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How Apple Music Can Disrupt Users' iTunes Libraries
An anonymous reader writes: Early adopters of Apple Music are warning others they could get more than they bargained for if they intend to download tracks for offline listening. Since Apple Music is primarily a streaming service, this functionality necessitates turning on iCloud Music for syncing purposes. The way Apple syncs files is to scan your library for known music files, and if it finds one, the service gives your account access to Apple's canonical copy. Unfortunately, this wipes out any custom edits you made to the file's metadata. For those who have put a lot of time into customizing their library, this can do a lot of damage to their organizational system. Apple's efforts to simplify and streamline the process have once again left advanced users with a difficult decision to make.
Nowadays I just follow Spotify's, or Napter's, or Deezer's or Apple's. They do all the work for me already. For $9/month that's a lot of time that I save.
In what world is customizing your music tags considered advanced?
The apple world ;)
( According to the last sentence of the article. And since it's on slashdot, this must be true. )
I'm not even using Apple Music and the update wiped out all the music on my iPhone. This was a long standing bug with IOS when the iPhone 6 came out, and I thought they'd finally nixed it a few months ago, but no now it's back. Meanwhile my iMac is at Apple for 10 days because of their failed 3TB iMac hardware, Argh, so I can't even synch it back on. Apple's quality has really dropped the last couple of years.
That makes kernel developers who use a Macbook as development environment what?
You'd think Apple/Mac customers would be fairly comfortable with the flexibility vs simplicity trade-off by now?
-Styopa
So many stupid comments about how Apple users cannot be advanced users, including troll moderators that support such idiocy.
Guess what, idiots? They're advanced users, not hackers/coders/programmers. Stop being elitist jerks and accept that there's people less knowledgeable than yourselves.
If you use Apple products you are not an advanced user. It is as easy as that.
Wow, I guess that means that more than half of all advanced computer users that I encounter in my day to day life must have machined their own custom laptops to look just like Macbooks!
No, but seriously, many advance users do not care to have advanced control over their music library.
Many advanced users unwittingly had Itunes destroy their music organization about a decade ago when they switched from Winamp to Itunes. They swore about it for a while, then accepted that Apple controls their music folder now and that having advanced control over your music organization is nice, but not essential. If we turn off our RDF deflectors temporarily we might even think of it as a feature. Remember what a time sink music file organization used to be.
.
I want to be the one in control of my music library. I do not want Apple, acting as a proxy for the media industry, taking inventory of the songs I have and changing the metadata for those songs.
Think different - as long as it is exactly as we tell you to.
You're thinking of the iPhone and iPad, toys for people who don't care about control over their property, but perhaps do care about build quality, vs. Macs, which are powerful Unix computers.
I've been a developer for 17 years. My name is in the kernel changelog. I've designed and built custom servers with power tools. I use Mac Pros for work.
You're talking about me.
I've been a developer for 17 years. My name is in the kernel changelog. I've designed and built custom servers with power tools. I use Mac Pros for work.
It seems GP might think that Apple only makes iPhones. Mac Pros, which run certified Unix (OS X) are possibly the _best_ option for serious professionals. There are also a couple other companies making one or two choices in well-built hardware you can install enterprise Linux on, of course.
No, but seriously, many advance users do not care to have advanced control over their music library.
And you base your opinion on?
When I see an 'advanced' apple user going into a tunnel on the train I just chuckle and turn my cheap mp3 player up a bit more to drown out their complaints. They made their choice.
I still have control over my music collection and it still grows. Advanced users don't do use itunes, they use whatever they damn well please because they don't need Apples software. As far as 'control over your music organization' goes a few regular expressions and a 5 line shell script are enough to sort any mess.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
And now we know why Linux will never be more then a blip on the desktop radar. That superiority complex drives everyone away.
That must be the reason. Not marketing, or level of difficulty - just lack of people using it that don't make you feel stupid.
[note to Supreme Commander of The Linux Desktop War - the coward is onto something] What do you mean there is no "Supreme Commander"? No "the Linux Desktop"? No Linux Desktop War!! WTF - there must be a war. This is just not football! I bought facepaint and everything (sob)
This isn't a feature. There are good reasons to want to customize your tags.
- The "official" ones are often wrong or inconsistent. It is especially bad for compilations and collaborations.
- You want custom fields.
- You want to change language (e.g. transliterate names into Japanese)
Tagging hasn't been a time sync for over a decade. When you rip the tags are grabbed off the net, the same as what iTunes does for you.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
And now we know why Linux will never be more then a blip on the desktop radar. That superiority complex drives everyone away. Enjoy your crappy buggy software. The OS is just there so we can run the applications, and all your applications are amateurish and shitty.
You're a great example of the parasites every great endeavour attracts.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I like how all the posts that say iTunes was an unmitigated pile of dogshit, particularly on Windows, get modded down, especially as Apple Music is now acting the same way. I witnessed iTunes completely trashing people's collections on multiple occasions. At first I was sympathetic (I've lost collections due to hardware failure). Now I don't care that people continue to use it and get burned despite all the evidence that, given a chance, it will fuck them over.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Even more important than the music tags in my mind is the directory structure. I have many media devices that rely on // directory structure to have the music organized properly. I found it very distasteful that iTunes seems to put all the music in a big glob on the disk and expects you to use their UI to access it. So I'm not sure why this is news that they don't care about the tags, because they never cared about the structure on disk.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Stupid html formatting.. that should read: artist - subdir - recording - subdir - track
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
You're not OCD about your music library, a small minority (not including me!) are. And websites always need clickbait with headlines implying a world shaking problem that hits all users... so the problem gets blown out of proportion.
