iTunes, I think, and apps like it, are the future, today. Databases, queries, lookups, distributed, shared, libraries, compact, convenient, and easy to use.
Yes, not *all* people will be comfortable ceding control of their files and file system to their programs... but it's just one more step in a long line, ever since the invention of inodes, sectors, heads, tracks, and hierarchical file tables.
iTunes (4Mac or 4PC) already implements the database as a filesystem concept. The iTunes program will be your browser/interface, and the songs will be your files.
You search, sort, live, in the metadata, and not in the file hierarchy.
See how you like it, and imagine if the entire OS could be like that.
Into that ram it loads an index, a database, containing all the song information on all the songs: The metadata, the ID3 information, the playcounts, the volume and EQ settings, the ratings, the notes, the extra album info, comments, everything.
It is *because* of this file, this index, this database, that the iPod has a UI par exellance, the most usable, friendly, fast, and efficient UI on any MP3 player.
All iTunes does, in copying music to your iPod, is create a bunch of *normal* folders (which the Finder can do) onto the iPod, and copy the iTunes generated (no even encrypted!) database file onto the iPod (which the Finder can do as well). It's all regular HFS+ or FAT32 files, no voodoo, no magic.
So no extra software is necessary to make the songs playable, but extra software is necessary to make the iPod usable.
If this doesn't make sense, download iTunes, import several thousand songs into it, and use it (ID3 tags, metadata, and everything) for a week. This is *exactly* how the iPod works. Without that very same data used in iTunes, the iPod would be useless (try manually navigating 8.000 songs in a flat, unstructured, list!). iTunes generates several hierarchies through which you can navigate your iPod:
All iTunes does is *generate* those structures. You need *something* to generate those structures. Of course, the standard response to the iTunes/iPod naysayer is "I want to create my own genre/artist/album hierarchies in The Finder/Explorer damn it!"
Yeah, feel free, I guess. Me, I enjoy letting iTunes do it for me, and all I have to do is 'click, click, scroll, click' and enjoy.
Yes, but you would have to wager whereas we all know what the DRM levels at iTunes is. You have to make a bet; and if you bet wrong, you lose.
There's one other thing between iTMS and the other stores that isn't being addressed in the conversation: The usability of the respective stores! There have been reviews online of all the stores, and most of them are buggy, crashy, and the songs occasionally fail to play for unknown reasons on all the stores except iTunes. So that's another reason why iTunes is better than the other stores; it really works.
I've an iPod. I define a 'few files' when I sync something on the order of magnitude of one to four CDs, which is about 60mb to 300mb. So I plug in my iPod, and 5 to 30 seconds later everything is done!
On a USB 1.1 interface that would become... 75 to 450 seconds later... or something like 1 to 7 minutes later...
Then lets say I want to back up my home directory once a week. All 300mb! Only a minute on the iPod (plus synching music, all at 16mb/s) vs 15 to 20 minutes on your Neuros...
So in the end, the question is 'What do you pay for usability?'
Neuros is huge, 3/4 of a pound, the size of a paperback novel, and slow.
The iPod is small, 1/3 of a pound, the size of a pack of cigs, and fast.
Plus if you leave them both in for 10 minutes (say you go to the bathroom or get a drink), the iPod will have charged by 10%, while the Neuros will have charged 2%... Effectively giving the iPod an additional hour of play!
You can browse without signing up *I* think. You just download the program and browse around; but I can't verify it since I actually have an account on all my machines..
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!
Apple is definitely not too cheap to spring for a $0.0025 LED, that's not the issue, and cutting corners isn't a goal. No Mac has a HDD activity light, just like no Mac has an L1/L2/L3/L4 activity light.
The hard drive is a slower backup to ram, which is itself a backup to L3, to L2, to L1. You don't measure activity to any of the other memory devices, so there's no *design* sense in measuring the activity of your hard drive.
There's an LED to measure it's state: On for on, pulsing for sleep, and off for off. Don't tell me the Mac is cutting corners because it's a design function, not a cutting corners function, just like a PC without a sleep-LED isn't cutting corners, it's just not designed into the system!
There are at least two options, and quite possibly three; you've neglected to mention them, however.
*IF* we can't support 7.5b at 1st world levels, you can do one of three things:
Reduce the Standard of Living Reduce the population Use technology to transform the standard of living
As an example, take cars. 20mpg average is not sustainable, but if we transformed our cars to hybrid electric vehicles, we'd go from 20mpg to 50mpg average, and at the same time our consumption of oil will drop, thereby freeing more oil for everyone else to consume.
Or as another example, nuclear power plants. With the reduced pollution, and proper radioactive processing of the waste, we can continue our consumption of electricity while simultaneously reducing pollution, freeing others to pollute at a 'reasonable' level.
The 'population' problem does get solved with education and technology, I believe. Everyone in a developed nation (US, Europe, Japan, even China) have lower than replacement birth rates, meaning that we are all losing population. Even if we, as first world or developed countries, do nothing, our population is falling.
It is the third world nations, with family size >> 5, that have population/consumption/quality of life problems.
