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Flawed iTunes Stands Out Among Apple's Products
waderoush writes "On top of all the other features that it has crammed into iTunes, Apple this week added Ping, a Facebook-like social network for music discovery. It's all part of the company's plan to dominate the world of consumer media, but Xconomy argues that this time, Apple may have gone a bridge too far. iTunes, nearing its tenth birthday, started out merely as a program for ripping CDs, and has grown increasingly creaky and impenetrable as Apple has added more and more cruft, the article argues. The company won't have a stable base for its new media empire until it rebuilds iTunes from scratch — perhaps along the lines suggested by its other new product this week, the revamped Apple TV."
But there’s one piece of the Appleverse that I’ve always detested, and that’s the desktop version of iTunes. The ugly duckling of the iFamily, this program is hard to understand, hard to use, inelegant, and ill-behaved—in short, the very opposite of most other Apple products. I dread booting it up every day ...
Yeah, yesterday I bitched about this and have actively refused any upgrades to iTunes since 9 because I'm not sure if 10 is going to get better or worse.
... which I am not a fan of. And what's worse is that reviews are telling me that it's faster but with a crappier UI while at the same time Ping concerns me if it has my credit card information and is just a spam portal.
... so that leaves me tied to the beast that is iTunes.
Now I have to have Quicktime on my machine
So while I want iTunes to run faster, I definitely don't want anything to do with this "Ping" service and if it's reminiscent of how they made me dependent on Quicktime (despite the fact that I have never used iTunes for anything video -- VLC kicks ass) I don't want auto-opted into something that I cannot get out of!
If you're looking for open source alternatives to iTunes: CDex, VLC and handbrake
My biggest problem is that support seems to wax and wane with actually moving songs/videos on and off an iPod with open source alternatives
My work here is dung.
What isn't there to like about an application that wants to update itself twice a day and requires you to agree to a new EULA each time?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Kindof like they did with Mac OS X. They should have no problem doing this with iTunes.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Not only is itunes full of cruft, it was originally bought from an outside developer and shoehorned into what apple wanted it to look like. It has been horrible from the get go.
I'm sorry, but iTunes is a piece of crap as far as software is concerned. I don't know how smoothly it runs on a Mac, but on Windows it's nigh useless (this is on a Phenom II X4 965 with 4 gigs of RAM, btw).
The day my wife switched over to an alternate piece of software (she uses SharePod) was the day she became much happier.
Living With a Nerd
iTunes 10 is an improvement. Apart from the almost useless Ping, it seems a fair bit faster. The patch notes claim performance improvements and frankly I believe them. I'd recommend it. Only downside I've seen is that the first time you try and download from iTunes Store it attempts to trick you into activating Ping (click Cancel when it asked you for personal information that "might be available to the public.").
I can't believe iTunes is still a Carbon app to this day. Everybody else has updated to Cocoa, what's taking you so long Apple? Are you too busy figuring out ways to break your own Human Interface Guidelines?
I read the internet for the articles.
I got very frustrated with the itunes interface for my 64GB touch and when getting a new phone, opted for GalaxyS rather than the iphone. maybe apple has finally "pooped in its mess kit"
Anything you say will be held against you.
I lit up Ping last night, it seemed to only know about music I had bought from Apple (1.4% of my library), and said "That user hasn't written any reviews" when I clicked on "My Reviews". Hel-lo? Might you suggest to me, "here's how to write a review?" "would you like to write a review?"
Or maybe, an option to harvest ratings already made (1-5 stars) from my iTunes library, instead of asking me to go wandering through the store?
The route to "review an album" goes down an interesting rabbit hole that accidentally exposes their database organization into the UI. Take an album that is not in Apple's catalog (e.g., Anderson/Burroughs/Giorno, You're the Guy I Want to Share my Money With), you get to the "write a review page" by clicking on the arrow next to a song. This then takes you to a different album containing that song, not the one you might want to review.
I realize that Apple, like everyone else, is just trying to make a buck, but you're not supposed to give the game away quite so crudely. If you don't have the album, say "sorry, we don't have the album in our store. Do you think we should, and would you like to review it anyway?"
Just as a heads-up - Ping is OFF by default. If you want to use it as another spam portal you have to turn it on.
At least they didn't follow the Facebook protocol: add a new insecurity, uh, "feature" and turn it on to the whole world by default.
Death looks every man in the face. All any man can do is look back and smile. - Marcus Aurelius
I assumed it was because they don't want to buy a Windows computer and don't know how to use Linux, *BSD or any of the other alternatives.