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
If you're only claim to being an advanced user is your ability to customize your system, then you aren't an advanced user. You're just a person who wastes their time customizing their software, and who will waste even more time trying to figure out how to use the default configuration on other people's systems.
People who actually know how to use their software, even if it is to better organize their music collection, have a better claim to being an advanced user. Personally, I'd set the bar a fair bit higher than that. On the other hand, at least they are actually using their knowledge to do something productive.
You do realize that underneath the glitzy guis both Mac OS X and linux are essentially the same. In many cases one can change a few lines in a Makefile and the same software package will run on both.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
There is an option in iTunes to leave the song files in their original location. I keep all my songs organized my way on a NAS and just point iTunes to it. The songs are not copied or moved to my Mac.
You can do it that way if you like - you can tell iTunes to let you manage the directory structure how you like. This is the first time an automated feature has clashed with that option it seems (it won't change the directory structure, but it might affect things like custom start and end points set in id3 tags). It's not supposed to interfere if you set it to manual control so this is clearly unintended behaviour.
For certain music genres, third party tags will be flatly incorrect even from an authoritative source. Classical music and Jazz need to use more tags than are typically supplied by download and streaming services and what tags are used are often applied incorrectly. Streaming and online stores ironically make more work for me than just ripping a goddamned CD and typing everything in myself.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
I don't use itunes so I wouldn't know how the music gets on the device, I thought it was streamed AAC, my mistake. I don't understand what the complaints are about however I do like to maintain control over my music collection.
So as long as you have an itunes to manage it, I don't think it is so easy to step out of the walled garden once you step into it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Not a single shit does Apple give. Now be a good iPhanboi and buy an Apple watch.
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
Well it seems he has actually met more people using Apple Music than anything else in the last couple of years he's riding the "train". Confirming Apple has won the Streaming War.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
It's only streamed if you use a steaming service. My collection is all mp3, and yes, managed by iTunes.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Mono to stereo Beatles? That's fighting talk. In some cases the mixes have differences other than number of channels. The group were typically involved in the mono mixes, which took a few days. The early stereo mixes were done as an afterthought in a couple of hours as and the stereo separation was often arbitrary.
I'd be unhappy too. But my rips are mine. #happy without iTunes.
The majority of tags from legit music I've bought have been incorrect.
The most common problems are:
1. Confusing composer with artist. If the song is a remix, the artist is the remixer. The original artist is the composer.
2. Genres are fuzzy. Lots of songs fit into many genres. Picking a single genre is inaccurate at best. Sadly the id3 spec only lets us pick one, so I comma separate them out of protest. Wikipedia does this too. Look up an album, see many genres, not one.
3. The infamous "Various Artists" artist. Likewise with genres, I comma separate artists because the id3 spec doesn't let us add multiple artists. Although this is actually becoming more common with legit purchased music too.
4. Bad metadata. Even legit purchased music sometimes has errors, typos, bad punctuation, etc. It always enrages me when legally purchased music has these kinds of metadata errors.
5. Quality of downloaded music. Lossless or GTFO. This is very rare. I usually have to buy actual CDs and rip them to get that kind of quality when doing it legally.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Apple destroys user data
oops
No, Apple doesn't restore some user data. You don't get Apple's version of the file unless you delete your copy or never had it on a particular device in the first place.
Apple looks for matches in your library with Apple's library. If it finds a match it makes note of it. If it does not find a match it uploads your copy of the file to Apple's servers. When you restore files you get Apple's copy for matches and your copy for non-matches.
The issue is that Apple only analyzes the music to determine a match. It does not consider the meta data. So the same music with different metadata is a match according to Apple so your edited copy is not saved on Apple's servers. This makes sense given that there is no standard metadata for ripped songs. When ripping a CD one often finds multiple incarnations of metadata to apply.
Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of people who do like to control their tags themselves.
The tried and tested way to solve this sort of conflict would be for tags to have namespaces. That way your music files could have multiple sets of tags. Your music player could then be configured to either look for a single namespace, or to use some algorithm to merge multiple namespaces.
You're metadata-editing wrong.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
If it doesn't work as expected, or a change in feature set results in data loss or poor performance, it's because you're doing it wrong... much like when the iPhone 4 introduced the faulty easy-to-short antenna design when holding the phone the way anyone holds ANY cellphone, Jobs excuse was "you're holding it wrong." Therefore in this case, extending Apple reasoning to the current use case, if you're editing metadata, you're doing it wrong.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
iTunes will leave the songs where they are OR will organize them into artist/album/song.ext for you if you choose. Those are two little checkboxes in the preferences, pretty sure the default is to move them into your iTunes library structure and organize them.
