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iTunes Disables MusicMatch
spooza writes "If you own an iPod and use it with MusicMatch on a Windows machine and then install iTunes, strange things happen: after the installation, MusicMatch is unable to communicate or even find the iPod anymore. Of course this might be a coincidence or bad programming on the Apple side, but since MusicMatch also introduced a pay-per-download service it seems not too farfetched to suspect that Apple simply took the opportunity to knock out an opponent. The funny thing is, Apple and MusicMatch cooperated before, because Apple wanted to have software that was able to work with iPod and thus not lose potential customers that want to buy an iPod but have only Windows." MusicMatch recommends deleting, then downloading and reinstalling, the MusicMatch software to reenable it.
i don't know why geeks rally behind apple at every turn, they seem to be like any other large software coporation out there, in it for the benjamins, and nothing else.
I thought this was a feature...
Even with the registry patch for xplay almost every time I fire up iTunes afterwards I get a blank xplay folder. EphPod seems to work fine no matter what. I wonder how they are able to overcome this.
Apple said fairly upfront that if you installed iTunes for windows, iTunes would be the only way to load your iPod anymore.
I don't even have an iPod and yet i know this.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
They go through several lengthy notices when you move to download iTunes, and then to install it, that if you are already on Windows your MusicMatch software will no longer function.
MusicMatch was a bandaid for Apple when they did not have a Windows software client.
Game on.
At least it is not targeted at MusicMatch, just broadly to all competitors :)
I joined two users too late.
Funny, I remember when installing iTunes on my laptop, it WARNED your that this would happen.
While I see MusicMatch not being happy about this, it isn't like it wasn't an expected result of the iTunes installer.
I had to use musicmatch for my ipod, and it was one of the worst pieces of software I've ever used. Musicmatch was kind enough to send me an e-mail alerting me that itunes would disable the musicmatch interaction with my ipod, unfortunately when I replied to the e-mail with "Thank god, your software is horrible" it didn't go to an actual person. Oh well.
Apple doesn't start going the way of Microsoft...
Oh, you mean by locking customers into expensive, proprietary software? No. They're already worse than that. They lock customers into expensive, proprietary software AND hardware.
Strange. I would have thought this behavior was a feature of the operating system ;)
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
So Apple co-operated with MusicMatch, up and until it had its own software, and then used it to knock out its former partner.
Reminds me of a certain big software company somewhere in the North West of the USA.
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
It's much too difficult to change the default browser.
Launching applications? Setting preferences? What do they think we are, rocket scientists?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
If you have windows and an ipod. You were using music match until now, because that's what you had to use. Now that iTunes is out, will people be really using music match to sync their ipod when they can do it easier and better in itunes?
Drooling Apple Apologist Fanboy Twits vs. Conspiracy Theorists
I think the conspiracy theorists are problably right though, Apple had to know known this was going to happen, and had no qualms about disabling MM. Apple is playing God of The iPod for the PC, what they can giveth, they can taketh away. MS and Real aren't the only people that are good at playing this game on the PC.
My sig is blank, I typed this by hand.
Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that the changes to internet preferences were made at the request of developers. Instead of a system perference panel, developers wanted to be able to switch this within each application. Hence the new API.
I work for Apple and am therefore posting anonymously. While this was done on purpose, it was buy a sole developer, and not a decision by Apple. That developer has since been let go.
Bullshit! If that was the case, iTunes would have immediately been 'fixed' to stop that behaviour, and/or a patch released.
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
You know, I would have thought this was simply another conspiracy theory on /. created to stir up controversy and debate. However, after reading this and this on Think Secret the other day I'm not so sure. This isn't the first not will it likely be the last transgression at this level pulled by Apple.
This is classic Apple (as I type this from my 15" TiBook) and lets face it. Apple is used to controlling the environment it is in (why the hell freezing over joke was less of a joke than outsiders realize) and this only smacks of something any Apple user has known since they became an Apple user. That Apple takes care of the hard part and doesn't leave much control to the end user as a result. ie; It just works...
FYI: I like that as much as I like the exact opposite with Linux, which I run on multilple machines so the above was not a dig.
Who are you? The new #2 Who is #1? You are #617565. I am not a number, I am a free man! Muhahaha.
True, but they have been making great strides (lately) in making their system open for developers and making sure that Apple machines can communicate to other platforms using standard protocols.
Finkployd
If you have an iPod and had the choice of MusicMatch or iTunes what would you choose?
MusicMatch:
1) WMA-Crippled Music Downloads
2) Pay more for more features
3) Shit-poor interface
iTunes
1) AAC-crippled Music Downloads that play on the iPod
2) Full features (ripping, smart playlists, etc) for free
3) Great interface
Sorry, no competition here. Move along.
[fud]
i was an employee of lyndon johnson in the early 60's so am therefore posting under a pseudonym. johnson had kennedy killed to further his political career. the assassin has since been let go. [/fud]
now give me my mod points.
They lock customers into expensive, proprietary software AND hardware.
How are customers locked? If anything, it's an expression of choice that you have the opportunity to buy an Apple computer. Or a Sun workstation, or anything else you want or can afford.
Please elaborate on this hideous "locking in" that Apple's forcing on millions of users each year.
I wish we had an Apple store here.
The closest Mac store is terrible. It's at a horrible location, it's grungy and dirty, and most of the hardware is used crap like 6100s. The software is often very old, and frequently mislabeled. The copy of Panther I bought from them was already opened, and they admitted they'd made copies of it for their own use (store and personal).
Bring on the Apple store.
Before I had iTunes, I had Cassidy and Greene's software (I can't remember the name) for playing and managing MP3s and moving them onto my Rio 500.
Then iTunes came out and it did everything except better. It probably disabled the Cassidy and Greene software. Who cares? I sure didn't. I deleted the damn thing once I had iTunes.
Now I have iTunes (for Mac) and an iPod. I don't see why I would want anything else?
I thought MusicMatch was the stop gap solution for Windows iPod users until iTunes comes out. Now that iTunes is out, why would you want to keep using Music Match?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
This doesn't strike me as frontpage material, folks. It's kind of a no-brainer.
"And before you start lambasting Apple for pulling a stunt like this, c'mon... the people affected by this are Windows users-- they're used to this kind of treatment. Obviously they thrive on it, or they'd have ditched Microsoft years ago. Heck, crippling a competing product was probably the only way Apple could have gotten an ounce of respect from these folks in the first place. In fact, we think Apple probably missed a golden opportunity to win some serious admiration from the Windows community; instead of simply removing MusicMatch's ability to sync with the iPod, iTunes should also have deleted MusicMatch entirely, installed spyware, inexplicably disabled a random piece of system hardware, reformatted any writable volumes not containing iTunes itself, and then emailed itself to everyone in the user's Outlook address book. Oh, and it should have cost thirty bucks. More, with technical support."
It's terrible! If you want to use an iPod, you're supposed to use iTunes! And iTunes only supports the iPod directly! Talk about an unfair system -- imagine, giving software away for free that integrates only with their hardware!
By the way, these ATi drivers work great with my nVidia card. I don't know why I didn't think to try this years ago.
I have Xplay installed as well, and have noticed the blank screen in Xplay. When I downloaded iTunes, it immediately noticed my iPod. I thought that I could then delete Xplay from my computer. Well, after that, iTunes did not recognize my iPod. I had to reinstall Xplay. Have you had the same experience? Is this a glitch? I cannot find any information on this.
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
I prefer MusicMatch. Problems with iTunes: Will not downsample when moving to iPod - I ripped my MP3s at 256k, but I want them at 128k on my iPod. iTunes forces you to have song name in the first column of the library. I want artist - you cannot change this in iTunes. iTunes is slow at ripping MP3s - MusicMatch is 50% faster at ripping than iTunes. iTunes is SSSSSLLLLLLOOOOOOWWWW iTunes music store is unavailable to 95% of the population of planet earth. I live in Canada so I can't use this service.