Mac hardware for better or for worse tends to work much more reliably in my experience than the Windows equivalents do, for the simple reason that Apple is able to effectively set rules about what is and is not acceptable for the platform. Whereas MS has been caught over the years programming around hardware bugs rather than saying no, we won't support it. The most notable example I can think of is the ACPI debacle, where many motherboards would have buggy implementations which wouldn't properly compile on the Intel reference implementation, but would run fine on Windows thanks to workarounds in the Windows source. Sure it would work, but as a result there'd be consequences and ultimately you'd have a tough time using the hardware with full support outside of Windows.
There's no auto-opt-in for ping.. you have to turn it on manually.
If you have Windows, try Media Monkey (www.mediamonkey.com). It's NOT open source, and it's free version isn't as functional as it's non-free version, but the cost of the lifetime license as well as the MP4/AAC encoder has been worth it to me so far. They've been really good at pushing updates to sync with new versions of iOS (though I have a Classic 6G so that hasn't been an issue for me), and although they only support music right now, they will support video in the next version. It's the first alternative to iTunes that actually had me uninstalling iTunes from my system completely... I only use iTunes to "reset my iPod to factory defaults". You can write your own custom scripts to do stuff, and many are avaliable to download, it works with a LOT of WinAmp plugins, and it's skinable... though I prefer the ugly but fast and functional "Don't skin it and look like a windows app". Downsides: SOME podcasts are itms only, and check for an iTunes client version. That's ridiculous of the podcast provider, but there you go. It doesn't currently do video. It is windows only. The free version lacks some of the advanced AutoPlaylist creation. It can't currently sync an autoplaylist to an iPod as a smart playlist that dynamically changes (though to be fair, I'm not sure if that ever worked on the Classic anyway), and the AAC encoding doesn't play nice with the iPod 100% of the time, so I generally wind up doing a transcode to MP3 whenever I sync, which isn't a huge issue for me. Also there are some "niceness" fixes that could be done, but haven't so far in the name of speed... so... yeah. Not perfect, but a reasonable solution on Windows for music now, and video soon. Ebooks and apps... you'll have to boot up iTunes every so often.
Given that this is a company that blew up their entire operating system to, more or less, start from scratch, I would not be the least bit surprised if they decided to do this with iTunes if they feel that it has bloated too far off track. Say whatever you want about Apple but they are, and have long been, a company that is willing to make tough decisions if they feel it is the right one. They do not shy away from the hard choice like so many other companies do.
Do they need to blow up iTunes and start fresh? Well, I'm sure everyone will have a different opinion on that but, if Apple starts to think that way I am certain it won't be long before they actually push the plunger and rebuild from the ashes.
I never understood why people willingly buy Macs when you get limited so severely to Apple's choices for you. Granted their computers are visually stunning, but Id rather not have to deal with quicktime, itunes, and no-flash at all, its anti-consumer.
No, I suspect you understand perfectly well why people buy Macs, and simply don't agree with their reasons. For example, you seem to think that Apple severely limits something or other. Whereas the people who buy them don't feel limited at all, They think that the machine (iPad, Mac, music player, phone, whatever) does what they wanted it to do, which is why they keep buying them. My wife owns a Jaguar, it requires Premium gas, and she has no choice in this. But she loves that car, so it does exactly what she wants it too, and, god help me, when it comes time to replace that 12 years old beast, she's gonna want another one.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
Perhaps they buy them because they're not as wildly misinformed as you are? Macs are not iPhones.
Macs have flash, you aren't forced to use iTunes on a Mac any more than you are on a PC (that said, the Mac version is far less shitty, though it still desperately needs a rewrite as TFA says), and "Quicktime" isn't some add-on cruft like on Windows, but rather is part of the video frameworks of the OS (but as far as playing videos goes, you can use VLC, Mplayer, Plex, whatever the hell you want).
I still can't get over the fact that you can't use in iPad without iTunes. When you first switch it on, you have to sync it to iTunes before you can do anything, and you need it to apply updates to the OS.
I got an iPad purely as a portable photo portfolio - the rotation makes it better than a netbook as you can show portrait and landscape format photos full screen. Sadly the built in photo gallery software is poor, especially if you have to sync with iTunes (you have more control if you use iPhoto - on a Mac).
I kinda feel dirty for buying in to the whole Apple thang.
Sigs are so 1990s. No way would I be seen dead with one.
Then either A) You have a Mac or B) You have an awesome machine. I've ran iTunes on Windows 7 with a Core i7 and 6 GB of RAM and it still lagged. iTunes on OS X is rather nice, iTunes on Windows is complete crap. Plus, it takes about 10 times as long to "process" a song as it does to download it!
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I briefly owned a 2nd generation iPod Nano when they were brand new, and of course it insisted I install iTunes in order to transfer music to it. I installed it, uploaded some songs, and found out that Apple insists on ignoring folder structure when organizing music playlists. Since all my mp3s came from random sources, the id3 tags were a mess, but up to that point I did not care. Every computer and mp3 player I had used to that point was fine reading folders first with Artist_name/Album_name/track_number_-_song_name being the default sort.
