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iTunes Tops Out At 32,000 Songs
usr122122121 writes "A Macintouch User has discovered that iTunes maxes out at 32,000 songs." I did test this myself (a one-liner perl script to give each file a unique artist/album/title), and it's apparently true. How much it matters is an exercise left to the reader.
Better use something else to play illegally acquired MP3s then, eh?
You'd think with all the advanced, nearly brainless programming languages available, we wouldn't have to worry about 16-bit signed integer limits anymore. 32- and 64-bits have been available for just as long, and it's not like the extra two bytes in each address are going to bankrupt a Powermac with 1GB RAM.
It's Y2K all over again. Just more lazy programmers.
I'm sure they'll come out with a patch sometime in the next 12 weeks, 4 days, 21 hours, and 20 minutes.
(Oops, 15 minutes. It took me a few to divide.)
Well, at least the RIAA will be happy...
omnia tua castra sunt nobis
At least I have a goal now... ~1/4 of the way there.
This sig intentionally left justified.
It doesn't, there.
anyone who listens to more than 10,000 songs is a PIRATE!!!!!
A single iTunes 2 music library can hold 32 000 songs. To accommodate more songs, you can create additional music libraries. Follow these steps;
1. Locate the "iTunes Music Library (2)" file inside the iTunes folder (in Documents).
2. Create a folder called "Backup" and copy the iTunes Music Library (2) file to it. If you make a mistake or change your mind about creating multiple Music Library files, you can go back to using this backup file.
3. Create a folder called "Library 1" and copy the iTunes Music Library (2) file to it.
4. Create a folder called "Library 2" and copy the iTunes Music Library (2) file to it.
5. Repeat for each increment of 32 000 songs. For example, if you have more than 64 000 songs, make two Library folders, if you have more than 96 000 songs, make three Library folders, and so forth.
6. Open iTunes, add, delete, or change the songs in the Music Library for the first 32 000 songs.
7. Quit iTunes, copy "iTunes Music Library (2)" mentioned in step 1 into Library 1.
8. Open iTunes, add, delete, or change the songs in the Music Library for the next 32 000 songs.
9. Quit iTunes, copy "iTunes Music Library (2)" mentioned in step 1 into Library 2.
10. Repeat for each 32 000 increment of unique songs
To access each of the different Music Libraries, copy the respective "iTunes Music Library (2)" file to the iTunes folder (in Documents), replacing the "iTunes Music Library (2)" file that is there. Important: If you accidentally move the file instead of copying it, make sure you move it back to the respective folder, or else you may have to redo some of the setup steps.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=615 85&SaveKCWindowURL=http%3A%2F%2Fkbase.info.apple.c om%2Fcgi-bin%2FWebObjects%2Fkbase.woa%2Fwa%2FSaveK CToHomePage&searchMode=Assisted&kbhost=kbase.info. apple.com&showButton=false&randomValue=100&showSur vey=false&sessionID=anonymous%7C164541794
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." PKD
1981: "640k [RAM] ought to be enough for anybody." (Gates)
2003: "32k [songs] ought to be enough for anybody." (iTunes developers)
FWIW, I have about a little shy of 2300 songs here, all from CDs that I purchased since 1992'ish...
It's a very modest collection, even for one who doesn't download any music illegally at all. Even then, 2300 songs will play continuously without repeats for more than a week.
If someone would enlighten my ignorant mind: what do you actually do with 32000+ songs, which would play continuously for three months?
Heck, even my measly 5GB iPod holds more music than I can use.
It's perhaps off-topic, but are we collecting data for the sake of the collection? Does it matter if it'd take you three months--without sleep--to actually utilize the data?
As it is, I already have more music than I can actually listen to. For fellow legitimate music users, 32000 songs can easily outlast their lifetime, perhaps the MP3 format, and certainly iTunes'.
So, does it really matter?