Another way to state my point: There is a correlation with high standard of living with low population size. No causation, just correlation. If we want a lower population size worldwide, there will probably be a higher standard of living as well (smaller families are, after all, cheaper and less stressful), so anything we can do that can raise quality of life will likely also reduce population size, density, and thus overpopulation.
Are you saying that Mac zealots are saying that Apple invented the gift certificate and the GUI?
Actually, a correction. Apple did happen to market and mass produce the first consumer computer with a GUI, first with the Apple Lisa and then with the Apple Macintosh. The prior art before those two computers was the Star, I do believe, out of Xerox Parc, but which was a research project and not actually a product for sale.
Probably because, with how cheap hard drive space is, it's easier to keep everything rather than deleting the songs you don't like.
This is the mentality of someone who rips CDs to hard drives, btw, not downloading music online.
It's easier to rate the songs you do like than to delete the songs you don't like. If you download your songs, it's trivial to delete the song if you don't like it, as it was just downloaded. Vs on iTunes, where you just hit skip if you don't like it.
So to be totally impartial essentially means you don't care one way or another about a product you're reviewing. However wouldn't the act of reviewing said product remove you from impartiality? IE, "It sucked!" or "I loved it!"
And if it's just mediocre, well, that's still not being impartial.
An Apple G5/PPC 970 is nothing more than an overclocked Power4 CPU + Altivec.
That's some serious lineage, and no small surprise that it competes with Intel kit. The surprise is that the Pentium class machines can keep up with Alphas, Itaniums, Power3s, and Power4s ^^
No, only buying RIAA licensed music via iTMS is funding the RIAA. Feel free to buy any of the other non RIAA connected content, support artists, support a new distribution model, get music, feel good, *and* annoy the RIAA.
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Well, depending on how poorly Microsoft implements their database!
And then there are PC users like this who discover that, perhaps, iTunes might actually be the best Windows app ever. Scroll down to see Gabe's rant about it.
iTunes, I think, and apps like it, are the future, today. Databases, queries, lookups, distributed, shared, libraries, compact, convenient, and easy to use.
Yes, not *all* people will be comfortable ceding control of their files and file system to their programs... but it's just one more step in a long line, ever since the invention of inodes, sectors, heads, tracks, and hierarchical file tables.
iTunes (4Mac or 4PC) already implements the database as a filesystem concept. The iTunes program will be your browser/interface, and the songs will be your files.
You search, sort, live, in the metadata, and not in the file hierarchy.
See how you like it, and imagine if the entire OS could be like that.
The iPod has 32mb of ram.
b ums->Songs
Into that ram it loads an index, a database, containing all the song information on all the songs: The metadata, the ID3 information, the playcounts, the volume and EQ settings, the ratings, the notes, the extra album info, comments, everything.
It is *because* of this file, this index, this database, that the iPod has a UI par exellance, the most usable, friendly, fast, and efficient UI on any MP3 player.
All iTunes does, in copying music to your iPod, is create a bunch of *normal* folders (which the Finder can do) onto the iPod, and copy the iTunes generated (no even encrypted!) database file onto the iPod (which the Finder can do as well). It's all regular HFS+ or FAT32 files, no voodoo, no magic.
So no extra software is necessary to make the songs playable, but extra software is necessary to make the iPod usable.
If this doesn't make sense, download iTunes, import several thousand songs into it, and use it (ID3 tags, metadata, and everything) for a week. This is *exactly* how the iPod works. Without that very same data used in iTunes, the iPod would be useless (try manually navigating 8.000 songs in a flat, unstructured, list!). iTunes generates several hierarchies through which you can navigate your iPod:
Artists->Songs
Albums->Songs
Songs
Genre->Al
Composers->Songs
Playlists->Songs
All iTunes does is *generate* those structures. You need *something* to generate those structures. Of course, the standard response to the iTunes/iPod naysayer is "I want to create my own genre/artist/album hierarchies in The Finder/Explorer damn it!"
Yeah, feel free, I guess. Me, I enjoy letting iTunes do it for me, and all I have to do is 'click, click, scroll, click' and enjoy.
Yes, but you would have to wager whereas we all know what the DRM levels at iTunes is. You have to make a bet; and if you bet wrong, you lose.
There's one other thing between iTMS and the other stores that isn't being addressed in the conversation: The usability of the respective stores! There have been reviews online of all the stores, and most of them are buggy, crashy, and the songs occasionally fail to play for unknown reasons on all the stores except iTunes. So that's another reason why iTunes is better than the other stores; it really works.
I've an iPod. I define a 'few files' when I sync something on the order of magnitude of one to four CDs, which is about 60mb to 300mb. So I plug in my iPod, and 5 to 30 seconds later everything is done!
On a USB 1.1 interface that would become... 75 to 450 seconds later... or something like 1 to 7 minutes later...
Then lets say I want to back up my home directory once a week. All 300mb! Only a minute on the iPod (plus synching music, all at 16mb/s) vs 15 to 20 minutes on your Neuros...
So in the end, the question is 'What do you pay for usability?'
Neuros is huge, 3/4 of a pound, the size of a paperback novel, and slow.