You have to have a seriously messed up configuration before it just dumps them into the same directory. I have experienced what you're referring to but I also do a bunch of weird crap with an AFP on a FBSD box using a ZFS store for it all, so I have a seriously messed up configuration :)
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
when napster came out, it was easy to keep your music metadata good, when it took 10-20 minutes to download a 4 minute song. These days I get full discographies at a time, no one has time to go through all that
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Ok foot in mouth.. You're right that opens a new window. To me 'Open' means open in the same window, and 'Open in new window' means open in new window. Thanks, I shall use that from now on.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Perhaps you could tell me how to make a window full-screen without making a new desktop for it?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
No, the original artist is the original artist (ID3v2.2 tag TOA, ID3v2.3 tag TOPE). They may also be the composer, but that is by no means certain.
No, the ID3v2.2 and ID3v2.3 specs let you select multiple genres, or even mix multiple pre-defined ones with a custom one. One thing they do fall down on is defining how to tag a song with multiple custom genres.
No, ID3v2.2 and ID3v2.3 specify that multiple artists should be separated with a / character.
It may be that the vendors don't follow the spec, but you're being very unjust in blaming the authors of a spec with you obviously haven't read.
There is no "original artist" tag, AFAIK. What I'm referring to is the "artist" tag which properly should refer to whoever actually made the song. If it's a remix or a cover, the artist is whoever made the remix or the cover, not the author of the original song. The author of the original is the composer.
I was unaware of the "/" syntax being codified by the spec. But that does beg the question why don't they just allow multiple artist tags instead of a single tag as a long string separated by an awkward character? You'd think the spec authors would come up with something less stupid than that.
Why not just use the "/" separator like with artists?
The spec is long, poorly written, and has obviously been updated since I last read it. I may have been unaware of the "/" separator thing, but it's not exactly the best idea to begin with and you might wanna hold off on the insults until you get composer vs. artist straight. Or, you know, just avoid being a jerk in general even if you are right.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
Google Music, in my experience, has the exact same problem Apple Music does. It ignores your manually input album art and other metadata, and decides to substitute what it thinks your tracks should have attached to them instead.
The only good thing Google does that (so far), Apple doesn't is gives you a button to tell it the data is wrong for a given track so you can override it. (Still, that's a LOT of pointless extra work to put back what was there in the first place.) Well, that, and the fact they're not going to trash your "master library" of music since they don't act as the application all of your music is stored in. They just mess up the copies of the data they put up in the cloud for you to stream back down from your devices.
I *wish* these cloud music services would simply ASK FIRST if you'd like to replace all of your existing metadata, or if you'd rather they only add metadata to your tracks that don't yet contain any at all.
Huh? What do you mean by putting your music in a "big glob"?
If I tell iTunes to copy my music when adding tracks to it and to "manage my library", it creates what I think is a pretty sensible file structure for the songs under the main "iTunes media" folder and "Music" beneath that. Everything goes by folder with the artist's name, followed by sub-folders under each of those for the name of each album by that artist.
A long time ago, this didn't work the same way. (Originally, they didn't have a top level folder called "iTunes media", with folders under that for each of different categories of media.) But iTunes used to offer a way to convert the old format to the new one if you selected one of the options in a Preferences menu to do so. It's used the newer folder structure for at least 2 major versions now, though ....
I like to control my tags, because even on the same music service, "Bela Fleck and the Flecktones" also comes across as "Bela Fleck", " BÃla Fleck", and "BÃla Fleck and the Flecktones", depending on the album.
It is especially bad if you purchase music across different services.
The canonical way of solving that would be to have a unique code, an "international standard artist number", for each artist and a tag that can hold multiple artist codes.
This might be useful: http://www.isni.org/
I think the last time I tried it was the 'long time ago'. Nice that Apple added the feature.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Since Apple Music is primarily a streaming service, this functionality necessitates turning on iCloud Music for syncing purposes.
Not at all. iCloud Music stores your own music in the cloud (and has the "features" described). Apple Music is a streaming service. The two are only related because both are managed through the Music app. Otherwise there is no link and no need to enable one to use the other.
Don't know what the hell you are talking about. I have an iPhone and nothing is streamed. Any music I listen is stored on the device.
I don't use itunes so I wouldn't know how the music gets on the device, I thought it was streamed AAC, my mistake. I don't understand what the complaints are about however I do like to maintain control over my music collection.
So as long as you have an itunes to manage it, I don't think it is so easy to step out of the walled garden once you step into it.
Maybe you should be worried more about your control on reality. And using Android ain't going to help.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I don't use itunes so I wouldn't know how the music gets on the device
If you don't use iTunes, and admit to this level of ignorance about how it works, then please stop providing your baseless opinions about it. For example this;
So as long as you have an itunes to manage it, I don't think it is so easy to step out of the walled garden once you step into it.
Is false. All your purchased and ripped music is stored in a nice folder called 'Music', helpfully organised by artist. The files within are un-protected AAC or MP3 files. You can delete iTunes, it's just an application after all, and the music is all still there. What happens with the streamed music I have no idea, and so I will refrain from guessing about it. I will say that streaming music is a very bad deal for artists though, so I think I'll stick to CDs.
Not marketing,
Apple don't actually spend as much on advertising as people seem to believe. From here Apple spend half as much as microsoft. And judging by the huge Samsung stands that have started to appear at the local hardware stores, I'd guess that they spend less than Samsung too. I've only seen a couple of Apple TV ads over the years, but I haven't watched broadcast television for quite a long time so I don't really know.