I guess it does if you are one of those folks who just download whatever's on kazaa/guntella/whatever today, but for the rest of us with honor, and some taste in music, it really doesn't. 32000 is more than we need.
personally, I just keep track of all my MP3s with a big spiral notebook.
Want to listen to Pink Floyd? Just flip over to "P" and look up the filename.
of course, you have to re-do it when you add new songs, but it only takes 3-4 days.
Follow these easy steps to circumvent the problem once you hit 32k songs:
1. Open your favorite MP3 editor.
2. Load the 32,000th song in your collection.
3. Load the 32,001st song (that you wish to add to the collection)
4. Copy the 32,001st song. Switch to the 32,000th song. 5. Paste at the end of song. 6. Save. 7. Repeat for additional songs.
Ladies, form queue here -->
As usual people quoting an Apple KB article URL forget that they're logged in, etc problem. Here's the public URL: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=615 85 Hope that helps!
"True programmers are artists and someday we'll respect programming as self expression and personal effort." - fateswarm
Well, that number not being a true power of 2 (that would make 32,768), we should conclude that the limit was forced by design, not by variable-size.
Now why did they choose put a compiled-in limit below what is possible? To make it possible afterwards to "patch" with a smaller number to comply with a bogus DRM "security measure"?
Respect to pudge for actually taking the time to run a test to verify the story.
Respectable journalism exercised by Slashdot? Is that a pig flying past my window?
Because, gosh darnit, if it were iMovies, I'd have already used up 32,000 slots on porn alone!
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The more music you have, the more important it is to have random access to that music. It's no great shakes to find a CD you want to listen to if you have 10 or 100 CDs. Not so for > 1000.
I have roughly 1300 CDs, bought since 1985 (so far, 1081 ripped, which is 13,938 songs). Without random access, finding that one CD that I have a hankering to hear is a nightmare - even with the CDs filed in 8-CD sheets in a lateral file cabinet. With those CDs in iTunes, it's a matter of typing a few letters into the music browser. Do I want to hear a random selection of Grateful Dead tunes? No sweat. Pink Floyd from beginning to end? Easy. Yes, including solo projects by its various members? A little more difficult, but I won't break a sweat.
Almost 14000 (or extrapolating for the rest, 18200) is an uncomfortably large percentage of the iTunes limit of 32000. It's not quite large enough that I'm going apeshit about this, but somebody who had only twice as many CDs as I do would be screwed, for no good reason.
(Advice to others with large collections: buy an external Firewire disk and back your library up!!)
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
What a KY world you live in...stop slamming people that do or don't pay exactly the same you do for internet access, gasoline, fritos, shoe laces, condoms, vehicle registration, pork rinds, blank video tapes, big gulp refills, stamps, flu shots, Viagra refill co-pays, popcorn, Stone's concert tickets, off-street parking, lip gloss, cordless phone batteries, PVC, CDs, DVDs and sex before bed. What a troll...not even funny any more.
NetJuke ~ But then you have the issue of loading up those four iPods....
(Sheepish grin)
Apologies
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." PKD
I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well earned reputation for being "the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal to young boys. Thanks in advance.
with much gayness,
Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.
Yes, it does matter. Some of us do indeed collect data for the sake of collecting. I have around 24,000 songs or 105GB worth of music at the moment. I collect digital media like anyone else would collect stamps or baseball cards. I have a text library with 27,000 files (saved a good number of bucks not having to buy novels I've found in there) and something on the order of 8,000 works of art -- Monet, Manet, Dali, Renoit, Bosch, Van Goh -- you name it.
Unlike that stamp collection, though, these can actually be useful.
"32K is more than enough for anybody." - Bill Gates
I have found that (while I haven't used iTunes) the random feature on both Winamp and the arbitrary Creative Labs PlayCenter (comes with the Audigy, and won't even support more than a couple thousand songs anyways) is very lacking. I have done enough observation to note that it simply chooses certain songs more than others. Out of around 10k songs on my hard drive, it will "randomly" select the same songs many many more times than others.