Apple just HAD to be different. It was using just file names and id3 tags to sort songs in playlists, so "Unknown Artist", "Doors" and "The Doors" were all different, even though on my PC they were all under the same folder. This was annoying beyond belief, but I wanted to fix the id3 tags anyway at some point.
So I embarked on the gargantuan task of editing the id3 tags in my entire music collection, about 90Gb at the time, using iTunes. It wasn't as horrible as I thought, since iTunes does have batch id3 tag processing. At first everything was fine, all my songs were nicely organized both in iTunes and iPod.
Then a few months later I decided to sell the iPod Nano and just use a cellphone as an mp3 player. Since I was only using iTunes to sync the Nano and play the mp3s, and I always liked foobar better anyway, I uninstalled it. HUGE MISTAKE!!!!!
It turned out that iTunes wiped out the id3 tags from the songs and stored them somewhere else, because when I loaded the mp3s in foobar not a single one still had their tags. They were wiped clean! I posted this before and people said it must have been a mistake on my part. But I promise you guys, every single file in my music collection did not have an id3 tag. Verified with several media players on several computers.
After that I swore never to buy another product that requires iTunes to function. I'd probably be tempted by an iPhone 4 once my Nokia N900 breaks down, but since I have to use iTunes, it won't happen...
"Sometimes I wonder how many people never tried a Mac because they experienced iTunes on Windows and assumed all Apple software must be that terrible."
Spot On. Agree 100%.
Itunes is the one Apple software that almost all Windows users will see. It could have been an opportunity to showcase the awesomeness of Apple software. Instead it is judged to be "meh" at best and in fact from other comments here, a lot of people think it is a bloated bugfest and actually hate it. Total fail on Apple's part.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
You have to use a third party program like SharePod (http://www.getsharepod.com/) to get it to work. I had the same issue, now I just keep SharePod on a flash drive and can dump my music collection wherever. And for your second problem try ( http://www.obsessable.com/how-to/how-to-deauthorize-all-your-itunes-accounts-at-once/ ) but I haven't ever used it so your results might vary.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
a) you don't with iTunes, you use a third party software such as Senuti to get third party music off. iTunes will only sync over songs that are associates with your iTMS account.
b) you don't if the computer is dead. However, this is a non-issue. Once you reach the five computer limit you can deauthorize all of them with one click and then reauthorize the ones that are still valid. If you never reach the five computer limit you won't have to do that.
So happy all my stuff is in MP3 format, not Apple's proprietary format.
Huh? What proprietary format are you talking about? iTunes' standard audio format is MPEG-4 Part 14, aka ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003. It's supported out-of-the-box by Windows 7 (including streaming) and surely by other operating systems as well.
The only practical difference between Apple's implementation and the ISO standard is that Apple prefers the extension .m4a, whereas the standard states that .mp4 is the only valid extension. All this specifity in file extensions really does is help operating systems sort out whether a given file is an audio-only or multimedia file without having to read the contents. The file contents itself is the same.
Bothering your inbox with replies, eh? God forbid people engage in a discussion with you when you post something stupid in a discussion forum like Macs have "no flash at all."
It's not that simple. Quicktime is neither backwards nor forwards compatible, nor does it allow for multiple simultaneous installations. .mqv files from my camera, I can't use the newest Quicktime because the new codecs can't handle files created with earlier versions. So what do I do then? You guessed it -- ditch iTunes, and make sure I never buy an iPod or iPhone.
If you have other programs that depend on earlier versions of Quicktime, installing iTunes will break those programs with its forced upgrade. If I ever want to view the
If Apple could have provided a self-contained Qt installation within iTunes that didn't install at SYSTEM level, the situation would have been very different. Then it would have been just bloat for those who don't use any Qt features. But as it is, it's directly detrimental.
How the hell did this get modded flamebait? I didn't call anyone out nor did I say Macs are inferior without justification. I just said I don't like Apple's policies on their platform basically.
No, you posted something factually incorrect and not surprisingly people are disagreeing with you. You have since tried to correct yourself by saying I should have said "Apple products" not Macs, but that, like the reference to "their platform" above, is still wrong. "No flash" is not an issue with "Apple products" or "their platform" - it is an issue with a certain subset (iOS devices).
If you have an issue with those devices, great, you have a legit argument there. Don't buy them. But don't conflate the Mac with iOS devices, they're two different platforms with different sets of rules.
Then either A) You have a Mac or B) You have an awesome machine!
I have both!
Apple just HAD to be different. It was using just file names and id3 tags to sort songs in playlists, so "Unknown Artist", "Doors" and "The Doors" were all different, even though on my PC they were all under the same folder. This was annoying beyond belief, but I wanted to fix the id3 tags anyway at some point.
