iPhones to access iTunes libraries from anywhere?
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.
Now that would be awesome!