The iPod is small, 1/3 of a pound, the size of a pack of cigs, and fast.
Plus if you leave them both in for 10 minutes (say you go to the bathroom or get a drink), the iPod will have charged by 10%, while the Neuros will have charged 2%... Effectively giving the iPod an additional hour of play!
You can browse without signing up *I* think. You just download the program and browse around; but I can't verify it since I actually have an account on all my machines..
Give iTunes a shot; if you love it's ID3 tag based interface, you'll definitely love the iPod ^^
All will be fine until, of course, you find out you really like iTunes.
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!
"You realize of course, that there aren't any 'good guys'...and 'bad guys'...there are just...just a bunch of guys!"
You sound suspiciously fundamentalist, yourself here!
Apple is definitely not too cheap to spring for a $0.0025 LED, that's not the issue, and cutting corners isn't a goal. No Mac has a HDD activity light, just like no Mac has an L1/L2/L3/L4 activity light.
The hard drive is a slower backup to ram, which is itself a backup to L3, to L2, to L1. You don't measure activity to any of the other memory devices, so there's no *design* sense in measuring the activity of your hard drive.
There's an LED to measure it's state: On for on, pulsing for sleep, and off for off. Don't tell me the Mac is cutting corners because it's a design function, not a cutting corners function, just like a PC without a sleep-LED isn't cutting corners, it's just not designed into the system!
There are at least two options, and quite possibly three; you've neglected to mention them, however.
*IF* we can't support 7.5b at 1st world levels, you can do one of three things:
Reduce the Standard of Living
Reduce the population
Use technology to transform the standard of living
As an example, take cars. 20mpg average is not sustainable, but if we transformed our cars to hybrid electric vehicles, we'd go from 20mpg to 50mpg average, and at the same time our consumption of oil will drop, thereby freeing more oil for everyone else to consume.
Or as another example, nuclear power plants. With the reduced pollution, and proper radioactive processing of the waste, we can continue our consumption of electricity while simultaneously reducing pollution, freeing others to pollute at a 'reasonable' level.
The 'population' problem does get solved with education and technology, I believe. Everyone in a developed nation (US, Europe, Japan, even China) have lower than replacement birth rates, meaning that we are all losing population. Even if we, as first world or developed countries, do nothing, our population is falling.
It is the third world nations, with family size >> 5, that have population/consumption/quality of life problems.
Another way to state my point:
There is a correlation with high standard of living with low population size. No causation, just correlation. If we want a lower population size worldwide, there will probably be a higher standard of living as well (smaller families are, after all, cheaper and less stressful), so anything we can do that can raise quality of life will likely also reduce population size, density, and thus overpopulation.
Where do you find overpopulation?
The most overpopulated parts of the world happen to have the lowest technology levels, I do believe.
Are you saying that Mac zealots are saying that Apple invented the gift certificate and the GUI?
Actually, a correction. Apple did happen to market and mass produce the first consumer computer with a GUI, first with the Apple Lisa and then with the Apple Macintosh. The prior art before those two computers was the Star, I do believe, out of Xerox Parc, but which was a research project and not actually a product for sale.
Probably because, with how cheap hard drive space is, it's easier to keep everything rather than deleting the songs you don't like.
This is the mentality of someone who rips CDs to hard drives, btw, not downloading music online.
It's easier to rate the songs you do like than to delete the songs you don't like. If you download your songs, it's trivial to delete the song if you don't like it, as it was just downloaded. Vs on iTunes, where you just hit skip if you don't like it.
Because iTunes default behavior is to *not* touch your file structure unless you explicitly tell it to organize your library.
Wow, how incredibly black and white!
So to be totally impartial essentially means you don't care one way or another about a product you're reviewing. However wouldn't the act of reviewing said product remove you from impartiality? IE, "It sucked!" or "I loved it!"
And if it's just mediocre, well, that's still not being impartial.
Why should it?
My theory is for *perfect* substitutes.
There aren't perfect substitutes for Windows.
When you learn that language is fluid and adaptable, and that eventually through misuse the word its and it's will change ^^
At least until someone figures out how to sell it for $15 markup.
Then $14.
Then $13.
Then $12.
etc...
Until Apple decides to implement their own version...
So this is one of those ideas with it's own obsolescence!
You can think of it this way too:
An Apple G5/PPC 970 is nothing more than an overclocked Power4 CPU + Altivec.
That's some serious lineage, and no small surprise that it competes with Intel kit. The surprise is that the Pentium class machines can keep up with Alphas, Itaniums, Power3s, and Power4s ^^
How about neutron steam turbines? Since they're using neutrons to generate heat to power steam turbines?
No, only buying RIAA licensed music via iTMS is funding the RIAA. Feel free to buy any of the other non RIAA connected content, support artists, support a new distribution model, get music, feel good, *and* annoy the RIAA.
Smart playlist:
Songs not played in the last day
All songs rated greater than two
Songs not in the genre country
Check live update
It's always been clear to Mac users from the get-go that the DRM was there for the RIAA, not for consumers and not for Apple.
Lucky us, eh?