My middle daughter, Sydney, had friends over last Friday night. The weather was cool enough the kids (High Schoolers) could stand to be outside around the fire pit (and away from The Old People). Of course, even outside, they couldn't be away from music, so Syd plugged her iPod into the stereo and turned on the speakers on the patio.

Nothing special in that.

But, sitting in the Living Room, where the stereo is, Sarah and I watched a pretty much endless line of girls (it was only the girls) come in, grab the iPod, pick a new tune, and head back out. About halfway through whatever Girl #1 had picked, Girl #2 would enter, change it, and leave.

Over and over again.

While it's nice to hear what you want to hear, I have to think the rest of the crowd might have liked to have heard the ends of some of those songs and not just the beginnings. But the more I watched this transpire, the more I realized, as much as I love my iPod (I do! I do!), I've had times when I, too, have wanted to pick a specific set of random songs but didn't want to wait until one had finished to pick the next one.

I'm not talking about a Playlist--I have Playlists--I'm talking about just...songs. But there's not really any way to pick a song and say, in essence, "play this one after that one finishes." As soon as you pick one it starts, regardless of what else had been playing, tromping all over the previous selection.

There's no way to stack them up, in other words.

As smart as my iPod is, there's no way to make it act like a jukebox which, really, is what I'm talking about. But that can't be all that hard, can it? It is, after all, just software. For the record, if you'll pardon the pun, here's how I think it ought to work:

First, there needs to be a global "Jukebox" setting. "Jukebox" says, "let me pick songs to throw into the mix whenever I feel like it."

Then, you need to be able to play something else when nothing is queued up in your Jukebox list. In other words, you ought to be able to start out listening to a Playlist or an Album or shuffling songs or whatever it is you've elected to do to get the music rolling.

But then, at some point, listening to whatever you're listening to, you should be able to decide you really need to hear Aaron Neville's rendition of Use Me. Rather than get out of your Playlist or your shuffle sequence or wherever you are, you simply click up to Artists, find Aaron, find Use Me, and click on it. But nothing happens. The song you were listening to continues on and finishes.

When that song is done, though, you hear Use Me, just like it was in the middle of your Playlist. If you pick a bunch of songs, like the girls at Syd's party were doing, you get them all in the order you picked them. Run out of songs? Back to the Playlist.

I think it's a great idea but, then again, it's my idea.

Hey Apple...if you use this, send me a nice shiny new iPhone with the Jukebox feature installed, please.

1. SteveTsuida09/26/2007 03:38:10 PM
Homepage: http://www.shakethatjimmy.com

Actually there is. Just create an on-the-go playlist. Browse through the iPod, click and hold a particular song and boom it becomes the first song in that on-the-go playlist. Then when Kid 2, and Kid 3 and so forth want to go in and add their requests to the queue they browse around, and click-and-hold on their requested song and it'll make its way into the playthree.

2. Scott Good09/27/2007 08:28:01 AM
Homepage: http://www.scottgood.com

Really? Wow...I'll have to try that. Thanks!

3. Steve Tsuida09/27/2007 10:27:43 AM
Homepage: http://www.shakethatjimmy.com

No problem! Enjoy. A cooler, more jukebox-like solution would be to use the Party Shuffle feature in iTunes (which you already have), paired with AirTunes over a $99 Airport Express (which you may or may not already have.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/hottips/#partyshuffle
http://www.apple.com/airportexpress/airtunes.html

4. Scott Good11/14/2007 02:50:25 PM
Homepage: http://www.scottgood.com

I finally tried this...and it works GREAT!