I never really understood where the flaw in the feature would be, but it seemed related to some sort of theoretical maximum threshold for random play.
at you, unclench a bit fucko.
I've just got a big HD, so I'm currently ripping the lot in the hope of getting an iPod shortly. (I'm rather hoping it'll be upgraded in the near future.) My big question is: what do you do when there's continuous music across several tracks? I can't find any way to avoid a gap between MP3 tracks. (I've tried iTunes' `Stop Time' feature, but it always gives gaps.) This really spoils stuff like Tubular Bells III, Chilled Ibiza, Jean-Michel Jarre, live albums, &c.
Are the only alternatives really to suffer dropouts, or to combine them into one big track, losing track names and control?
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Apple's knowledge base readily admits this. See this link for a workaround:
iTunes 2: How to Overcome 32 000 Song Library Size Limitation
Of course, from programming elegance point of view, I hope that this is not one of those limits that require the entire codebase to be rewritten when it needs to be changed
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
No one will ever need more than 32000 songs.
Is really the DMCA police! - No im completely with you, 8,439 songs as of this morning for 25 days of music and 50 GB of space. So all I need is a 200GB hard drive and 100 days (24 hours a day) to listen to it all once I hit the 32,000 song peak.
Hmmm maybe Apple was looking out for us by putting a peak on it. My iMac and iPod have utterly changed my life for sure, so far I feel in a positive way. And yes, anything worth doing is worth overdoing.... But just maybe Apple knows something that happens to people when they have that much music. Hell, if your listening to your iPod 24/7 you never have a chance to get hit by the Reality Distortion Field.
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
um can i send you some blank DVD's? howabout this, ill send you 2 blank DVD's and a case of Yuengling [ http://www.yuengling.com/ ]!
Honestly - they can shut down Scour.net/Napster/Morpheus/Kazaa all they want. When I can fit 9GB of data/music on one 2 sided DVD and just walk across town - what are they going to do to stop me?
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
This issue is almost a year old.
6 15 85
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=
Why does Slashdot report these things?
At about 5 MB per song (typical for my library at any rate), 32000 tracks adds up to about 149 GB, using 2^30 for 1GB. I may someday be able to use up 150 GB of HD space for my iTunes library, but it ain't gonna be soon. When it happens, I'll deal with it. If Apple hasn't released an update that raises this limit .. which I doubt will be left alone for long ..
I consider my MP3 collection to be fairly large as collections go, and I'm more likely to run out of disk space on the three drives in my computer (total 320 GB) than to hit 32767 songs.
However, I do consider it to be a problem I will eventually run into. Hopefully Apple will address it in iTunes 4.0.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
Wait Wait Wait..
Nope, Still don't care.
Blah Blah Blah.
Create a new smart playlist
Go to the advanced tab
"My Rating" "Is greater then" "2 stars" click plus symbol for new line
"Genre" "Is not" "whatever" click plus symbol for another line
"Genre" "Is not "whatever else" keep clicking plus symbls till all your conditions are meet.
32,000 songs should be enough for anyone.
Heh heh
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
If the average length of a track is 3 minutes, 32,000 tracks gives you 96,000 minutes, or 1,600 hours, of tunes. If you play your tunes 8 hours/day, you can go for 200 days without hearing any tune twice.
How likely is it that anyone actually wants or needs to do this? Probably not very.
If the 32,000 song limit actually affects anyone, it's probably because they're ripping a lot of tracks that they'll never listen to even once. Even if you do own 1,000 CD's, how many of those have you actually listened to in the past 12 months, and do you really need to rip every single track of every CD you own?
I fully understand and agree with the point that it's nice to have random access to your music. But it makes sense to use a little discretion and not waste both time and disk space ripping a lot of tracks that you'll never listen to.
It's easy to set up a play list in iTunes that lists all the tracks which, say, were added more than a year ago and never played. Use that to chuck your dead wood.