I think that iTunes updated how windows accessed the iPod, before installing iTunes I had three programs installed for working with the iPod now I only have on in the install list. Perhaps Musicmatch hasn't updated their software to work with the new method? Just a thought.
If you want to use xpod or musicmatch with the ipod, you just have to terminate (kill) the iTunesHelper.exe process. That will allow xpod and musicmatch, and most likely any other ipod software to work.
Then I got a mac.
,of course, the firewire ports on his laptop are 4 pin, and don't have power in them, so we had to leave the ipod plugged in for an hour or so before being able to use it.
Now I understand.
Apple is a corporation. Yes. They are out to make money. Yes.
Their way of doing so, however, is to make some rally kick ass stuff.
I *LOVE* OS X. And I"m a control freak. If I didn't have OS X, I would be using a linux desktop, no questions asked.
As it is I get a rock solid desktop that rules. In fact, I'll even go as far as to say that if you haven't sat down and really got to know OS X as a desktop, you only THINK You know what a good desktop is.
It IS that much better, in terms of user experience. Apple knows what "User experience" actually means.. to microsoft it's a buzzword. You don't know what good effortless computing can be if you haven't been using a mac.
What they say about itunes is totally true...
I bought an ipod last summer. I plugged it into my ibook. Then I opened up the manual, and started reading.. and basically every step said "If you have a mac, skip this step". When I got to the end, there was nothing for me to do.. I looked back at the laptop, and it had already done everyting.
THen my co-worker got one, and he uses windows.
It took us 5 or 6 weird dialog boxes to install MusicMatch.
Then we had to get musicmatch to import his music to it's library (which was REALLY slow, and it doesn't even move files around, just reads them). We had to reboot.
We had a few more dialog boxes for a few other components....
Then we could synchronize, which was by overwriting everything already in the ipod. And it was slow.
And,
End result:
I plugged in my ipod, and it worked. All the music I had ended up on my ipod in seconds, and it started charging up.
IT took us an hour or so of futzing around to get my co-workers to work.
See this discussion over at Ars Technica for more details.
Bottom line : iTunes or GEAR removes vital registry keys that prevent audio CDs from playing once you've uninstalled the software. I had to manually hack my registry to restore functionality.
Bad Apple. No Cookie.
... that they did this in order to prevent TWO programs at the same time trying to get a hold of the iPod?
If that's all it does it's okay. If it prevents MMJB from starting than it isn't quite that okay.
M.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
as digital music buying consumers we are in TERMS OF SERVICE hell.
m.
I really think this is BS. If the application did something that product management did not intend, NOR was it something that was in the product specification, then how the hell did it make it by quality assurance?!
No idea why iTunes does this but it takes over my laptop's volume control. They control iTunes' volume not the laptop.
Its a bit irritating because if the main volume was low there's no way to increase it _unless_ I alt-tab to another app, then they work as intended.
And it sucks up oodles of ram.
moan moan moan
After purchasing a 15gig iPod and charging it up (4hrs), I went to hook it up to my USB 2.0 port on my PC, doh! No USB cable comes with the iPod! Back to Frys, purchased the cable for 20bucks... Back home, hooked up the iPod to my PC via USB 2.0 and everything was going just fine, except its UNABLE TO CHARGE WHILE CONNECTED TO USB. Ummm... Would have thought Apple would have a seperate connection for persons using USB ,so the iPod could charge while you're downloading music it. Instead I had to download 2gigs at a time, recharge the iPod (2-4 hours) and then do it all over again....and again.. It tooknearly 2 days to fill the iPod to capacity.
Keep this in mind...
If you have a PC make sure you have a firewire card (charges while downloading); otherwise, you're in for a real heacache.
Take it easy. BWJ
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
It's also worth mentioning that there's an SDK available for connecting iTunes to other music players. Missing Link uses it. So it isn't as if people need to use an iPod -- someone just needs to write drivers for the music device.
as much as i like, i still think that online music downloading is still in its infancy. i can never imagine putting a CD that i bought from BestBuy in a player than finding out that now it won't play other CDs. nevertheless, such is the case of online music purchase and only because they don't trust me (their customer).
if they don't trust me, they should implement drm in transparent way. when CDs first came out, it was not possible for consumers to make copies. it means no drm and everything was fine.
as much as i hate MPAA over DeCSS case, atleast they have come up with a transparent way to handle copyright. i think if online companies want to implement drm, they should come out with a non-intrusive way of doing this rather than fiddling with their computer.
first thing that itune, musicmatch etc software license would ask you is "can we do anything to your computer?". Say no and you can't use it. Say yes, and they do more changes to computer than you expected.
i won't buy online music until i get it in a form that i can play on my computer with my own software. it also must come with any license agreement. only the standard copyright laws should apply.
does anyone know if iTunes disables ephpod as well?
or xplay or whatever it's called?
I highly recommend using Ephpod (http://www.ephpod.com/) with an iPod under Windows. When my SO gave me my iPod as a present last year and I installed MusicMatch on my work laptop MM was dogslow and often didn't finish syncing with the iPod. The free alternative Ephpod is simple to use and has always worked perfectly for me.
regards,
Heiko
You gain a real solution to managing your music and you can free up some hard disk by deleting software that doesn't work. Who cares...
Jonathanjk.com
If you're a sysadmin nerd, it's sort of a given that if you have two sources accessing the same filesystem at the same time, you're going to clobber your data. (That is, unless special protection is used.)
Maybe Apple just wanted to prevent people from screwing up their iPods.
A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
"Why would you want to use Musicmatch when you have iTunes"
"Musicmatch is a piece of crap, iTunes is much better"
"There's nothing wrong with this, Musicmatch was a temporary solution until iTunes came out"
The thing is, you ought to have the choice of using whatever program you want. Internet Explorer doesn't diddle the network settings of Mozilla or Netscape when it installs so that they will no longer be able to communicate with the www.
Users of XPlay (third-party iPod software) may be familiar with a similar problem. If you have XPlay installed and then install the MusicMatch which comes with your iPod (I prefer XPlay to MusicMatch for interfacing with my iPod, but love MusicMatch's tagging utilities) XPlay will no longer see the iPod at all.
Nothing really suprising here. There is only one driver for the iPod on the machine and when you install software that uses accesses the driver it will register itself as the default application.
Ok, I understand MM is a piece of crap and its store is no better but no piece of software should delete anything something else needs, period. When MS does this they are flamed to all hell. Apple does this and it is ok because they tell you they are going to do it? I just don't see the logic there.
FYI: Employee at Apple doesn't really like Steve Job. He might be a good visionary, but he's somewhat obsessive about it, which has its up and downs.
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
This just bugs me. In 1999, I recommended to a neighbor that he install QuickTime to view some movies that I'd posted on the web. He was nervous, but I (being the computer "expert") assured him that everything would be OK. Well, it wasn't. Some of his software broke. He uninstalled QuickTime, and then *lots* of his software broke.
I showed him iTunes last Friday, and told him it was availble on Windows. He said he wasn't too sure, after his QT experience. I had to agree with him...and it looks like maybe he was right to be nervous.
Apple needs to be cool if they want to be accepted in the Windows world. If this is lazy programming, then please, Apple, do a better job. If this is an Apple conspiracy, then just knock it off!