There is the principle here that a song is a self-contained unit, it knows where it belongs all on its own. If you took hundred songs from my iTunes Library, copied them all into one single directory, and imported them into your iTunes Library, everything would end up exactly where it belongs.
Or, more simply put:
The products Apple make are the closest thing to 'appliances' you can get in the computer world.
Most people look at PCs as appliances, like a toaster or a TV. That's why they get frustrated and confused when something doesn't work like it always did - like a toaster. Most people don't understand just how mind-bendingly complex a PC and its OS is and that it just takes one of a brazillion things to go wrong and think we look like jerks because we cannot articulate why it doesn't work anymore. Apple's computers and consumer electronics are all about simplifying the user experence. To do that, it has to be limited, consistent and work the same way every time; otherwise you get the support nightmare that Windows PCs have been for a very long time.
Some people are fine with that... others aren't. The whole 'choice' argument against apple is sort of a red herring really. Your choices are: Apple and their appliance model or PC's and their DIY model. Pick one.
Yes
I've used sharepod as well (anbd avoided Itunes like the plauge) but the the IOS4 breaks the sharepod's ability to sync, so am now temporarily stuck using itunes. Myabe there is an update for sharepod I've missed though.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
I hope people reading the parent post realize this guy has absolutely zero understanding of intellectual property (copyright and patents). His remarks flagged as troll seem quite appropriate.
The term freetard was conceived by a guy that maintained a website that had the intent of trying to humiliate those that wanted free choice. He is now defunct (his own choice). The rebut to freetard is proprietard. Those that think that proprietary software is the only thing of value.
Linux and FreeBSD came into being through the hard work of others. Those individuals sat down and began working in earnest with the goal of providing everyone with choice. They were not copying the proprietary code of others or even trying to violate any patents or copyright. Their efforts reflect those of the generation of shareware authors, except they chose to give theirs away freely and to release the source code so that others could use it and improve it.
Windows 7 though significantly better than Vista is still Vista and Vista was still XP as XP was 2000 and earlier. They were incremental changes to previous OSes. Win phone 7's future is as questionable as Zune's. Considering that this is paid software that must be licensed on a per unit basis (whereas Android doesn't have those costs/requirements) makes Win Phone 7 hardly a sure win.
If you count that Android can be (and is being) modified by virtually every handset maker it bears fortune as it shows that Android represents the future of the smart phone and tablet market across the board. A paid closed proprietary one-size fits all Win Phone 7 isn't guaranteed success. As well, the development tools, the products, and features of Android on both the smart phone and tablet really shine making it a high mountain to climb.
Microsoft isn't a company that can't afford to fail. If it were to fail the orbiting markets that fed it and others would still exist for some time while the competition came in to chew up chunks of the market. In other words, Microsoft's failure wouldn't be as devastating as the parent's post makes it out to be. Also, considering that the failure of Microsoft wouldn't be like a light switch where it is on one day and off the next. The competition would already have come in and chewed away at segments of the market. Nothing about Microsoft's failure could seriously hurt the computing market. There are some incredibly smart businesses out there that would step in and ease our transition.
Apple has invested billions also in creating a good user experience. Linux has too. Large corporations have invested considerable money. To make a kernel on par with the Linux kernel by today's standard would run a company 5+ billion dollars. FOSS software also has had billions invested in it. This is from large companies such as IBM, Sun, Oracle, NASA, Red Hat to name a few.
Many of the more modern features of Microsoft Windows came from other OSes. In fact, most of what they created comes from copying others. The latest task bar in Win 7 is a copy of the features of Apple's dock. The desktop itself is a copy of Apple's product (I know, it was copied from other companies). The transparent window borders, and other 3d affects were copied from the likes of Linux. The UAC is a copy of the Mac and Linux. There are features that Linux has that exceed anything Microsoft offers and you should expect copies of that to occur in Windows.
The point is that *all* OSes today take considerable commitment, even in the billions of dollars. The features of any given OS and the user experience behind that are common between virtually every OS. Microsoft's paid model for Win Phone 7 and the fact that they are late players and doing nothing more than emulating the already successful Andoid and iOS foretell of slow adoption, higher costs, and a weaker user experience due to the lack of apps, the lack of refinement as is found by revising your product over the years.
Essentially, the parent's post is a weak attempt. He demonstrates an almost complete lack of knowledge about anything of which he is speaking. His perspective is utterly one-sided and he's showing his prejudice throughout. He reminds me of a wanna be Glen Beck of /.!
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
The "clueless sucker" argument is enough to explain why someone would buy them the first time.
It's not enough to explain why they *keep* buying apple products, and why Apple products have one of the better customer satisfaction ratings in the industry.
If you buy something and feel that you've been bait-and-switched and your new device absolutely doesn't live up to the marketing hype, you're not going to tell people that you "love" your new purchase, and plan to buy another.