No biggie. It is a lot of work getting a "clean" URL from most web sites nowadays.
0 98 not only is this a clean url most of the links in it pointing to other articles are also clean.
The trick with Apple's is to track down the KB article # and append it to the end of a url you know is clean.
You can find a clean url by going to an article that contains a link to other articles and using those links as a base.
Take this url for example:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75
"True programmers are artists and someday we'll respect programming as self expression and personal effort." - fateswarm
Does it matter if you're in OSX or OS9, or does it max out the same in both?
I thought I was doing pretty good with about 5400 mp3's...
Diskiller, once a football coach at an all boys high school [no surpise], has gone terribly WRONG! After litigation involving indiscriminant abuses, well, this is the story that unfolds
Okay, let's give it a try," said Kristoff. Paul set an unopened can of soda pop on the table, and Kristoff lined up the sights. Then Kristoff turned back to the computer and typed for a few moments. "Okay, ready," said Kristoff. Both grad students backed up a respectful distance from the table; the computers and other equipment were still drippings from the can of soda which had exploded in a failed test a few minutes earlier. Then Kristoff hit a key to start the process.
There was no sound; only the small glowing red indicator on the side of the magnetic gun indicated that it was being prepared. Both grad students waited for the bang of another exploding can of soda. But when the indicator turned briefly green this time to indicate that the transformation was occurring, there was no bang; there was only a faint sucking sound of air molecules rushing inward, and suddenly the can of soda was twice its original size.
The grad students laughed and slapped each other a highfive. "Excellent!" said Paul. Their months of clandestine work had finally paid off. Paul, a physics student, had been working out two separate but related problems: first, he had been working out a way to measure the location and makeup of each molecule in a body; and second, he had been doing work in nanotechnology, or the direct manipulation of individual atoms. It had occurred to Paul some time ago that these two pieces of technology, driven by the proper software, could be used to enlarge or shrink items. If the soda pop contained ten water molecules for every sucrose molecule, one should in principle be able to enlarge or shrink the mass of pop by adding or removing the appropriate molecules in the right locations and in the proper proportions.
What Paul needed was the help of a computer scientist who could write the code to make the right generalizations about what molecules were found where, and about what needed to be added or removed. He and Kristoff had worked together over several months to put together their test system, and after many false tries, they had finally achieved this initial success. "Let's have some soda," said Paul, lifting the doublesized can from the table and popping it open. He poured some into a glass, eyed it and smelled it, and took a sip. Kristoff watched Paul's contemplative expressive as tasted it. "It's the real thing!" Paul declared, and poured another glass for Kristoff.
"You know, we're gonna be rich filthy, stinking rich," said Kristoff, taking his glass. "Transportation is going to cost next to nothing now. You want to move a bunch of steel girders across the country? Drop them in a shoebox and stick them in the mail! Think of the possibilities for space colonization we've overcome the cost of lifting the payload."
But Paul was looking out the window, his eyes turned absently toward the high school football team practicing in the field by the school across the street; he was not watching the team, but rather was already thinking about the next challenge. "You know, the thing we can't do yet is manipulate living tissue," he said slowly. Then he looked at Kristoff. "I mean, you'd need a much more complicated algorithm. Right now we can make a duplicate of a DNA molecule right next to the original, but that wouldn't result in a viable cell; not with the same DNA twice in one nucleus. What we need is a way of duplicating the whole cell."
Kristoff frowned thoughtfully. "I don't know enough biology to know how to make a copy of a whole cell beside the original; we'd need to no more about the structure of a cell to be able to do something so specialized." But he could immediately see the commercial implications: how cheap it would be to fly some temporarily reduced people coast to coast, and then restore them to regular size at their destination! Or, as an advertising novelty, one might make a person into a giant. But that could only be temporary what would such a giant eat, after all?
Paul was thinking. "You know Bruce over in the biology department? He might be able to help us."
