It’s not the end of the world, I keep all the actual music files on a Drobo connected to a server in the basement.  So those are relatively safe.  But all the intangible stuff, like the meta data for ratings and playlists are gone.  With over 18,000 tracks they’re not easy to get back.

But what to do now?  I’m taking this as a sign to do something better.  I’d prefer not to have a laptop just sitting in the living room any more.  In the realm of Network Music Player there are only a few real choices:

• Logitech Squeezebox
• Roku Soundbridge
• Apple Airport Express

And they all have their problems.  (And the Sonos is too expensive to even bother talking about.)

The Squeezebox hardware is pretty pricey and I don’t have an audio system on the main floor that could take advantage of the fidelity that they put out.  Only one package has anything other then a text based screen with an IR remote.  Ug.  It also requires a service running on a computer somewhere.  I tried installing it on the PowerMac I’m using as a server but it refuses to start.  Not even an error message in the console to explain why.  I’ve been able to get it running on other PC’s and the service interface is UGLY.  The only playlist management is through reading an iTunes database.  Ouch.

The Roku seems to be very tied to iTunes as well and the Firefly media server feels really bare-bones.  After their new video player, I think this is being forgotten about.

The Airport Express is a nifty little device, but it’s specifically designed for iTunes.  And if you want a controller for it, you need at least an iPod Touch.

I’m a very committed fan of Songbird, but I’m not left with many options for it.  There’s a Songbird Remote for the iPod Touch, but Songbird still can’t “speak” through the Airport Express.  Unless I get Airfoil as well – which will allow any app to pipe it’s sound through the Express.

Sounds good, right?  Well then there’s the issue of Songbird not having a PowerPC build anymore.  There was someone who was producing their own PowerPC package, but I don’t know if it’s still being maintained.  Then there’s the question if all the extensions and addons will work with it as well.

I picked up a Airport Express to try out and so I’d be able to play something on the main floor.  It’s streaming from iTunes on a everyday laptop for now, but it is working.  And it gives me Wireless-N to boot.  But it’s still not Songbird and all the flexibility that comes with it.

So, to get everything working just right I need a PowerPC version of Songbird, an iPod Touch, Airfoil, Songbird Remote iPod app and Songbird Extention.

What could possibly go wrong with that?

*sigh*

And I don’t want any of it.  MacBooks will never be cheap enough for me to buy new, so I don’t care.  Pictures of the new Nano make me wonder why they still call it a “nano”.  And anything added to iTunes now will be for people that use the iTMS – which I won’t.

The iPod Touch, however, does have a foothold in my mind.  And let me go into why.

Right now, for music in my living room I use a old laptop with iTunes on it and a IR remote so that I don’t have to stand over it to change songs.  It works ok. Not great, but almost good enough.  Almost.

I’ve been looking for a network music player to replace the setup.  But everything has it’s shortcomings.  Slim Devices has a lot of good hardware.  There’s the Squeezebox Duet which puts a small black box next to the speakers and you control everything from a full colour controller.  Of course, it costs $399.  The new Squeezebox Boom is also very, very cool.  Build in speakers with excellent sound – you can take it anywhere you can hit your WiFi signal.  Like outside when you’re having a BBQ.  That’s very cool.  Only I have to search through 18,000 songs on that small display.  Fun.

All of these play your music from software you need running on your computer.  And this is where it really falls down.  There are no dynamic playlists.  Or song ratings.

What?!

Sure, you can create static playlists, but who the hell wants to do that any more?  If I have a list of favourite songs and I add a album to my collection, which has a new favourite song, then I have to go through the web based interface to add it.  That’s not cool.  I should be able to just set it to 5 stars straight from the player and forget about it.  I saw a plugin which gave song ratings, but that should be built in from the start.  Core functionality should never be a plugin.

You can get SqueezeCenter to access your iTunes Library so it can access iTunes’ dynamic playlists but that just seems like a cludge and I find it a little distasteful.

Now, on the other end of things Apple has a small solution to my problem.  With current versions of iTunes you can do two nifty things.  You can play music from it over a network to a Airport Express with “AirTunes“.  Goodbye laptop.  And with a iPod Touch, or iPhone, you can use the iTunes Remote to control both iTunes, and AirTunes.  So you get the little touch sensitive controller, the reduced clutter of a laptop free living room and the refined database capabilities of iTunes.

So what’s the problem?  I hate iTunes.

iTunes is good at what it’s for, keeping you in line and directed to iTMS to spend, spend, spend.  But it’s not very open to “unsactioned” ideas.  It would also mean that I would have to keep a Windows or Mac machine running as my server when I’d prefer Ubuntu, where possible.

There’s a ray of light in all of this.  Dim, dirty, but it’s there.  When I picked up my Drobo I was faced with a choice.  Run it on Linux or XP with a upper limit of 2TB (which sounds like a lot right now) or run it on Vista or OSX for up to 16TB.  Vista is not an option so I picked up a older PowerMac running 10.5 for fairly cheap.

Sooooo……  I mean, it’s already got iTunes on it, right?

I’ve started to think about how all this would work.  Headless PowerMac in the basement running iTunes, Airport Express plugged into the wall and the stereo and iPod Touch controlling it all from where ever I want.  Nice.  Hell, I even get an iPod to carry to work with me.

Wait….  how would I sync the iPod?  I don’t want to have to go down under the stairs to put the iPod in the dock just to sync songs and ratings.  That would be stupid.  My laptop is running Ubuntu, and even if it was capable of running iTunes that means the rating changes still wouldn’t end up on the computer in the basement.

Which finally brings me around to what I really want from Apple:  Wireless sync for the iPod Touch. Take a closer look at the Airport Express – it has a usb port for printing.  I’m betting that could also be used to charge the Touch, and if the Touch won’t sync itself over WiFi, why can’t the Airport Express act as a bridge between the PowerMac and the iPod?

It would be so neat, so clean in design, so Apple.

They’ll never do it.