Mixtapes.
For a certain group of us, they played a huge part of our lives, especially during our formative years. They acted as currency and foreplay; serving as insights into someone’s mind, as well as an exploration of their likes, dislikes, and guilty pleasures. Mixtapes had themes; they had a purpose. There were rules to creating a good mixtape, but they were more like loose guidelines. You know, like speed limits.
Unfortunately, mixtapes have gone the way of the VHS tapes or land lines. First, they were replaced by mix CDs, but that wasn’t the same because, with CDs, it was too easy to skip tracks, which spit in the face of the whole idea of a mixtape, in that a mixtape had a theme to it, a start and end point. Skipping a track was like ignoring part of a conversation. Of course, mix CDs eventually were sent packing in favor of digital playlists, which are cool and all, but 1) you can’t hold a playlist and, 2) again, the ease of skipping tracks.
Leave it to Apple to try to bring back the artform of the mixtape. The company recently filed a patent application titled “digital mixed tapes,” which, according to AppleInsider, aims “to tap into the nostalgia associated with swapping analog cassette tapes. More specifically, Apple is investigating methods by which personalized albums can be created, purchased, and gifted from a cloud-based music service.”
“Importantly, users would be able to apply highly specific personalization attributes to a gifted album. Beyond the usual track list options, gift givers might want to restrict a recipient’s ability to fast forward or skip songs. Apple’s system even allows for song titles to be revealed one at a time as they are played. Playback settings are embedded as metadata and are carried over when an album is downloaded or streamed.”
Hold up, that sounds awesome. “Restrict a recipient’s ability to fast forward or skip songs.” Are you serious? That’s possible? So, it really is like a mixtape and not just a fancy way of selling us something we already have (which, you know, is nothing Apple of all people would ever do).
Mixing in multimedia like photos or iBooks adds another layer of personalization options. Here, users can choose to display an image or series of images set to a backing track, akin to a custom slideshow.
Wow. So, it’s kind of like… and no, I’m not ashamed to admit this… how I would jazz up a tape case, especially if, you know, it was going to a special someone. This keeps getting better.
On the receiving end, the store sends out an email or push notification to alert a user that they have a digital mixed tape waiting, presenting options to accept or reject the album. A gift giver is charged when a recipient accepts, but gets their money back if the album is rejected.
Yeah, that could be a little awkward. But whatever, I’m not going to get hung up on the negatives. This seems like a pretty spectacular idea.
There’s no word as to when this technology might be released, and if it might be incorporated in the current versions of iTunes, but it does seem to be in the works. In the meantime, those Spotify and Apple Music playlists will have to do.
(Via AppleInsider)