And so, in the weeks that followed, Paul and Kristoff brought Bruce into their confidence, and the three grad students gradually worked out their improved algorithm.
It was almost summer when the three grad students were ready for the next stage of their testing. The window was open, and the sound of gentle wind through the new leaves drifted in from the open window, as did the sound of the high school football team practicing across the street.
Paul nervously set the cage on the same table. A white mouse was continually searching for an exit from its little prison, its delicate paws soft against the metal bars. "Okay, let's give it a go," said Paul again.
Kristoff typed at the keyboard, and again there was silence, and the red indicator glowed. Then the light turned green; there was a familiar sucking rush of air, and the mouse had abruptly grown to become a rat.
"It worked!" said Bruce. He had never more than half believed that this dubious new technology could be made to work.
The rat was still. "Is he alive?" asked Kristoff.
But then the rat slowly began to move again. "He was just a little stunned," said Paul. "He's all right."
"We should see if we can get him back to his right size," said Kristoff. "Paul, can you please point the magnetic gun away from him while I get this set up?"
Bruce's eyes were on the mouse, and Kristoff's eyes were on the computer screen. Paul absently swiveled the gun away from the rat without paying attention to where he was pointing it. There was a quiet minute where the only sounds were Kristoff's typing, the distant sound of the football team, and the tinny sound as Paul tapped his finger against the cage side, playing with the rat.
Suddenly, there was a earthshaking rumble outside, and a sound like air being sucked in, although on a much larger scale than before. The three grad students looked at each other in alarm. "What the hell was that?" asked Bruce.
Just then, Kristoff noticed which way the magnetic gun was pointing. "Hey, man! You should be careful where you point that thing. You don't know..." He stopped, realizing what might have just happened. His code hadn't been thoroughly debugged, after all; what if some bug had scheduled the gun to turn on at a time that he had not intended? He went to look out the window. "Oh, shit!" he cried.
Joel had been running a fourth lap around the field with his teammates. He was getting tired, and would be glad when the Diskiller's whistle rang out to order the boys into the shower.
But the sound of the whistle never came; instead, Joel heard a strange sound of rushing air, a sort of sucking sound. Joel thought at first that it was the wind blowing. But the sound seemed to be coming from behind him, and it quickly became louder than the wind ought to be. He turned to see what was going on.
What he saw was so entirely outside his experience that at first he could not take it in properly. Diskiller Johnson was growing growing faster than a flag is hoisted up a pole. This was impossible; Joel stared openmouthed. By the time Joel what was happening, the Diskiller had already completely outgrown his gym clothes and had burst out of him; already, the Diskiller's naked, muscular figure was taller than the school building, taller than the trees.
Terrified and bewildered, Joel could only stare. By the time the Diskiller's growth stopped, he was as tall as a 10story building. High above, the Diskiller himself looked rather bewildered as well; what had happened to him? He looked down at the tiny football players staring up at him, at the roofs of the school and neighboring houses and at the treetops, and although he had no clue as to the reason, he realized that he had somehow become a giant.
The three grad students had not thought to anticipate that such a change in size would almost certainly result in a major change in personality of the transformed person. Although the students had succeeded in duplicating the nerve cell's of the Diskiller's brain properly, it had not occurred to them that the massive new number of cells would work together in a different way than the original cells had. This is why, as the Diskiller regained his bearing, he looked down at his football players with an evil masculine smile.
"Here, boys, let me get you somewhere where you'll be safe," said the Diskiller. His massive naked form stooped down and began to pick up the football players, setting them on the flat roof of the school where they could not get away without a ladder. Some of the boys scattered in fright, but many, like Joel, were too astonished to move. In a moment Joel felt himself caught between the giant's thumb and forefinger, and felt a lurch in his stomach as he was lifted faster than an elevator to the school's roof. Joel was dropped coarsely to the gravelandtar rooftop. Crawling to the edge of the roof, he watched as the Diskiller reached from side to side, gathering up most of Joel's fleeing teammates.
