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Improve Your iPod with Rockbox
polar_bear` writes "The allure of the iPod is undeniable -- they're well-designed, sleek little music players that pack a lot of features into tiny packages. However, iPods fail to deliver when it comes to support for free codecs like Ogg Vorbis, and -- let's face it -- iTunes leaves a lot to be desired. If you'd like to enjoy the hardware goodness of the iPod with GPLed firmware, give Rockbox a try. Tim Lord explains how over on NewsForge.com." NewsForge is also a part of the OSTG network, and Tim Lord is "timothy", one of our own editors.
So, just so I'm straight on this - TFA seems to indicate that the only way to get files onto rockbox is drag and drop. How, exactly, is this better than auto-sync? I plug in my ipod, all my podcasts, videos automatically re-encoded by my eyetv, and any songs I've downloaded with cabos are all automatically added to the player. Yeah, it sucks that the directories aren't in human-readable formats on the ipod, but there are plenty of third party apps to pull songs off an ipod. I keep the installer for a windows and mac version stored on my ipod.
I have yet to find a player that gives me the functionality of itunes, either. I use smart playlists CONSTANTLY to generate groupings of songs I'm likely to want to hear. Again, all handled automatically and sync'ed every time I connect the ipod. Most players don't even have the library management I have come to enjoy from itunes. The closest I ever came when I was on windows was the MEXP plugin for winamp (http://www.mexp.dk/), but that's still a far cry from itunes.
I know a lot of people who don't own ipods and still use itunes to manage their music libraries. I guess if it doesn't run on your platform of choice, that means you can't use it - but it doesn't mean itunes sucks.
I'll ignore the three year old list of complaints about iTunes, dealing with such hot issues as Titanium PowerBook drive speeds. But for someone like me:
* who does not have five trillion CDs I need to convert at once;
* who does not care what format they are in as long as I can listen to and search the files;
* who doesn't worry about album art (I already have the CDs to see that! Who can honestly say they listened to CDs on their stereo whilst holding the CD case a few inches from their face, other than when on drugs?);
* who doesn't particularly care about how much money "the poor artist" gets (if they can come up, either individually or as the kind of collective people whining about royalties infer they are, with a system which is as easy and as affordable as iTunes, I WILL BE ALL OVER IT)
and who in general just needs something to play music on his computer, everything I read about "this sucks" and "this is better" and "use that" is quite irrelevant.
So I cannot order my music files by Album in the iTunes main display. Boo bloody hoo. As long as it sits in the background, plays the music and allows me to effortlessly import new files and CDs, I really am not concerned with what else is out there.
People don't like itunes because it's essentially a gateway to the itunes store.
So, because I've been using iTunes for years without ever buying anything from the iTunes music store means I'm somehow using it wrong?
This argument is really just beyond silly. If you don't want to use it to visit the music store... well don't. It's like complaining about some TV channel because you don't like one of their shows. If you want to use your non-"drm laden" tracks with iTunes, just drag and drop to import and you're golden. Or, you can use another player if you want, it's no skin off my nose, just don't use such a silly damn argument for your reasoning...
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