International Mac Podcast

A new version of Apple’s iPhone software could provide to iPhone and
iPod touch users with access to their home computers entire itunes
library. This can be done anywhere without having to first download
those media items through a traditional sync.

The Cupertino based electronics maker notes that downloading media
items through a computer to a media player is often a time consuming
process. Therefore users who are out and about sometimes find
themselves without access to some of their content, which sits
inaccessible at home on their computer.

New versions of the iTunes and iPhone software could theoretically
eliminate this problem by only syncing the meta data, from the person’s
itunes library to their portable device. Using this meta date, iPhones
and iPods would contain “Virtual Media Items” representing every
playlist, video, photo, or mobile game stored on the computer. Even if
the sum of those files would ordinalry be to large for the players hard
disk space or flash drive.This is possible because of meta data capable
of representing consumes on a fraction of the space required to store
the item itself.

Users would select virtual media items for display or playback on
their portable devices just has they would today under the assumption
that the entire contents of the files sit on the device for immediate
playback. But instead of accessing the files from the device’s built in
storage. The iPhone or iPod would use a wired, Wi-Fi, or cellular
connection to remotely access the media.

Through similar techniques the user could also manage their iTunes
libraries remotely, organizing, adding, or deleting files while on the
go.