Finally, the Diskiller stopped and took a few steps over to stand beside the school. At each step, the earth shuddered under the giantUs weight. Joel craned his neck up to see the massive legs towering up like skyscrapers. The Diskiller did not seem at all shy about being naked in front of so many people; even before this transformation, he had showered with his students all the time, and he was even less modest now. The Diskiller's cock hung down proudly between his legs. The rippled muscles of his abdomen were on the same scale as the markings of a football gridiron. Above all was the Diskiller's face, looking down at his team with a smile that looked to Joel like no good.
"Get out of your uniforms, boys," ordered the Diskiller in a voice that boomed like thunder. The football players looked at each other, each waiting for the others to act. "Strip," said the Diskiller in a louder voice. Nervously, each football player undressed. Joel trembled as he slid his Tshirt over his head, took off his shoulder pads, and quickly unlaced his cleats. Soon, the whole team stood on the roof as naked as their giant Diskiller.
"That's good, boys," said the Diskiller, and looked them over as if considering. Finally he moved his enormous hand over the boys and picked up Stu, one of Joel's friends. The Diskiller lifted Stu up until Stu was even with the Diskiller's enormous face; he was so far up that the football players below could barely see their teammate. But they could see as the Diskiller slowly opened his giant mouth and pushed Stu inside. The Diskiller closed his mouth and swallowed, and the boys below could see the struggling lump move down the Diskiller's throat. A cry of dismay went up from the football team. The Diskiller smiled his evil smile and looked back down at the football team.
Across the street, Paul and Bruce looked out the window in dismay at what was happening. Kristoff was typing frantically at the keyboard, trying to get a program running that would reduce the Diskiller back to his proper height.
"Oh, my god, he swallowed him!" cried Paul in dismay.
"What? What?" said Kristoff, who had not been looking out the window.
"The Diskiller he picked one of the football players and and just plain ate him!" said Paul.
"Can't you get that program to work?" asked Bruce.
At that moment, the system froze. "Aw, shit," said Kristoff. "I have to reboot! We're going to be in a lot of trouble."
The Diskiller reached for a second football player. The young men scattered from side to side on the roof, trying to avoid the giant hand. But the edges of the roof kept them from running far. This time, it was Joel who was caught in the sandpaperywarm grasp.
Joel struggled as he was lifted up toward the Diskiller's mouth, but the fingers that encircled him were hopelessly too strong for him. Joel caught sight of a few confused images: blue sky, treetops, the wiry curls of hair on the Diskiller's vast field of chest, the tiny naked teammates on the school roof. But soon he was face to face with the Diskiller, only a few yards from the giant lips.
"Please don't!" Joel squeaked. "Don't don't eat me! Please!"
The Diskiller smiled. "What are you going to do to stop me?" he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he opened his mouth to a gaping cavern and brought Joel closer. Joel felt the soft lips against his naked body. Then the Diskiller sucked him all the way inside, so that Joel was lying facedown on the wet, coarse surface of the giant's tongue. The sunlight disappeared as the Diskiller closed his mouth behind Joel. The interior of the Diskiller's mouth was dark and soft and humid; Joel was covered with the hungry Diskiller's saliva, and he could hear the low rumble of the Diskiller's breathing further back in the cavernous mouth.
But Joel was given no time to contemplate his surroundings, because the Diskiller immediately swallowed him. Joel felt the tongue lift him; and then he felt the smooth surface of the Diskiller's throat pressing and sliding against every bit of his naked skin as the Diskiller's throat muscles took over and forced him down, down, down to the huge, nearlyempty belly.
When the tightness of the throat opened up, Joel knew that he had arrived in the Diskiller's stomach. There was a little air here; Joel managed to sit upright on the floor of the stomach and panted for several moments. It was dark and hot and moist, and the walls of the Diskiller's stomach were soft to the touch. Joel could hear the rumble of the Diskiller's breathing from above. Then Joel remembered that he should not be alone here. "Stu?" he asked.