I used the MusicMatch software and its bad in the way that its not able to rip about 40% of my CD's and even then some come out with issues that makes you hit the del, the Apple ITunes just works 100% supports list and a number of other neat functions. Yea I got the Unwanted e-mail from MusicMatch yakking about how the software don't work spam in my point of view, if you take the 19Mb download and install it, it might be because you want to use it. Anyway the Ipod is just Hot, just found the add on remote and I'm going for it, no need to boot the PC to get to any of my files, and yes I just love the HD function
A Apple a day keep the MusicMatch away
www.netnoise.com.kh
I just hate bit SPAM, (www.netnoise.com.kh)
Besides, why would anyone want to use a non-Apple music software with an iPod? They know how to address their own products better than anyone.
Why would anyone want to use non-Microsoft software under Windows? They know how to interface with their own OS better than anyone.
Sorry, for Apple's software to break other people's software is not acceptable. Remember, IE used to be better than Netscape.. it's no excuse for heavy handed tactics.
Can you use ipod on Windows without using either iTunes, or MusicMatch?
If so, why not at least use a different service, such as http://www.allofmp3.com
Apple seems a weird mix right now, some areas are pro-Open Source, others seem to be almost the opposite...
StarTux
"I'd like to hear a rebuttal from the dude who modded this post troll."
Modding that as troll was cute, but I am seriously curious as to why the dude with the mod point was bugged by this guy.
Seriously. What parent poster said is the impression I have too. Maybe 'lock' is a strong word, but Apple most definitely wants to entice users to stay with them. So, what exactly so trollish about this guy's comment? Seeking education, not argument here.
"Derp de derp."
Sorry, it had to be done.
It's Americans', not Americans. As he's expressing possesion of the spelling. I'm sure he also meant these-days. Since the rules on a dash in the middle of a word allow you to place one if you are unsure, there is nothing gramatically wrong with that statement. Your grammer was worse, since you started a sentance with maybe.
*There's Klingons on the starboard bow, scrape em off Jim!*
When I first read this, I was thinking "big fat deal. Everyone knows Apple does proprietary stuff." Then I read some of the comments about how people would be attempting to storm the gates of Redmond if Microsoft pulled something like this, and realized that my attitude is hypocritical.
And I still don't care.
Apparently, my principles don't come into play when the software works seamlessly and efficiently and the UI is so pretty.
This would bother me, but OSX is shiny and it's distracting me....
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
How are customers locked? If anything, it's an expression of choice that you have the opportunity to buy an Apple computer.
Yes, but when I buy an Apple computer, I have to buy an Apple keyboard, an Apple mouse, and an Apple OS (and a modem, wi-fi adapter, and ethernet adapter though I may only use 1 or 2 of them). Sure, I can use a different keyboard, mouse, and OS, but I can't buy the computer without them. As the prices of hardware have come down, they've started adding more to their base models, meaning that you get devices you don't necessarily want and the base model is more expensive than it would've been with less of the expensive hardware (yay, SuperDrives for everyone, even though their cost is 25-50% of the total cost of the computer). If I don't want to pay the premium on RAM from Apple, I can't buy a computer with no RAM, or with someone else's RAM (though I can buy one with whatever their current minimum is and buy more and/or replace it from someone else). There's nothing keeping you from changing a lot of things once you have the computer, but actually getting the computer means buying a lot of things you might not actually want. On the x86 side, if one OEM doesn't give me the choices I want, I go to another, or I buy the parts myself.
Yes, I use a Microsoft mouse and keyboard, but it's certainly not because it came with something else I bought from Microsoft, or because the software only works with the Microsoft hardware, it just happened to be the best choice for my requirements (and they're lagging on wireless trackballs, so I'm starting to look around for another brand that I can use, and bundling mice with their good wireless keyboards, so I will be looking around in that department, too).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
xp is disabling third party applications with their own--hence the concept of a monopoly. if you install windows media player, the option of resetting your preferences to use this player for certain types of files is presented. likewise with most other media players, quicktime included... there is a distinction--though subtle--between the two types of applications mentioned. one is extending a monopoly, one is choice.
additionally, my understanding is that music match still functions, though not with the ipod. drm is complex enough, and this of course is the main issue with microsoft drm. if it is installed with the os, it is extending the monopoly, because how can differing drm systems interoperate? the will take decades to sort out. but, this slashdot article does not discuss the whole issue and of course sensationalizes the problem. musicmatch still works! so it is funny that quite different concepts of monopoly are in play here, though apple cannot quite be considered a monopoly with 3% of the market, whereas microsoft with 95% of the market can.
what I find amusing about that is the senetences make complete sense to me until someone points out grammar and I try to re-read them!
As an American student I feel it is my duty to stand up and defend my stereotyped group by pointing out your own grammar. I would also think that someone as egotistical would know that "I" is always capitalized, and use some end punctuation man!
So make like your sentence and run-on...
I unfortunately updated 'Quicktime' and downloaded the iTunes for windows as well. Now I notice in my processes a iPosService.exe is running and can't get it to terminate. I don't even own an iPod so this process is just taking up memory.
I copied my Music tunes directory from my Mac to my PC and tried to see if the iTunes would recognize the library. Even after setting the preferences for it to look somewhere else I still get a blank iTunes screen. Bah. I think I'll stick with WinAmp for now.
Only a few more hundred years of this and it'll be all over...
Blar.
This is not trolling, I'm being serious.
Join the Free Software Foundation
You expected an honest evaluation from As the Apple Turns? You are an idiot aren't you? Let me guess, you also expect a comprehensive analysis of celebrity happenings from the Enquirer and the Sun
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
this thread is full of people making poor analogies
iTunes warns during install that it will disable Musicmatch. You're choices are a) iTunes for the iPod with Musicmatch not using it, or b) Musicmatch only. And Explorer most definately "diddles" with default browser settings. Hell, I ran the Word demo on my new Powerbook and suddenly Explorer was my default browser and I had never even launched it.
Just because you don't like the choices doesn't mean they aren't there. Since iTunes likely launches when an iPod is plugged in having Musicmatch also recognize it probably causes problems. While one might lament that Apple had somehow worked it out that you could choose each time, I'd argue that they had no real motivation to and from an ease-of-use point of view went for iTunes taking over the iPod completely.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
Okay, so you have to buy an Apple keyboard and mouse with an Apple computer, but I don't think any of the brand name computer companies would ship a computer without a keyboard and mouse. Why? Cause Joe Public needs one.
Join the Free Software Foundation
So let's say MS decided that their office products would delete the OpenOffice system files that allows OO to interact with the MS proprietary file formats. It wouldn't disable OpenOffice, just stop it from opening and saving in .doc, .xls, etc. Could you imagine the uproar that would happen on /.? I love how Apple does this and it isn't all that bad.
As an X Play user I am unhappy to report that it is not working with the iTunes either.
Musicmatch sux, it should be deleted. The whole company should be deleted!
Well, there have been two new versions since release, so they might have already done it...
If you own an iPod and use it with MusicMatch on a Windows machine and then install iTunes, strange things happen: after the installation, MusicMatch is unable to communicate or even find the iPod anymore.
... hard. When I rebooted, the computer couldn't talk to my CD-RW/DVD unit or my sound card. Registry is corrupt. Multiple efforts to fix go nowhere.
Big deal. I installed iTunes for Windows 1.0 on a Win2K box. After some 30 minutes, iTunes crashed
Now that's a problem. And you folks are griping about mere software!
Just curious, Apple's site doesn't seem clear on this:
I know you can use the iPod as a portable hard drive; just drag and drop files in Explorer and you're done.
My question is, can you do this with your mp3s, and still have your iPod play them?
Quite honestly, as much as everyone raves about the features in iTunes, I don't really see the need for it - it would be cool to just be able to treat it like a portable drive that plays music without installing software in order to use it. My digital camera works this way, and it's handy to share photos with people when I don't feel like carrying HP's installation CD around.