No - you're not reading the post you just replied to.
Apple have never stored their music as 'one big blob'. Ever. On any system or device. They didn't 'add' a feature to organise their files sensibly, iTunes has always organised your files sensibly, and has always given you the option to organise them yourself in you prefer.
So this, like the great majority of the nonsense about how Apple products work that's being thrown around in this thread, is completely false;
I found it very distasteful that iTunes seems to put all the music in a big glob on the disk and expects you to use their UI to access it.
Did you seriously believe that this was true? And how did you arrive at that incorrect conclusion?
Here's a post a made over two years ago.
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
Not very good at this internet thing, are you?
also, good luck with your five scripts, finding double songs that are a different filesize and have different names, e.g.or adding album covers.
works fine, i.e. advanced user.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
And websites always need clickbait with headlines implying a world shaking problem that hits all users... so the problem gets blown out of proportion.
The one blowing it out of proportion is you. The headline is: "How Apple Music Can Disrupt Users' iTunes Libraries" and you somehow then interpret this to mean a "world shaking problem that hits all users".
Yeah..... this is true. Although it's ALSO true that at some point when Apple made the change to how iTunes sorted everything, they made it cleaner and easier to navigate. Because the change to putting things under "iTunes Media" vs. "iTunes Music" acknowledged people put a lot of different types of data into the software like video, ringtones, iOS apps, etc. With the older format, it ALL went under the main folder.
But yes, it was never all "in a glob". Now, iPhoto for Mac was another story ..... Compressing all your photos into one database file created a LOT of issues.
If you don't use iTunes, and admit to this level of ignorance about how it works, then please stop providing your baseless opinions about it.
Is false.
I was talking about my experience as an advanced user and the lack of problems I have managing my music collection, I never claimed to be talking about itunes.
All your purchased and ripped music is stored in a nice folder called 'Music', helpfully organised by artist. The files within are un-protected AAC or MP3 files.
Great - has someone told Bruce Willis?
I will say that streaming music is a very bad deal for artists though, so I think I'll stick to CDs.
True that!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
iPhoto doesn't compress all your files into a single database either. It doesn't necessarily store them in a format that you'd like, but they are stored as individual files and they always have been. Can we all try to stick to the facts please.
Think about it, which is easier from a software engineering point of view?
A: Use the database-like features of the filesystem to store your assets, and index into that from an actual database to store all the metadata that the filesystem either doesn't support or doesn't support efficient indexing into.
B: Re-invent the database-like features of the filesystem, but the rest is the same.
So *not* using the filesystem to store *files* is a poor engineering decision, and not one that I believe Apple have made in any of their software products. Unlike Microsoft, I'm looking at you Outlook and your PST file....
i do DJ work so yes, i actually need it all. but i get your point
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Not marketing,
Apple don't actually spend as much on advertising as people seem to believe.
They don't? How interesting. Not the, um, news that "they don't spend as much as people think" (an outstanding example of marketing sophism) - just the broken logic behind the making of the statement and the weird way brand worshippers go about validating their beliefs. He said something about marketing, and Apple - better find a way to put the focus on premium.
Did I say Apple spent a lot on advertising? That they spent more than Microsoft? Is it even tangentially relevant? No. But do tell me more and I'll bookmark it under "cure for insomnia".
Here's a suggestion. Write a book about it, it's sure to be a best-seller - if big pharma don't get an injunction against it for hurting sleeping pill sales.
Do you find Apple products "sexy"? If so, do you think there's anything weird about feeling that way about inanimate objects (Apple or not)? I don't know if people who find Apple products sexy should be trusted in private around old Braun products (hey, you started the marketing tangent). Does Apple spend more on marketing than Microsoft? Dunno - they certainly produce more aesthetically pleasing objects, and I don't hold that aesthetically pleasing doesn't mean more usable (quite the opposite). Apple and MS market to different segments, and in general terms MS marketing focus is all over the place - but mainly aimed at "Joe Six-Pack" (which they've been quite successful at). When the Embalmer had control the market was cheesy second-hand car dealer style promotions of the type that might take customers away from Wallmart - but not Marks & Spenser. (not much has changed).
I've only seen a couple of Apple TV ads over the years,
Apple invest heavily in product placement advertising - so you've seen lots of Apple advertising in movies, entertainment news, slashdot stories, and music videos.
Do you find Apple products "sexy"?
No. But thanks for writing a bunch of words about it that was safely able to avoid reading. It meant that I could avoid the bit about aesthetics being the opposite of usability, which is fortunate because it was such complete nonsense that I might have had to write something about it.
So you've seen lots of Apple advertising in movies, entertainment news, slashdot stories, and music videos.
And I've seen lots of Dell and Samsung too. Are you suggesting that they buy slashdot stories? And I don't watch music videos because I don't see the point, but I wouldn't think that Apple are the only people placing their products.
Maybe you should be worried more about your control on reality. And using Android ain't going to help.
And here I am being modded a troll because I'm offering my opinion on *not* using itunes. FYI: I've never had any problems, at all with my music collection because I choose to control my reality.
That means I choose not to have iTunes abstract that control.
