Apple Music is all about curated playlists from Apple’s growing list of experts. But according to a new patent application published today, a future iTunes feature could let users get in on the act by composing “digital mixtapes” for their friends.
The patent describes how users would be able to name their album, select the songs and play order, and even augment them with extra audio files, images, movies, and personalized messages.
Just like the kinds of playlists people made back in the cassette era, it would be possible to hide the name of whatever track was coming up next — leaving it as a surprise.
Photo: Apple/USPTO
The patent application describes a creation tool for assembling your mixtape. Once this is done, iTunes would send a push notification to the recipient to let them know that a mix tape has been made for them.
If they accept, the sender would be charged for the iTunes tracks they have used. If it is rejected, the recipient would not be charged — and presumably your friendship would be over.
All in all, it’s a neat feature — and one that would definitely fit into Apple’s curated approach to music. Spotify and other streaming companies already offer playlist sharing, but if Apple was able to come up with a good UI for making something like this, I could absolutely see it taking off.
Even if it has plenty of potential for embarrassing results.
Source: USPTO
Via: Business Insider