Anyone?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
No one seems to bring up the networking issues of iTunes. Hasn't anyone ever noticed that is scans your mapped drives even if you tell it not to look for shared music? There's also the fact that we aren't allowed to use it at work since it seems it filled up the outgoing translation buffer on our NAT and brought down our internal internet, and that was just having it running on 3 computers. Doh. Of course, it's faster, better, and better looking that Musicmatch. So I personally use it at Home for fun (well except when it starts complaining that the cd services aren't working...guess I should stop trying to disable the iPodService and the iTunesHelper application :) ). Of course, Musicmatch has the Fraunhofer codec, so that's just wonderful for making 128kbs mp3s that actually sound good, and therefore is how I rip my CDs.
Lots of people have complained that if you have an iPod for Windows, and you have a Mac, when you plug the iPod into the Mac, the Mac wants to reformat it. And when you have an iPod for Mac and you plug it into your Windows machine, MusicMatch doesn't work with it without reformatting.
This is because the iPod looks like a disk drive. On the Mac, it's formatted as an HFS volume. On Windows, it was formatted as a Windows volume.
Now, with iTunes for Windows, you can share your iPod between Windows and Mac. This is because iTunes for Windows knows how to deal with HFS volumes. But unfortunately, MusicMatch for Windows does not know how to do this.
So you lose something, and you get something. Depending on what you want, you may prefer one solution or the other. If you prefer MusicMatch, stick with it. If you prefer iTunes, stick with it.
The point is that this was not just an arbitrary attempt to shut MusicMatch out of the business. It was done for a good reason. If MusicMatch wants to maintain iPod compatiblity after you install iTunes, this is doable, because HFS+ is a documented standard, and the source code to read and write HFS+ filesystems is available from Apple - it's part of Darwin, which is open source.
So yes, Apple did make an incompatible change. And it sucks for people who really like MusicMatch. But there was a good reason for making the change, and I personally think the end result is a significant improvement. YMMV.
DRM Program from Apple? What the fsck are you smoking?
/technical/ reasons why Apple would want to disable MusicMatch's syncing with the iPod.
/when you install it./
/chances are good/ you will want to use iTunes for syncing with your iPod anyways should you continue to use iTunes (not guaranteed, but likely).
iTMS uses the FairPlay DRM. I have a lot of songs and I can't think of a single instance when FairPlay got in my way or kept me from doing anything. I can burn the songs to as many CDs as I like, play the music on up to three computers (at a time), and transfer it to as many iPods as I like. How exactly is that restricting me?
If I get desperate I can rip it off a burn, but I don't even see why I would do that (for my situation).
The rest of iTunes has no DRM incorporated. What this entire story is about is not any form of DRM, but Apple replacing MusicMatch's functionality with their own. You can still use MusicMatch, you can still use your iPod, you can still use MusicMatch with your iPod (with either a hack or by reinstalling MusicMatch), but there are some very good
I fail to see how you are being restricted, even exempting that Apple tells you what iTunes will do
Besides, if you own an iPod and you've download iTunes,
So would you and whichever moderator modded you up remove your tinfoil hats?
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
You DO have a choice. Simply cancel the installation when it warns you about disabling Musicmatch.
And if you're already happy with Musicmatch, you can go on your merry way.
A little strong-handed in forcing the choice? Yeah. But far better than what IE/Office has pulled on me over the years. And yes, IE/Office sure have switched settings behind my back without so much as a simple AfxMessageBox() telling me I've just been screwed.
When I installed iTunes (Mac and PC) there was a checkbox asking you for permission to reorganize your files. (Organize library). If you didn't check it, there was no problems! It would just leave the files alone. iTunes doesn't need to reorganize your files to work. If you install iTunes and check it, allow it, to organize your files, then it's only doing what you tell it to do!
GPL Deconstructed
"It sounds to me like these guys put far more effort on trying to cleverly denegrate Microsoft than objectively evaluating the products they are supposed to be promoting."
To quote from the disclaimer on every page at As The Apple Turns:
Or, in other words, it's a joke, idiot!
--R.J.
Electric-Escape.net
joke, joke, joke!
jesus, with the amount of really idiotic mac-jokes around, I'd assume you'd get the odd windowsjoke...
I thought it was pretty funny.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Music Match for the following reasons. I use MP3 Music as a wholesale replacement for my entertainment center in my living room:
1. MMJ: Library is seperated from the player/playlist. Because of this I can sort by album, genre, artist, track, bitrate, year and a plethora of others while still keeping my play list clear. If I want to listen to 2 albums, I right click on the tree and add both to the player, then play only those selected. Later I can add more singles songs, or albums to the player. I don't have to create a playlist to do this, but I do have the option to save if I want. MMJ also lets me preview a track outside of the playlist/player. This lets me quickly view a track before choosing to add it to the player.
1. iTunes: everything is one big library. I have to CREATE and SAVE a new playlist, even for temporary use, and drag items to the list from the browser to play. There is no seperate player distinction. There is a browse function, but I can only play one album at a time when highlighting an album to populate the main player. (well not true, I can by browsing by all albums, then ctrl-click multiple albums at the same time to add the the player. But this has to be done at the same time, there is no option to add later to the main player). I then have to delete the SAVED list to keep the interface from being cluttered. Most often there is no use for me to keep every session of what I listen to. Itunes also does not let me preview a song outside of a list. So if I am listening to the one album I can listen to without creating and saving a NEW list, the player is hijacked with that song, unless I start over and do some fancy sorting and ctrl-clicking. Actually it does not seem possible to add 2 albums + 5 tracks to the main player with CREATING and SAVING a new list, due to the limitations of the browser not even being able to sort by song outside of the main player.
PS: It seems that iTunes is insistent on being a large mix tape interface of single songs. This coincides with the "purchase single song interface". MMJ can be either or, and is flexible when choosing to look at a library in terms of "album".
2: MMJ has the "smart list function" and is slightly better than iTunes at it. MMJ has the ability to TAG music with arbitrary data that reflects mood, tempo, and rating. You can add any textual data you wish to the TAG. You can then use the "Auto DJ" function to create smart lists based on data YOU provided, in addition to the standard id3 tag.
2: Itunes: provides 1-5 rating for smart lists and that is it.
3. MMJ: Music Match provides a method of having multiple DBs to store music. This is great when dealing with different situations of music storage. For example, I have a DB for music that I do not have physical media, a DB for songs downloaded from emusic.com, a DB for music I have media for, and a DB for music on the iPod. This makes iPod and iPod synch easier for me, as I have a separate DB and can remove items from the DB at will. The iPod will synch that data. The multiple DB works well when doing things, such as ensuring that all music for which I have media is encoded at a certain quality bitrate. To do this I simply load up the DB, sort by bitrate and identify the low bitrate offenders.
3. Itunes: So far it looks like there is only one DB for iTunes. I can synch the entire DB to the iPod, or make the laborious task of clicking a check mark on only the tracks I want out the current 7500 I have. I do not seem to have the ability to create a DB for separate instances of music. I cannot use iTunes to tell me what emusic.com downloads are encoded at 128, so I can revisit emusic.com and download the new 192VBR versions.
4: MMJ has the ability to skin the interface. This is critical to me, when using a TV at 640x480 as an output. I need the ability to change colors and font sizes to better suit my output environment. MMJ is also modular and can turn pieces of its interface off.
4: iTunes does not have to ab
dunno why apple would package MM with the ipod....it's like beauty and the beast (ipod is the former btw).
Ephpod and Xplay work wonderously with it, loads better than MM.