It has nothing to do with Android. OSX uses Free BSD components and whilst Apple is happy to take from the open source community Apple is not so happy to share with or even acknowledge the community of developers that OSX owes its existence to. Case in point, I can run posix apps on OSX, but can I run iTunes on FreeBSD - I somehow doubt it.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Confirming Apple has won the Streaming War.
But not the users or musicians. See that's the thing with the whole fanboi attitude - someone has to loose for their choice to win. Winning for you means we are forced into your choices, not because it is a better choice, but because all the other choices have been eliminated. Somehow, you think that is good.
Apple is becoming more like Microsoft used to be every day and guys like you cheer it on exactly the same way the MS fanbois used to.
Same shit, different bucket.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
If you want ununlimited choices, where you can do anything from anywhere, any time, that's called CLI. I open a bash prompt and I can do millions of things in one step, without opening any new windows, navigating to any other location, etc. Unlimited choices. I do most of my work at the command line because that's what I like as well.
The entire point of a GUI is to present the user with the most relevant and common choices for the current task at hand, in an easy-to-use way, so they don't have to KNOW all of the choices available, they can SEE the choices available at the present time.
If you want to memorize arbitrary key strokes to get things done quickly, that's precisely what the command line IS. A GUI is the alternative, for people who want to visibly SEE the choices, not LEARN them.
Learning hundreds of arbitrary keystrokes and using them in a gui is like using a motorcycle to move furniture- precisely the wrong tool for the purpose you wish to achieve.
Seriously, someone modded down an opinion based on personal experience? I like rhubarb pie too. What's next, banning me because you prefer pecan?
The claim was that "advanced users" don't use Macs.
To reply "I use a Mac" would be pointless and not advance the discussion in any way, because it wouldn't tell you whether "advanced users" ever use Macs.
What does move the discussion forward is to show that some advanced users do in fact use Macs, so a relevant post must establish two things:
a) I'm an advanced user
b) I use a Mac
Point a is made quickly, and in an easily verifiable way, by mentioning where you can find my name on your system.
Confirming Apple has won the Streaming War.
But not the users or musicians. See that's the thing with the whole fanboi attitude - someone has to loose for their choice to win.
I was making a little joke about your diatribe - and you come up with something about "fanboi attitude" - Hateboi, heal thyself.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
> Who cares whether a Unix is certified? Linux is the big daddy of the server rhythm these days
Linux has a huge installed base, absolutely. Most of my work throughout my career has been on Linux. We also know that GNU stands for Gnu's Not Unix. Linux is popular, and it's explicitly Not Unix. There is no guarantee your Unix software or integrations will continue to work on any particular version of any particular Linux distribution, as they try out a third init system in as many years.
So who cares about certified Unix? Two groups of people. People who have enterprise production systems running Unix software that MATTERS care. If you're running a payroll system for 10,000 employees and a glitch means missing a pay day, or perhaps ending up with the decimal point in the wrong place on everyone's pay check, certification of the whole stack is good. You can, at a cost, show that the software uses only official Unix apis, and will therefore run on any certified Unix. Similarly , regulators and such like certified components for similar reasons.
The second group is represented by alot of the systemd comments. Certified Unix means you have certain guarantees about how things (still) behave. You won't have important stuff changed out from under you, if you interface with the system as a Unix system, not as a Brand X version y.z system. Apple CAN'T fuck certain things up in the next version, systemd style, without losing their certification. That can be attractive to a lot of people.
Maybe you should be worried more about your control on reality. And using Android ain't going to help.
And here I am being modded a troll because I'm offering my opinion on *not* using itunes. FYI: I've never had any problems, at all with my music collection because I choose to control my reality.
Of course you didn't - you just imagined that people had problems with their iPhones when they drove into a tunnel because you thought that using iTunes would do that. You need to get treatment, boy. Seriously.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I was making a little joke about your diatribe - and you come up with something about "fanboi attitude" - Hateboi, heal thyself.
It's clear to see that you are an apologist for Apple calming down any criticism of the company.
The lack of maturity in your response is a typical shallow Apple fanboi response. No capacity to argue the issues with any authority so you just call me a hater. It proves what I have to say - someone has to loose for you to win.
I don't care if that is your choice and just because I don't choose it, doesn't make me a hater however your response does show you to be a fanboi.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
you just imagined that people had problems with their iPhones when they drove into a tunnel because you thought that using iTunes would do that.
I suppose all these Apple Music users are just making it up.
You need to get treatment, boy. Seriously.
There is no substance in anything you say because you avoid the real conversation:
Apple is happy to take from the open source community Apple is not so happy to share with or even acknowledge the community of developers that OSX owes its existence to. Case in point, I can run posix apps on OSX, but can I run iTunes on FreeBSD - I somehow doubt it.
You have no answer. Those who are skilled enough, created something good that Apple built products on and the best you have to offer is snyde sarcasm and disdain.
There is little credibility in anything you have to say. Seriously.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Do you find Apple products "sexy"?
No. But thanks for writing a bunch of words about it that was safely able to avoid reading.
There's a surprise - you see the world through filters. Which'd be why you don't read a response to a post that had nothing to do with the post you replied to. How ironic.
