I set metadata before import, and let it folder however it wants. I have zero problems with iTunes managing several TB of media on an external hard drive. While iTunes can do it, it doesn’t do it especially well
On the plus side this opens up the market for a good third party library management tool. In other words, rather than shitcan device backup could they entirely modernize it in a compelling way?
The same basic approach could (and should) be used for other iCloud data - downloading a movie to an iPad from iTunes (using all that bandwidth) when it’s already on my Mac is crazy town. Make it work seamlessly through the existing ICloud backup interface on the iOS device so the user doesn’t need to make any decisions about where to back it up - from the device’s UI perspective it’s just iCloud. And if you backup to that local machine it gets mirrored to iCloud (perhaps waiting until a time - middle of the night - when you aren’t using bandwidth to do so). So if you backup while on the go somewhere, it automatically gets downloaded to the local machine. Just spitballing, but it could be integrated with iCloud as something akin to a “local iCloud cache”. With bandwidth being what it is and the size of iOS device storage climbing (1TB iPads!) I wonder if it would make sense for Apple to make a modern replacement for the iTunes local backup? Ideally they want to be able to get up on stage and say “look how easy it was to take our iOS app and make something that really feels like a macOS app.” They can’t be unaware of it he criticism of the first batch of marzipan app UIs, and they surely don’t want that for the replacement of something as iconic as iTunes.Ī tangent here but I wonder about backup. That’s not the same as bringing over the news app or stocks that never existed on the platform before.
At WWDC it was spun as “an easy way to get your iOS apps onto macOS.” Here they would be replacing an existing macOS app with an iOS port - and an app that’s historically been core to the Apple brand at that. It also depends how they want to spin marzipan. But what about custom library management (metadata, etc.)? Scripting support? Then the question becomes “what is considered ‘legacy’?” It seems pretty likely that backup is considered legacy. It would be slightly duplicative, but that would allow them to un-couple legacy support for people who don't need it, while retaining it for those who do. There's no reason iTunes can't coexist with a more pared down Music app.