview trailer option, great but alot of the time its not the theatrical or out on video trailer. I tend to get a scene from the movie and not a good one at that. I want to see the theatrical trailers not a scene from the film. As for TV i'd like to see the promo trailers or the sneak peak as a preview not given away as a freebie that leads me to my next point...

6. Free Episodes

I'm really happy apple give away a free single of the week and even more happy we get gifts during christmas period. I am however disappointed with it compared to US store where customers enjoy regular free music videos and TV episodes. In UK you may get the occasional free episode but in most cases it is a free trailer, promo or scene. I'd prefer a free pilot episode of a show then I'd probably buy the rest of the series. 

7. Movie Bundles

Ok this is kind of the same as point one but I felt it needed highlighting. Occasionally we can get movie bundles nothing like the US again but we can buy 2 and some cases 4 films that are sequels or special offers these are great and I just wish that this feature would spread further. I want to buy several films and their sequels but do I really want to buy them individually or do I want the option to buy a bundle or even having purchased the first movie get the sequel at a special price. 

8. Brought

A very simple thing but one I think should be taken from Mac App Store. When you have purchased something it says installed when you are looking around the App Store and spot something you've purchased. I think this simple feature would be great for seeing what you own and what you don't within iTunes.

9. Content
We all know content is king and as Apple plough more and more music into the store there are still some missing. As they add new TV shows there are a wealth of shows we can't get. I can't get new shows like Dexter (US store can) and there are hundreds of old shows that should be released. Not to mention films and books. There needs to be a bigger push in content and filling the gaps of those missing in store, which brings me to my next and final point.

10. iCloud/iTunes Match mark 2
iCloud is a brilliant step in the the right direction and though I'm yet to sign up to iTunes Match I'm looking forward to the freedom the service will give me. I'm just looking for the next step in its evolution. iCloud needs to start providing purchased support for Movies if it does this I'd watch them straight from my AppleTV and probably buy HD Movies. I want iTunes Match to move towards books and videos, scanning my library and giving my access to books I may have downloaded other places as well as letting me move my DVD collection onto my idevices. All this would benefit Apple as it would help them fill in their missing media by discoving what people own and want. They could merge my match info with my purchased giving me better genius results. The ability to complete albums to the deluxe version. Genrally allow me to see things I've purchased from apple and not letting me spend money on new content.

Apple is always improving its products so we may see some of these in the future we may not but its good fun to guess. 

The Print Revolution

I've been actively researching about forth coming iPad and what it could mean to the print industry for work. It occurs to me we are approaching the start of the print revolution.

We've been in the digital revolution for a while and it can be broken down into several small revolutionary movements, such as the digital music revolution.  this however could be the most pertinent as the the oldest medium of print starts its move to digital form.

You could say that it started a while ago with the launch of kindle and if you want you can say even further back with the launch of the internet. These are both good points but i think its the start of the end of print as a physical format that is the point.

I'm an Apple fan and make no excuses for that but what I think Apple are good at, are finding a digital market and pushing it to a common international standard. In terms of the forthcoming iPad they are taking the book and providing a form to read it on. The iPad isn't perfect as it doesn't yet help bring magazines, newspapers and comics to the device natively as it does with books. Thanks to the App Store this won't be much of a problem but i can't help feel an app called Newspaper stand that allows subscriptions to newspapers and Magazines in a way iBooks does is missing.

So the great thing is the future will see digital editions of our favorite print publications coming to us for a reasonable price. The down side is the past. What about old books, editions not currently in print or even ones that never will be again. Of course we could scour e-bay and old book shops but we are used to things at our fingertips. This is the problem being addressed by the Gutenberg Project and to an extent Google Books. Now both projects have their faults and their advantages. Google Books is probably the most publicized due to the copy-write back lash by authors and publishers.

Here is my proposal, all publishers agree to bring all editions of their back catalog to digital format. In response to that these digitizing projects will only digitize out of print books that, a) don't have a publisher who still exists, b) who's copy-write is out of date and c) won't be available in a digital format without these projects such as university and public libraries.

These companies can work together to bring archived material into the public domain at a lower cost to themselves and bring the print to an larger audience. Local newspaper archives would most benefit from these. I personally would like to research local newspapers without having to spend days at the library, looking through thousands of papers, when the internet takes seconds.

As I said we are on the cusp of the Print revolution but its only by bringing as much of the old print to the new format that we will truly benefit. True it will eventually kill off the print medium but its better to preserve the knowledge than loose it due to arguments over money.  Also true it will eventually kill off the library (which I'm a fan of), but this will only happen if the library doesn't evolve but the benefit is a library run at cheaper costs with more books than any one building can currently hold.

So I say embrace the change, push for digitization even if it is only to preserve the past for the future.