It meant that I could avoid the bit about aesthetics being the opposite of usability,
Comprehension is clearly not your strong suite - or were you just blinded by some sort of product loyalty. Re-read what I wrote. Hint: I never said aesthetics was the opposite of usability - you've got that arse-backwards.
One of the problems with fanbois is that they believe everyone else is a fanboi - some sort of Iron Age tribal mentality. Many of us don't brand worship - even those of us who are pro-Open Source.
I use Linux for everything - because it suits my needs and I have the ability, and knowledge, to do so. I'm not anti-Microsoft or anti-Apple. When dealing with clients who have no interest in learning to be sys-admins I generally recommend they use either Microsoft or Apple - not Linux. If they have already invested time in learning Microsoft - or need to use a lot of Microsoft application I tell them to use Windows. For people new to computing, who don't wish to learn to be a sysadmin, I recommend Apple. There is no one-size-fits-all solution... unless you're blinkered by brand affiliation and biased by an over-investment in your own choices.
You're new here, aren't you?
... grumble, grumble, grumble, mutter, mutter, Millenium... Hand... Shrimp, I tol' 'em, I tol' 'em.
I've never understand it. I've been collecting/ripping mp3s (and then later oggs) ever since about '97. I've never need a tool to 'organise' my collection. Every OS I've ever used has had this really clever idea called the directory (or folder). It's quite simple really, I haev one top-level directory called 'Music' and inside I have an 'A' folder, a 'B' folder etc. etc. Inside I have (here's the clever bit) more directories eg. 'Ah-ha', with that I have directories for each album by the band.
Okay, I have one directory under 'M' called 'Misc' which is getting a bit large by hey-ho.
Oh and I own all those files, they're mine and I can copy them onto any device I own and share with friends should I want to.
Screw Apple and screw anybody that doesn't let me own my music collection and potentially pass it onto my children. Props to Amazon that allows me to buy DRM-free mp3's (along with the CD! awesome!)
If you want ununlimited choices, where you can do anything from anywhere, any time, that's called CLI
This is a fallacious cop-out. You are attacking a straw man of 'wanting ununlimited [sic] choices' (nobody said they want that), and are implying a false dichotomy (there is something in between 'no choice' and 'unlimited choice') of which the choice you present is absurd in itself ('unlimited' is technically physically impossible).
We weren't talking about CLIs and we're not going to.
The entire point of a GUI is to present the user with the most relevant and common choices for the current task at hand, in an easy-to-use way, so they don't have to KNOW all of the choices available, they can SEE the choices available at the present time.
Which says NOTHING about what number of choices is appropriate and thus NOTHING about the subject at hand.
If you want to memorize arbitrary key strokes to get things done quickly
Straw man again.
A GUI is the alternative, for people who want to visibly SEE the choices, not LEARN them.
Which only SPEAKS FOR showing many choices early instead of HIDING them somewhere deep in the UI.
(is the caps-emphasis annoying you yet?)
Learning hundreds of arbitrary keystrokes and using them in a gui is like using a motorcycle to move furniture- precisely the wrong tool for the purpose you wish to achieve.
Nobody was talking about keyboard shortcuts, but as long as they are optional they do not complicate the UI for anyone, but do make it more powerful for everybody. But again, you seem to be arguing in favor of showing users many choices in a UI. Is that correct?
What does any of our "real conversation I avoid" (that you didn't even mention before) have to do with the topic being discussed? I repeat: Get Treatment. You are obviously losing grip on reality with every post you make.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I've only seen a couple of Apple TV ads over the years,
Apple invest heavily in product placement advertising - so you've seen lots of Apple advertising in movies, entertainment news, slashdot stories, and music videos.
Ohh, so how many product placed Apple TVs did you see?
In case you actually meant all product placement - the competition pays much more for very obvious product placement. If you haven't noticed them, Apple's Voice Over is highly praised aide to the blind.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Well, enjoy your immaculately maintained music collection.
I'll be over here enjoying my job, my spouse, and my personal life.
On Saturday I noticed the new "Rainbow" iTunes icon on my MacBookPro apps line. The next day I was missing all my music/recordings except what I had bought from Apple, and is ready to be downloaded from the cloud. With a little searching, I found that the recordings are probably all there in my hard drive--probably. I've *VERY* reluctant to reinstall those recordings into iTunes. I'm very close to bailing out on Apple--even though I'm a diehard longtime Apple fan. Highjacking my desktop with yet another rainbow, and then messing with my media libraries. Not good, not good at all.
Are you saying that you pirate music so that you can make money from it? That's not cool, dude. We are unlikely to believe you are only grabbing discographies from bands that have made their copyrights along those lines.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The feature you mentioned is called Music Match, a subscribed service... and it has been around for quite a long time... this is not a new feature that came with Apple Music....