I've got a Dell here with no Dell mouse or keyboard, but that may have been IT's doing, since I told them I wasn't getting rid of the keyboard and mouse I already had.
Whether or not the big companies would do this for home users I do not know, since I don't buy computers from them. I do know that I can go down to almost any local computer shop and buy a computer with Windows installed on it without a keyboard and mouse (and completely to my specs in terms of what parts are used) if I choose to do so. Actually, that makes me wonder if the Apple stores might do the same, as I've never seen one of those stores, yet, and don't remember if the local Apple retailers did it before Apple opened their own stores.
Why? Cause Joe Public needs one.
If Joe Public bought a computer 3 years ago and is buying a new one to replace it, he certainly does not need a new mouse and keyboard. Of course, he probably doesn't need most of what he's buying, but then he's Joe Public, so unless he knows John Geek next door, he's SOL because he bent over for Jim Dell.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
I've installed iTines on two Win2K Pro machines and have no problem at all. But, I've always used CDPLAYER.EXE to listen to CDs.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
It couldn't possibly be bad for a single device to have two different drivers trying to control it. I'm sure everything works perfectly fine that way -at least as well as when my wife and I both try to drive the car at the same time.
CRASH!
This is a sentiment I have never understood..."Apple is cool, so people only use Apple computers to be cool"...It almost defies logic...If Apple were "cool" why wouldn't they have more market share, or at least mindshare?...As a long time Apple user, I can say, anecdotally, that I have never once had a conversation with another Apple user regarding how much cooler our computers are than others.
/. spewing fictitious nonsense about a platform they know nothing about -- and I'm not talking about Apple either...
People who choose to use Macs have always dealt with 'less' options...I don't see how being on the fringe is cool...If anything we have generally felt marginalized -- sure we have steeled our resolve with a belief that we get more done, or that we work more efficiently, but that really just helps to fortify our own conclusions...does that make us 'different'...I could care less...does being 'different' make us 'cool'? Again I could care less.
It always seems like it is the people who do not use Apple computers who have an obsession with being 'cool' or not. I myself, just continue to do my work on my Macs as I have done for many years now.
BTW, do you really think Apple users think they are 'cooler' than Linux user think themselves. If you cannot acknowledge that there are vastly more Linux poseurs out there than Apple poseurs, you are fooling yourself. I can support this simply by the fact that Mac users, as lame as you want to see them, by the lowest common denominator, at least run productivity/creativity apps most of the time. Most Linux wanabees just spend their time installing the latest release, do no coding, no produuctivity/creative app work, and then post AC drivel on
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
The iTunes installer clearly stated this would happen. I repeat, you got a warning in big letters and simple wording that this would happen.
What the article should have told us:
1) iTunes is made to support the iPod. You expect Apple to bend over to accomodate the competition - even if it was an ex-partner? There are tons of considerations and technical issues. It would be stupid for them to do it otherwise.
If you think that's "unfair", look at it this way, iTunes is a free upgrade for iPod owners, if you don't want the upgrade, don't install.
2) iTunes doesn't disable MusicMatch, it disables syncing only, which is the only logical thing to do (see above).
iTunes can also "import" all your music with the click of one button, which means you don't really need to use MusicMatch anymore.
3) If you still wish to use MusicMatch, you're left with two choices:
- don't install iTunes
- install iTunes and use musicmatch without iPod syncing.
And I guess, enjoy buying WMA files in the MusicMatch store.
Apple is sooo bad, it's a conspiracy. Right.
Meanwhile try finding a music store for mac users that isn't called iTunes.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
On what planet does iTunes delete MusicMatch?
It just stops MM from connecting to the iPod - you can still use MM if you want, or reinstall it to restore the iPod connectiveity (which then breaks the connection with iTunes but you can't have it both ways).
Also, iTunes warns you that this will happen at the install.
It's a far cry from deleting software without asking you.
I use XMMS through Cygwin, I thought all of the 1337 M0F0's used that!
-D
I'm confused here. If you bought MusicMatch without an iPod, it didn't support the iPod. The only version with iPod support came with the iPod... from Apple. This leads me to believe it was Apple that wrote the iPod conduit, not MusicMatch.
MusicMatch would have a legitimate complaint if they had a stand alone product that supported the iPod that Apple's software conflicted with, but that's not what happened.
Apple wrote a conduit for the iPod and decided to change how that conduit works.
This has been gone over many times...Apple is not a monopoly in the way MS is. I don't have the energy to go into this right now, but needless to say, you are mistaken.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
online music stores/programs. plenty of them don't have all the coverage. if you want to get all the music you're looking for, you have to be sub'ed to several different services.
sometimes you buy records and you buy cds and sometimes you listen to tapes.
until these services standardize on a format, you'd hope they'd at least play nice.
m.
I'm sorry, I've been using Musicmatch and Itunes consistently since Itunes was released, they work flawlessly. The fact that the Ipod won't connect is just bad programming (or reusing drivers... or whatever)
This needn't be deliberate, In fact a perfect example of this would be Installing Ethereal (in win2k) and then deciding you want to connect to your OpenVPN network. As soon as the fake tap drivers are loaded Ethereal breaks. (Uninstalling both and reinstalling the one you want doesn't work either.) Now just because having them together doesn't work, doesn't mean the author of OpenVPN went and made sure I couldn't enable Ethereal anymore.
Albeit yes, Itunes and Musicmatch are competing, the formats are different, the contracts with artists are (slightly if only) different. Why would Itunes disable Musicmatch (A piece of software, in my opinion, perfect for proving that Itunes is the best music *store* online.)
seriously, who uses that crap? OHH! can I please have some more spyware on my machine!! I really love programs that own your computer on start up, hog resources, bug you for "upgrades" and updates every 5 minutes, and take over file associations without permission. Apple did windows users a great service.
> I'm sorry, but when I expect to get an honest evaluation of iTunes, and instead
> get some witty tripe from a pretentious snot, should I not be disappointed?
You read the onion instead of CNN for your world news too, dont you?
I never said it stopped OpenOffice from working. I only said that it stopped it from accessing propietary formats.
It says this RIGHT IN THE INSTALL WIZARD.
You did READ the screens, didn't you?
... everyone here would be screaming about it and a full scale justice dept. investigation would ensue. Why is it "cool" for Apple to be a monopoly and awful for Microsoft ?
This is the email I sent to MM after receiving their whiny "notice" that MM would stop talking to my iPod if I installed iTunes. I did install iTunes....but MM don't work because I shitcanned it. ;-)
Sirs:
Hmmm...iTunes is faster at ripping, has better integration with my iPod, has a cleaner, more intuitive interface with less of the glitzy crap that MM comes with. iTunes also starts faster, only uses a single window on my desktop and integrates with Apples music store and proprietary music formats. I also don't use either for playing music on my PC, prefering the QCD player.
Apple didn't make the choice...I did. I uninstalled MusicMatch and have no intentions to go back to your bloated, cumbersome, slow, unreliable package when iTunes does everything I need and more.
The only reason I used MM was because it was the only option on a Windows box. Now that iTunes is here....MM is history as far as I am concerned.
After living with MM for about 6 months, I can truly say that I do "get the best possible experience when managing your MP3 collection and transferring music to your iPod" to quote your words. By using iTunes for Windows.
Your implication that MM is better than iTunes is both insulting and incorrect based on my experience.
Chaeron Corporation
It's why I haven't used iTMS yet. On principle I object to Apple or anyone else controlling media I have purchased. So I stick with CDs and MP3s ripped by me for my iPod (which I use daily).
sulli
RTFJ.
Nope...
iTunes on Windows cannot read HFS+ iPods. I have one and I know. You can install the PC software, but it will format it to Fat32, unfortunately. Check the support boards on Apple if you want more info (don't have a link on me now).