"Is that Joel?" asked Stu's voice.
"Yes," said Joel. Even though he knew Stu could do nothing to get him out of the Diskiller's stomach, he was glad to have a friend nearby.
"How are we going to get out of here?" asked Stu, hopelessly. Stu still could not believe that the Diskiller, who had been every player's pal, would suddenly decide to eat them all.
After a long pause, Joel said, "I don't think we're getting back out."
The Diskiller, meanwhile, was having the time of his life. He picked up boy after boy and swallowed them as carelessly as he might have gobbled cocktail peanuts. He loved the struggle of those hard young bodies in his grasp. He loved the taste of young man on his tongue. And he loved the feeling of swallowing the boys whole and alive; they went down as smoothly and as easily as if he were swallowing an oyster. He could feel a pleasant sensation in his stomach which felt like the tiny boys inside still struggling. Never before had he felt power like this. What a great day this was!
Across the street, Kristoff had just succeeded in getting the computer back up. He was typing furiously, but it was becoming increasingly and painfully obvious to him that while the flesh enlargement program was working more or less properly (other than somehow being inadvertently activated when the Diskiller was enlarged), the flesh reduction program still had serious bugs which would take much time to resolve. Paul and Bruce looked at him helplessly as boy after boy disappeared into the Diskiller's mouth.
Although it was not obvious from the outside, it was getting quite crowded inside the Diskiller's stomach by now. The Diskiller had eaten nearly the entire football team, and he was starting to feel pleasantly full. He ate the last few boys more slowly, taunting them and playing with them. "You like my big balls?" the Diskiller asked the boy in his hand, rubbing the boy against the giant ball sac. "You like them? You're gonna help make my balls even bigger, boy!" he said, popping the squirming boy in his mouth and swallowing him at one gulp.
The Diskiller placed the next boy in his mouth, but did not swallow him right away. He simply used his tongue to force the boy to the back of his mouth, and opened his lips slightly so that the boy could see the way out. After a moment, the Diskiller could feel the boy crawling forward, trying to escape; it made a kind of tickling sensation on the Diskiller's huge tongue. But just as the boy stuck his tiny head out from between the lips, the Diskiller's tongue forced him back to start over again. Several times the Diskiller allowed the boy to almost escape. But finally the Diskiller grew tired of this game and simply swallowed the boy down.
Finally, the Diskiller had eaten the very last boy. He felt wonderfully full, and he slapped his huge belly in satisfaction. The three grad students watched helplessly as the Diskiller stretched and then strode away. Each step made a tremor like an earthquake, but the tremors grew weaker as the giant grew further away.
The football players in the Diskiller's dark stomach gradually succumbed to the Diskiller's digestion, and were absorbed and made into more of the Diskiller's muscle. Soon the Diskiller was many miles away, and when he had finally disappeared beyond the horizon, the grad students knew that they were going to have a terrible time getting him back to his right size, even if they could get the reduction program working properly. And in the meantime, what would the Diskiller do? When he got hungry again, how many more people would he eat?
32.000 shouldn't really be considered that small a number. After all, iPhoto gets painfully slow (one minute just to start up?) at 800 or so photos.
So 32.000 songs sounds ok to me...
Remember that iTunes is clearly targeted at the casual user.
"...but it is entirely another thing when an ad agency calls you looking for just the right sound for a commercial."
If a person is capable of running a profitable business using only free software provided by Apple, more power to them. I don't advocate spending money where you don't have to. But (I hope) you wouldn't use iMovie as the basis for your video production house. You'd use Final Cut Pro, or some other powerful, made-for-professionals tool.
iTunes is a great "end-user" music player. I've never gotten the impression that it was attempting to be any more than that.
Reasonable limits aren't.