Yes it is. You just do not seem to be aware of it. It is a race to the bottom. I am winning.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It is "snide" and "lose." Advanced users can usually spell. I only remember two of your spelling errors but there are probably more. No, I do not use a Mac. I own one and I own an iPod, I can not understand why people like them but I have, I admit, not taken enough time to use OSX or iOS to really get used to it. iOS is pretty intuitive so I manage that just fine but, still, never really use it. OSX is functional and, I am sure, a great desktop if I learn the ins and outs. Strangely enough - they are all pretty much fine (except KDE - it blows no matter what they do to it - or I just can not make it work for my workflow) so long as you learn their variations from what you are accustomed to. I manage just fine on any OS (even the dreadful KDE though I really hate it) desktop though it usually means adapting me to work with it. It takes time but not a whole lot really.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Try Linux Mint. It is like Linux for Retards which means I am growing to like it. It truly holds your pecker while you pee, really - it does! It is not good at shaking it off afterwards. But, seriously, it really is a very simple OS with everything right there in front of you. It is intuitive and easy enough to manage with a bit of searching until you adjust to the Mint Way® of doing things. It has a real taskbar instead of that stupid crap sidebar Ubuntu has. It replaces Mandriva nicely.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The "OCD" bit implies a disorder. You do not have a disorder that is compulsive/obsessive. You are just retarded. There is a difference.
Seriously - I say this for your own good. Let it go. It is retarded and you are not "winning" anything. Just think of the valuable things you could be getting done, like reviewing the source code for your browser and then compiling it yourself!
Yes, the above is sarcasm and not really directed at you. It is just the gist of much of the posting on this thread. I had to release it somewhere and you, for better or worse, were chosen.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
who said anything about pirating? I simply said i need to download lots of music
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
If I write a piece of music and you produce it then you are the original artist and I am the composer. If someone takes your work and reproduces it then they are the artist, you are the original artist, and I am still the composer.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"...Once again left advanced users with a difficult decision to make." There are enough better music services out there to switch to. For example, I've NEVER had a problem with Google Music kiboshing my music libraries. iTunes has been trash from day one. Too temperamental and too quick to want to already destroy the music library on my computer (from day 1). Why are Apple users always so cool with getting fucked over? For the premium that they're paying for their devices, they should be given first-class service.
I have the ability, and knowledge, to do so
Gosh. You are clever.
I have the ability, and knowledge, to do so
Gosh. You are clever.
Thanks. You are very mature.
And you are only downloading music that you have permission to use... Uh huh... Nope, do not believe you. I have absolutely no reason to believe you. You might as just fess up and be honest at this point. I pirate music all the time. I do not take it and then make money from it. There is the difference and we all know that you are pirating your music and there is not one damned thing you can say to change that.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I've only seen a couple of Apple TV ads over the years,
Apple invest heavily in product placement advertising - so you've seen lots of Apple advertising in movies, entertainment news, slashdot stories, and music videos.
Ohh, so how many product placed Apple TVs did you see?
Apple make TVs?
> You are attacking a straw man of 'wanting ununlimited [sic] choices' (nobody said they want that),
"As many ways as possible" - FlufferMutter
> Nobody was talking about keyboard shortcuts
I see above in this thread talk about ctrl-w, ctrl-F4, "cycle through windows using the keyboard ".
Seriously, if you want a powerful, fast interface that requires learning, the bash CLI is a thousand times faster than any gui. Try it out. GUI is all about being simple by putting the knowledge in the world, not in the head. That means showing the common, sensible default choices.
> you are attacking ...
It's a suggestion, for something you'll probably like, not an attack, silly. Don't tell me you're one of those guys who feels that if his first idea is ever imperfect, that makes him stupid, so he must defend all of his ideas from "attacks" rather than learn anything, or take any suggestions.
There is no ID3 tag called "original artist."
When Jimi Hendrix covered Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower," the artist was Jimi Hendrix because he performed the song. The composer was Bob Dylan because he created the original.
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
I've only seen a couple of Apple TV ads over the years,
Apple invest heavily in product placement advertising - so you've seen lots of Apple advertising in movies, entertainment news, slashdot stories, and music videos.
Ohh, so how many product placed Apple TVs did you see?
Apple make TVs?
Wow, for an Apple Hater you sure know little about Apple. OTOH that probably helps.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
It is "snide" and "lose." Advanced users can usually spell. I only remember two of your spelling errors but there are probably more.
Indeed, my iFanboi friend did not deserve the time to proofread because he always pops up to troll anyone that looks vaguely like they are criticizing Apple. Though 'snyde' apparently means someone with a mental disorder to the urban dictionary.
No, I do not use a Mac. I own one and I own an iPod, I can not understand why people like them but I have, I admit, not taken enough time to use OSX or iOS to really get used to it. iOS is pretty intuitive so I manage that just fine but, still, never really use it. OSX is functional and, I am sure, a great desktop if I learn the ins and outs.
I found Gnome2 very customizable and it suits my workflow so there is little point spend my time on a mac. The Mac's UI does not seem like it is worth the investment in time when I can just use a linux box and the Apple hardware isn't any better than a T series lenovo.
The iFanbois attitudes are a particularly unattractive feature though.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I've only seen a couple of Apple TV ads over the years,
Apple invest heavily in product placement advertising - so you've seen lots of Apple advertising in movies, entertainment news, slashdot stories, and music videos.
Ohh, so how many product placed Apple TVs did you see?
Apple make TVs?
Wow, for an Apple Hater you sure know little about Apple.
Apple hater? Wow! You sure know very little about me. But clearly that doesn't get in the way of your blinkered, slavish fanboi, bifurcated "view" on things.
OTOH that probably helps.