Your whole argument is based on an incorrect assumption... I wish people would research before they moderated here.
I hated iTunes and returned to MusicMatch straight away. I thought I'd accidentally uninstalled the iPod software rather than iTunes, but all I had to do was re-install the iPod plug-in for MusicMatch to get it working again and in fact an intermittant "service isn't running" error didn't return.
I don't remember seeing this warning when I installed iTunes. Have you actually seen this, or is this just what you've read? Was it in the original release?
-Turkey
.. quit your whining people. For all intensive purposes limiting it to iTunes is part of the DRM that allows these downloads anyway. It's not like there aren't ways around it. And it's the superior product for once that disables the inferior product.
If you don't like it go use a Rio...
I am strongly suspecting that what we see here is the all to tempting "I don't agree with you so I'll mod you down" syndrome. I must admit that I have fallen for it's evil spell in the past myself - but at least I modded down as 'overrated' and not as 'troll'. It is one of the weak points int he moderatorsystem I think...
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
It's not a black/white issue, there are degrees of being a monopoly. The cut and dried idealized monopoly occurs when cost barriers which impede the entry of competition are inifinite. The strongest monopolies in the real world have erected a cost barrier that is "high enough" (though not infinite) to effectively shut out all competition. To say that a company either is or is not a monopoly is to assert that there is a precisely measureable cost barrier to competition above which there is a monopoly, and below which there is none. True monopolies happen by degrees.
And being a monopoly is not a problem. The problem is if a monopoly abuses it's power.
Technically true, but not tenable in the real world. First, that is somewhat like saying that granting police the right to search homes without warrants is not a problem, it's when the police abuse that power; examples of unchecked power (market-based or otherwise) that aren't abused are very few and far between. Second, there's the problem of even knowing what abuses have occured; if a company has a market monopoly, who knows how many would-be competitors have decided not to get past the what-if phase of developing their own products, due to the prohibitive nature of the monopoly? These things can be very hard to measure, but the generally harmful nature of a monopoly is not in consequent doubt.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
How long before M$ come along and breake iTunes or QT? It seem to me that the bigger the fish the more rights you have.
I don't have an iPod, and I don't see why you would want to use one with that bloated piece of shit instead of iTunes, which is beautiful, but I did notice after I installed iTunes there was some new "iPod Service" installed in the services tab under msconfig. I suggest disabling it if anyone has problems.
I could watch it in the Task Manager's "Performance" tab, as my memory consumption gradually went from about 250MB to 1GB until the sync finished.
Then I found EphPod, which is better than MusicMatch *or* iTunes....
MusicMatch was a completely awful program. I'm reasonably computer literate and I just gave up on it half an hour after buying my iPod and found Ephpod. For my own personal needs, synching correctly filed MP3s with my iPod, Ephpod was perfect and as I don't want yet another 'media centre' is still better than iTunes. iTunes and Ephpod work quite happily together though so I use both. Disabling Musicmatch is boon to all.
Bullshit and bullshit.
Copyright holders have a specific set of exclusive rights, among them:
This is not a complete list, but the point is that there is a specific, enumerated set of what rights copyright holders can deny to other people. They cannot decide "what you can and can't do." If a CD says on the packaging "you can only listen to this CD on Thursdays," you can give it the finger and say "I have legally obtained this CD, there is no law preventing me from listening to this CD whenever I please."
It's really, really disturbing to that people have this perception that copyright holders have some kind of blank check to institute whatever kind of regulations they want on the use of their works.
Why would one even need MusicMatch if they have iTunes?
What is "fighting for my beliefs in the manner described in said Constitution" in an age when motion picture studios own the news media with the biggest reach (Fox News = Fox Pictures, CNN = Warner Bros. Pictures, ABC News = Walt Disney Pictures, CBS News = Paramount Pictures, and soon NBC News = Universal Pictures)?
Will I retire or break 10K?
There has never been an undo option for changes to file locations on the drive.
There is in Microsoft Windows 2000 Explorer. I can move or copy a file, and when I press Ctrl+Z, Explorer will perform the inverse transaction. Why can't iTunes store the inverse of the file system transactions involved in organizing my audio files and then play back that inverse in response to an Undo command?
Will I retire or break 10K?
MORON!
It says COLLECTION, not FILES.
Unless you are a mac bigot, you might not be familiar with the terms (Collection?!?!) that Apple likes to rename already standardly named things to.
In this case, it is APPLE's fault for using the MORONIC word COLLECTION instead FILES or FILE AND DIRECTORY STRUCTURE. Using FILES would have made both power and l(that means you) users happy.
The fun part is getting one of them to stop.
Read this: Red Chair Software's statement on changes made to the iPod software. According to them, there was no intent to harm and the needed changes can be made by competent programmers.
I'm sure I read it when I installed it.
It mentioned that installing "would break dependencies of portable music players on their current software" or something like that.
I wasn't paying much attention since I only installed it so my sister could stream my music on her PC - I use my iPod with my iBook.
"Secondarily, it's arguably wrong. But it's hard to even get to the argument when it's stated like it was."
Fair enough. Just wish he would have come and responded to my naieve question instead of modding me as a troll as well.
Lotsa modelling, not enough discussing.
"Derp de derp."
Modding, not modelling. Sorry, been playing in Lightwave too long today.
"Derp de derp."
Waa, Apple is denying users a choice by giving iTunes exclusive access to your iPod. Or not. Using a sync device from two apps is retarded. You don't want that option if you've ever tried!
You can't sync your Palm to two sets of databases (not if you don't want everything hosed), or say have two conduits trying to use the same data. On windows, you can't even connect a serial Palm if something else is using your Com port/IRQ.
Apple is doing the best they can given Window's shitty architecture. The registry, hardware chaos, et all.
The fact that you can easily uninstall iTunes, and then install whatever else you want to use (free, commercial, whatever), is what makes it different from Internet Explorer blowing away potential rivals.
What a non issue piece of fluff. Linux users aren't familiar with applications and hardware that work seemlessly from the same vendor. Guess what? Its a good thing.
First Poster: See! Apple goes out of its way to destroy competition too.
Second Poster: Microsoft has 95% mkt share while Apple has less than 5%. This is an okay practice.
But I think we all know if Apple had the 95% mkt share it would be just as bad or worse considering that they control a lot more of their computer system than Microsoft does. All this does is once again prove that corporations will do just about anything to grab an extra dollar and one of their main tactics is to destroy competition.
Everyone here agrees that Itunes is the best music service. A lot of people would say the Ipod is the best device. I think we are seeing what happens when Apple gets any kind of power. If Itunes becomes the next Napster will suddenly music downloads go to $1.50, then $2, and then only the Ipod will work with Itunes due to "software upgrades." Whatever the outcome I think everyone agrees that competition rocks and that any destruction of competition hurts the consumer.
Was that some people would have to start iTunes just to "eject" the iPod... If I use windows to eject it, the pod crashes/hangs - iTunes ejects it normally - VERY annoying - It's not like that for all people apparently...
Any technology distinguishable from magic, is insufficiently advanced.
You can make all the excuses you want for why it wasn't that good, including just blaming apple for poorly supporting windows.. but the fact remains..
It is extremely rare for things in windows to integrate as smoothly as they do on the mac.. WHY isn't important.
Take something as simple as a mouse.. even when you plug a usb mouse into windows XP the first time, it says "Detected new USB device " " initializing " "Detected HID mouse" "initializing " " starting mouse" or whateve.r. then it works.
So even though it did't ask for any drivers or anything.. it grinded and flashed several popups of technical info the end user doesn't need...
When I plugged a usb mouse into my mac, it just worked,within about 1 second. There were no popups or indicators, other than the mouse now controlled the cursor.
