Report: iTunes Will Get Social Networking Features September 1st

Report: iTunes Will Get Social Networking Features September 1st

Come September 1st, everyone expects Apple to announce at least some sort of streaming iTunes functionality… but what if that’s all a red herring? According to All Things D, that might just be the case: they are saying that the next version of iTunes won’t stream media from the cloud, but will instead by heavily integrated with social networking features.

The idea is this: future versions of iTunes would basically be little social networks, in which you’d be able to share recommendations of apps, movies or songs with other people. There’d be no actual media sharing ability at first, but this is clearly an evolutionary move, laying the groundwork for a more feature rich streaming iTunes to come.

It’s a very interesting rumor. Apple executives have said that the streaming iTunes capability we should expect in the near future is more modest than the pie-in-the-sky dreams of internet opiners. Combined with the rumored streaming television ability of the new iTV, this would seem to be a more realistic rollout of a future cloud-based iTunes for Apple to take.

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About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in iTunes, News, Top stories |

  • http://www.gettafreebie.co.uk FreebieJeebies

    Something that I think is overdue by Apple is a rework of iTunes. Obviously when it launched this tied in perfectly with what it provided.

    iTunes now offers so much more than just music. I hope they create a new wrapper application with the iTunes, Video, Games, App and iBook stores all found within.

    I find it very odd that I sync a mobile phone with something called iTunes .. Some new Apple customers must find this slightly confusing. Just my two penneth.

  • Maccast

    I hope they keep the social out of the app and move it to web where it belongs.

  • Khan

    Oh, nooooooooooo!!!!!!! Leave iTunes alone!!

  • Eyeseeyou

    Make MobileMe IAD supported and free, add BBM like messaging that is integrated with MobileMe, and recreate what Simplify media brought to IOS.

    But to shut everyone up, buy lockinfo, status nofier, sbsettings and add it to IOS. Maybe add flash for those who want it.

  • Justin

    We totally need a new Itunes. I would like to see a faster, more sleeker design with realtime social networking updates (that don’t use heaps of bandwidth) and an option to change skins (colours, icons etc). Also why can’t the US, UK and AUS Itunes stores be unified into one big store? The American store always has the latest stuff as soon as its released while the rest of the world has to wait.

  • diamon

    Just what we don’t need. More social networking garbage to slow iTunes down even more. Why can’t they just make iTunes faster.