What does any of our "real conversation I avoid" (that you didn't even mention before) have to do with the topic being discussed?
Were I to use Apple Music on my collection, the user experiences I read about tell me I would have some pretty rare recordings deleted. Apple wouldn't care so I'm quite happy to manage my music collection myself and not allow Apple that control so I experience that frustration.
I repeat: Get Treatment. You are obviously losing grip on reality with every post you make.
Alternatively Mr iFanboi, you have a thin skin when Apple gets criticized because your substantial personal investment in their products makes criticism feel personal. Like someone calling you an iFool, iFanboi.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Yeah, whatever. You only show the usual signs of not knowing the fuck what you are talking about. For your benefit I'll assume you are just a moron, not a hateboi.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Get help.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
"As many ways as possible" - FlufferMutter
Which isn't 'unlimited'. It includes 'as possible', which implies that there are limits.
I see above in this thread talk about ctrl-w, ctrl-F4, "cycle through windows using the keyboard ".
Somewhere, maybe. Not in this comment-thread, though. You should have replied there. My comment was and is about how The Paradox of Choice is a bad basis for informing UI design. You have not responded to that.
Seriously, if you want a powerful, fast interface that requires learning, the bash CLI is a thousand times faster than any gui. Try it out.
I know and I have. It's completely besides the point. Stop bringing it up.
When people are talking about whether a convertible is preferable over a coupé, the guy that insists that you should just ride a bike if you want the wind in your hair is just being an annoying (offtopic) asshole.
GUI is all about being simple by putting the knowledge in the world, not in the head. That means showing the common, sensible default choices.
No, it's not and no, it doesn't. Do you think that no professional on this planet uses a GUI? That nuclear powerplants and huge complex infrastructure networks are managed via a CLI? There are hugely complex GUIs that definitely do not only show 'common, sensible default choices', because they would effectively be useless if they did.
The point of a simple GUI is that it does not require learning. The point of a complex GUI is that it is very powerful. These are separate dimensions. Some GUIs cannot require learning, some GUIs can. Some GUIs need to be powerful, some don't. Many GUIs are somewhere in the middle of the plane.
The point of a GUI in general is that it allows for a completely different multidimensional way to interact with software (versus a CLI). The problem with GUIs is that you generally lose expressiveness, as only the options put into the GUI are generally available to express what you want the software to do.
Now you and many people with you are arguing that a GUI should contain the minimal amount of expressiveness to make it useful and people with wishes for even slightly more expressiveness in a GUI should just piss off and use the CLI. It's simply ridiculous. Especially when you start arguing that "humans don't like choices" (I'm paraphrasing).
Determining or not whether adding certain choices is beneficial or not is something that should be thought through and not dismissed with the inane 'less is more'.
It's a suggestion, for something you'll probably like, not an attack, silly.
Oh stop.
1. People who 'suggest' things DON'T SCREAM.
2. Also, 'attack' is a perfectly valid term in the area of debate to denominate an argument against some statement. It's nothing personal, just the English language.
Silly.
Get help.
After reading pages of you trolling anyone who has said anything about Apple products the evidence suggests that you are quite a toxic individual. I watched a documentary about the science behind Apples marketing acting on the same parts of the brain as religion does. You're what they were talking about, more than a iFanboi.
You're an iDevout.
What concerns me is I do know Apple users who are actually nice people so I hope that they don't display the traits that you do if they cross whatever threshold you crossed. Are you an Apple professional? Is this how they all behave?
The difference between you an me is you think Apple's products are genius for what they are and I think they are genius for how they make you think that. For that Job's creation is genius.
But you are not. You are a product called an iDevout iFanboi of the iJobsian iEvangelical iChurch where the iClones all iWorship and iPractice their iFaith.
I would suggest you take your own advice however I find your thin skin to be absolutely fucking hilariously entertaining.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Anyone who is a zealot is unbearable (and wrong). Then again, I am zealous in my desire for moderation. But, seriously, fans of any OS (or company, or similar) are just blinded by their biases and stuck that way because their ego will not let them change. I prefer to judge each by its own merits and I do not think I am exceptional in those regards.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I did not mention that there was an ID3 tag for it. Only what was what.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
years ago i did, now i have a service i use for a reasonable fee to protect me and the establishments i play.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Get help.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
That's what they all say. ;)
I pirate all the time. I would actually pay if they had a reasonable service to allow such. I do not even ask for a whole lot. Just make it one stop, make it complete, and make it DRM free. I would be willing to pay out the ass for it. Couple it with movies and I will pay TREBLE the price - not because it should be lower due to bulk but because I am willing to pay more for the single platform and ease of access.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
"If you don't like the way I insult you, you prove you also lack humor, you iMoron." +5 Insightful
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I have the ability, and knowledge, to do so
Gosh. You are clever.
Thanks. You are very mature.
I love that we're getting on so well.
Anyone who is a zealot is unbearable (and wrong).
Absolutely!
But, seriously, fans of any OS (or company, or similar) are just blinded by their biases and stuck that way because their ego will not let them change.
They just don't want to share the sandpit with any of the other kids.
I prefer to judge each by its own merits and I do not think I am exceptional in those regards.
True that, and if the platform doesn't do what you want then there is little point using it.
Thanks for being reasoned.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.