IT's hard to design things to work to the level apple wants in windows, simply because windows is so varied.. you don't know what the user already has, so it's hard to decide what will work smoothly.
Does anyone know if Apple's anti-competitive practices are behind my Creative Nomad Jukebox not turning on after I got it soaked?
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
I agree Porsches are cool. While it is not a good example of market share, it is a good example of mindshare -- Ford owners don't usually criticize Porsche owners for driving Porsches -- I really don't want to equate Macs with Porsches BTW, it opens up a new can of worms -- Ford owners for the most part probably respect Porsche vehicles.
The point is, as a previous Porsche owner, I didn't buy mine because it was cool. I bought it because I felt it was the best car on the road for my needs/desires. There were cars that were more expensive and less expensive. Ones that were faster per dollar and slower per dollar. No one ever accused me of trying to be cool, or aligning myself with a cool brand.
More to the point, I think most Linux users are like Ford owners who have read about Saleen/Shelby models...have memorized the specs, but have never driven the car if you know what I mean. They like to align themselves with the Shelbys(the coders, the kernel hackers) but in fact couldn't tell you if Linux is monolithic or a microkernel...then they come here and start holy wars between people whose interests and passions are closer to each other than they are far.
P.S. thanks for the thoughtful response.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Um, Cocoa (nee OpenStep) is an open standard too.
Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever
Hey Moofie,
...Back it up, and back it up often."
There is one easy solution to this problem.
BACKUP your files!
I have multiple copies of my music files. It is the only way to go. The main copy is the working file. This is the one I organize. The second copy is on an external hard drive (dedicated to music files only). I copy the working copy to the backup when ever I have done major work on the master file (add, rename, delete, etc.). I also bring the backup copy to work w/ me every once a while. Where I borrow some of my employers hard drive space (they will never know or care) for a third off-site backup.
Any time that iTunes did something disruptive to the working file I just over wrote it from my backup copy.
As an avid user of iTunes/iPod, (They have been my entire music/stereo system for several years) this has been invaluable. There have been at least 7 would be fatal action over the course of this time. They ranged from entire loss of the working file to just loosing rating type information. To be fair, some were caused by pilot error, others by iTunes preference changes. But regardless, they all were recoverable because of the extra copies. Because my entire collection is now converted to digital, I would have lost my whole music life, had I not backed-up regularly.
Now Moofie, as a very experienced computer user should know...
"If it is Important to you...
Ernie Dambach
"It is no small thing to celebrate a simple life -Tolkien
Finally good news! MMJukebox is one of the worst programs i have ever seen! If you don't believe me check the user comments on download.com.
I bought an iPod (I have a windows box) and was totally frustrated with MM: slow, bloated, buggish! Almost as bad as RealOne! I tried the trial versions of XPlay and EphPod, and they were quite better. Now I'm very happy with iTunes.
All right, then how about fences that keep you out of private property, security filters that make it difficult for you to read a screen in an office building unless you are directly in front of a computer, and barricades that prevent you from driving over the median and on to the other side of the road?
Are these inherrently evil? They render you less capable of taking the intended action, but they can't dicern whether you have a legitimate reason to be preforming that action.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
"You have to remember, Apple traditionally markets themselves to people who don't know much about computers."
.doc files(RTF baby:))
I have never understood the logical assumption that gets to that thought...Apple might make the things we need to do on computers simpler, but that does not therefore mean the users of Apple computers are simple themselves...please no trolls...my point is that simplifying the complex things is generally a 'good thing'. There is no point in doing things the hard way just for sake of doing them the hard way -- and I don't mean new and different difficult things, but rather the previously charted territory-type things -- set-up, consistency of use, configuration of new hard and software...
I don't think Apple has ever targeted grandmas and newbies...I think they targeted people who wanted their computer to get out of the way when they want to get work done. I love that Linux exists. I would rather chew off my foot than use it on a day to day basis. I don't have a personal jihad against MS...I would rather chew off my foot than use any MS products on a day to day basis...Not for reasons of philosophy, but because I find their products to be consistenly troublesome. Also, I don't use spreadsheets and I don't work with
I just set up my grandfather(a writer & a very computer literate PC-guy for many years) on a new 17" powerbook -- ridding him of the laptops and towers he had that had always plagued him with problems -- if one of his printers wasn't working, then it was his Clie. If it wasn't his Clie, it was Windows itself. Thankfully I did not have to support his previous system -- that was the job of my PC-championing uncle. Needless to say, my G-father, after having watched me for years on my Macs, was floored at how well his new system worked -- an HP all-in-one unit that never worked properly, worked instantly...his screenwriting software was cross-platform and looked and worked better than ever. I set him up with Word(blech) and it too looked better and worked better than ever.
Again, I feel there is a difference between choosing a system that simplifies the commonly difficult things and one that keeps the commonly difficult things difficult...
Also, "Marketing" is most definitely the provenence of MS. While Apple may have 'saucier' marketing, MS absolutely relies on Marketing and spin to keep itself where it is. Why else would new users by percentage, choose MS products if they weren't presented as 'easier to use' -- Most Apple user I know are vastly more technically adept than the PC users I know -- if for no other reason than that there are so many PC users and they could not possibly all be savvy.
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Dear Anonymous Coward,
Thank you for your kind response regarding my post. As you can imagine, I receive so many positive responses regarding my posts, that I cannot possibly reply to them all. But once again, thank you for your kind remarks regarding my post.
Sincerely,
ErnstKompressor
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
If this is in fact intentional on Apple's part, then it is very much Not Cool. Competition is good, deliberately breaking a competitor's product is not.
However, given Apple's abysmal QA as of late, I can't deny the possibility that this is just another supremely-idiotic bug that somehow slipped through.
What is this 'Google' you speak of?
If you had you would know the answer to this. MusicMatch told me my iPod was "full" after loading about 100 songs. When adding a directory of songs to the library it doesn't check whether any of the songs are already in the library, it simply adds them all again. Making a playlist is a royal pain in the butt compared with iTunes. Apple doesn't need to force people to use iTunes. (And it doesn't anyway: as a previous poster pointed out, disabling access to the iPod by MusicMatch is logical to prevent the chaos caused by two programs independently syncing one iPod.)
Devil's advocate:
There are obviously plenty of examples of such things (play the files on Linux machines without having to go through the bother...
The fair use defenses to copying of sound recordings, as defined in 17 USC 107 and 17 USC 1008, does not guarantee a lack of "bother."
Why would it have to be manual? Couldn't a Windows program automate making 74-minute playlists of purchased tracks, telling iTunes to burn tracks to CD-RW, and then running CD audio extraction?
My point is that one should not run software that does not act in ones own interest.
Then choose not to run iTunes Music Store.
There is a simple way to see whether software is acting in your interest: _could_ it be implemented as open source on normal hardware.
Do you claim that programs that perform one-click ordering, LZW compression in Europe and Canada, MP3 compression, and accurate transformations to output devices' color spaces, and other patented algorithms do not act in the user's interest? Free software implementing those algorithms would violate subsisting patents on those algorithms, making them just as unlawful to distribute as DeCSS or any other DRM-breaking program. Even if there were no DMCA, and even if iTunes used no DRM, it would still be unlawful to write an AAC decoder and publish it as free software because AAC is patented.
But you people are so busy trying to convince yourself that this DRM somehow isn't DRM because the rules are less bad.
I agree that iTunes fits the definition of digital restrictions management, but the rules it implements are so thin that they do not get in the way of fair use.
Like people arguing that a dictatorship isn't a dictatorship because the dictator is a nice guy.
Have you shown that near-absolute rule always produces violations of human rights? If a dictator does a good job, then she's still a dictator, and the government is a dictatorship, but it's not a tyranny.
The encryption keys and algorithms used on the m4p files [are secrets].
Analogy: The algorithms used for branch prediction in the Pentium 4 processor are secrets as well, but I haven't read any complaints about them on Slashdot.
My point is that eventually they will not have a choice. For "security reasons."
Does the Congress have the right to roadblock free speech in such a way?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Sure you can. If you and I are neighbors, I can put a fence up on the dividing line between our respective properties. Such is the same with the music and DRM. The DRM must be placed at the boundry between your property (the music file and it's contents) and their property (the music and the rights to distribute). For the most part, it seems Apple's DRM is on that boundry. The fact that if you created a program to remove the DRM to play it on your linux box is a violation of the DMCA is an issue with the DMCA and not with DRM specificaly.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Even better, we can have iTunes leaving programs on your computer after you unintall it.
OK, I admit that was a bad suggestion. Replace it with recognizing that Windows users typically understand that an "uninstall" function cannot be undone and that such feature would be a checkbox: "Do you want to undo all reorganizations that iTunes has made to your audio files?"
And you still didn't answer the practical questions about what to do with files you add after the first reorganization etc.
Add those to the log file.
I'm sorry that Apple assumed that you would read a dialouge box before you clicked OK
Easy. Microsoft Windows and popular Windows applications display more trivial "Are you sure?" alerts than Mac OS apps do, giving Windows users a more ingrained "just click OK" reflex. For example, Windows asks for confirmation both for "move file to trash" (Delete) and for "empty trash" (right-click recycle bin and choose Empty), while Mac OS skips the confirmation for "move file to trash" (Cmd+Backspace) and gives useful information (namely the total amount of disk space that trashed items take up, in addition to the number of items that Windows displays) in the "empty trash" alert.
Will I retire or break 10K?
So many MP3 Codecs out there they did a real good job making a player that plays all 1 of them.
Now if he said, "so many codecs out there they did a real good job making a player that plays all 1 of them," I could mabey see some sarcasm in the statement. Even then though, it would be untrue, as it plays MP3, AAC, WAV, and AIFF. I think there is a plug-in by the Vorbis team to support OGG, though I have not tried it myself.
I suggest you read the great grandparent and then witness the utter lack of sarcasm.
-- Fighting mediocrity one bad post at a time.
Yeah, no undo is really obnoxious.
Keeping your tunes organized in more than one way is one of the few good uses of hard links. All you have to do is hard-link all your mp3s into one directory, then import and organize that directory. Of course, this won't work on a Windows box...
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
But then aren't you again relying on the user to read a dialouge box?
Apple's iTunes is an audio player. It could come with a low-bitrate recording of a person reading the text "Do you want to move your audio files back to where they were before you installed iTunes?" (:06, 24 KBytes at 32 kbps) and pause the uninstaller until iTunes has finished reading the text aloud.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"It took Apple *how long* to get a fully preemptive operating system with protected memory?"
Well, AUX was around in early nineties, so not really that long. Remember that Apple also had to switch from the 680x0 chips to PPC, and that took a lot of effort.
And frankly, Microsoft didn't really accomplish the feat of marrying a decent UI to fully premptive/protected memory until Windows 2000. I suppose you could argue Windows 95 met that criteria, but it was not terribly stable. And you could argue Windows NT 3.5 Workstation met that criteria, but the interface was pretty horrible (win3.1), and it lacked compatibility with most hardware and Win16 software.
So Microsoft can't boat about their track record either.
Now to be clear, Mac OS 9 was pretty awful IMHO, but with OS X, Apple really has a home run. Its really good, is very stable, and about the only complaint you could make is that it runs marginally on the G3 chip.
But as much you want to dislike apple, they write really outstanding software for the most part. And their hardware is quite striking.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Thankfully the iTMS's restrictions aren't anything like as aggressive as this analogy makes out. The DRM in iTUNES is more like "You can let as many friends as you want to read this comic book, but you can't use a color photocopier to make copies of the comic which you then sell (or give away for free) in a kiosk at the mall."
No flame intended, but "typical antics" would be a pretty good description of the position that we should accept NO restrictions whatsoever on our use and re-use of copyrighted materials -- because we own the computers, or the paper, on which they reside. I'm not allowed to perform an author's plays without paying a royalty. Nor am I allowed to distribute copies of the script to 15,000 of my friends. Nor can you distribute free copies of Duke Nuke 'Em Forever -- not even if you bought the first copy. The iTunes store has found a nice little common ground that's basically not odious to anyone -- barring you. You see *any* compromise as inherently vitiating and therefore negating your principles. I'm all for free speech, I give to the ACLU for Crissakes, but there are genuine limits to that right. Old, old discussion you might want to have with any law student.
Hey, I'm nobody's prude on this; I've done my p2p thing, still will in a pinch, and had no especial moral qualms about it. But seeing your objections to this pretty well-thought-out service makes me shudder. It'd be spiffy if bands and music labels were to voluntarily adopt a new business model based on free software's -- but you know, it would need to be, um, voluntary. If you concentrated on showing them the benefits, you might stand a ghost of a chance of convincing someone who isn't a free software convert already.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
No flame intended, but "typical antics" would be a pretty good description of the position that we should accept NO restrictions whatsoever on our use and re-use of copyrighted materials -- because we own the computers, or the paper, on which they reside. I'm not allowed to perform an author's plays without paying a royalty. Nor am I allowed to distribute copies of the script to 15,000 of my friends. Nor can you distribute free copies of Duke Nuke 'Em Forever -- not even if you bought the first copy. The iTunes store has found a nice little common ground that's basically not odious to anyone -- barring you. You see *any* compromise as inherently vitiating and therefore negating your principles. I'm all for free speech, I give to the ACLU for Crissakes, but there are genuine limits to that right. Old, old discussion you might want to have with any law student.
Why is the difference between there being restrictions on what we can do with copyrighted material, and having our own computers enforce those restrictions so difficult to understand?
I have said nothing - not a word - in this discussion regarding copyright law. It is completely beside the point how strict the legal restrictions on what we can do with copyrighted material are or should be: what matters is that our computers should not be the ones enforcing those restrictions.
COMMUNICATION DEVICES SHOULD NOT BE INSTRUMENTS OF CONTROL. This stands on it's own, completely independent of whether there is strong copyright law or not, or whether the control they excert in their current form can be considered fair.
(If you don't mind, could you respond to this and explain to me what it is about what I am saying that makes it so impossible to grasp. Because everybody keeps responding about copyright law, fair use, whether ITMS is nice or not, etc etc, when I have not even mentioned these things. My only - only - argument is that with ITMS you accept that your own computer controls and restricts your access to information, and that that idea, which is the same as the idea behind Palladium, is fundamentally wrong. Why do you feel that discussions on what constitutes fair copyright law enter into this?)
Uh, what I said was "If I remember correctly, it asked me if I want to reorganize my 'collection'".
Where exactly was I claiming I wasn't asked? And why has Apple changed the way they do this in the current rev of the software?
Yeah. Reading comprehension is your friend, indeed. I misunderstood what I read. You didn't even bother to do the reading part.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Interesting point.. but let me say, why exactly does the user need to know that the OS just installed and activated a bunch fo meta devices to get the USB mouse to work? Sure, some geek might like to know that a new internal driver was now in use.. but joe average just wants his mouse to work. I do NOT need to konw five facts along the way.
As you said, you plug it in, it works.. that's all you should need to know. Whether or not some mysterious thing called a "driver" was involved isn't something you need to know, especially if it was included.
I'm sure apple has a hidden agenda, making windows look bad.. but then, it's not hard.