Do you use iTunes?

This poll may add some insight: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1539523/[/URL

On my Mac I use iTunes but not too often these days as I either play music/video through my AppleTV (iTunes Match FTW) or iPhone.

I think a lot of hate for it comes from it locking up the app while syncing with iOS, something I don't do anymore. Otherwise, I really like the new UI.

Sure do, its always serving up the household.

Traverse said:

Am I one of the few who actually like iTunes? I like it's organization.

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Happy people don't tend to make a lot of noise. I'm right with you, and I think that iTunes is perfectly suitable for the majority of users. For people who like to tinker & customize there's nothing wrong with setting up Plex or another solution, but I love the simplicity and convenience of iTunes.

Traverse said:

BTW, I may be being too funny, but I hope I didn't offend you by complimenting GGJstudios; I wasn't implying that your not trustworthy. I am always worried that I will offend/hurt someone's feeling on these forums.

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You didn't offend me. Lol. He does give good advice. Don't worry about offending people on here. You can't and won't please everyone.

Hi,
nice question. Lots of possible answers.
In my household we have 2 iPhone, 2 ATV (1&2) and 5 PCs. Each time I have to sync to iTunes I have skin rash. Because you may ask? We have no proof, but many belive that Apple had made the Windows iTunes version to be; slow, heavy on memory usage and PC resources overall.
iTunes takes too much RAM, takes forever to load.
It is useless for me for :
1- watching movies on HDTV, I use XBMC or Plex on my jailbrocken ATV's.
2- listening to music, I airplay from iPhone to ATV 2.
3- watching movies on PC, I use GomLAB player which is far more user frieny than any other player out there.
4- buying music online, I use http://www.mp3va.com/ it's cheaper.
5- rent videos, I use the ATV.

So to simply put it, I hate iTunes and never use it, unless I want to sync/backup iPhones and of course jailbreak my iDevices.

WIth itunes in the cloud and streaming movies to our aTVs, we only use it for EyeTV exported TV Shows much anymore. But i've always been very happy with it.

11 took some getting used to, but after some speed bumps with scripts that didn't act quite right with 11 all is well.

I run iTunes on a headless mini as my whole-home media server for 5 ATV's, 2 Airport Express (feeding in-ceiling speakers), 3 Mac's and 4 iOS devices. It streams music/inet radio, movies, and TV throughout the house. And, of course, syncs iPad, iPhones and several iPods. I prefer it for its ease of use and ubiquity.

I like iTunes for synching music and apps for my iPad and iPhone along with the playlist feature.

XBMC or Plex provide a vastly superior way of dealing with video oriented files.
The handling of music by XBMC and Plex is not very mature but quite usable.

Opinion_ ATV is akin to Kodak's "Instamatic" line of cameras from long ago. It was a vehicle to get people to buy their film. ATV by nature works with iTunes and of course iTune purchases. Though some other files can be made to play with ATV it does it's best magic with iTune offerings.

I like using iTunes to keep my music organized.

People don't like it because it hogs too much resources.

I use it for music, making playlists and backing up my devices. I tend to buy DVD's or stream straight to my ATV for films.

I use iTunes for streaming films / music to apple tv 3. Works flawlessly for me.. I even tried crashing it by streaming movies to apple tv, ipad and iphone all in 1080p at the same time and with a film playing on the mac too, and no stuttering or anything.. Don't know if 20gb of ram helps.. I don't have anything jailbroken so can't compare to plex or xbmc - iTunes does exactly what I need it to though..

I used to hate it because of the 'must be in this format etc.'.
However, with ATV's in the house, even the kids are able to browse easily though movies stored through our iTunes.
Yes, Plex, XBMC, WD TV Live etc. allow all different files to play through them, iTunes simplicity for movies, tv shows and music, whether it's on your own drives or in the cloud, have made it the number 1 choice in our house.

I use it mainly for music. I have Airplay devices all over the house and the Remote app is fantastic.

I also have an EyetvHD that I use on occasion and I like the way it works with iTunes.

That doesn't mean it is perfect. I would like to see it automatically play audio files in their native resolution without needing a work around like Bitperfect or messing with midi settings. Also, I wish it would work with more formats. For example, I use XBMC or VLC for movies that I have not had time to convert to an iTunes friendly version.

I use iTunes on my Mini hooked up to my HDTV through a Sony Surround Sound system. I download TV episodes by Wifi. It's great for what I use it for.

I don't use it for syncing to other devices though, so can't comment on that aspect.

Using iTunes for synching only and NOT as a media server.

iTunes too restrictive as far as media type and I have no inclination to re-encode all the media I've accumulated through the years.

Surprisingly my TV DLNA works good enough for me, and I organize my stuff via folders, not ideal, but good enough and so far just have to re-encode a few here and there.

Yup, I use iTunes all the time. When I bought an aTV3, I didn't realize the jailbreak was only for the aTV2 and earlier, but luckily I hadn't ripped any movies yet, so it wasn't a problem to put them into iTunes.

I know some people prefer Plex, but even if I could use it on the aTV3, I don't think I would. iFlicks gives me the metadata I need, and when I was testing out Plex on my computer to see what all the fuss was, I hated a lot of the covers it selected for my media. I'm oddly picky about that, so I prefer to choose them myself, or make my own.

I like the layout and the organization. I have a few little quibbles with it, but nothing that would justify the kind of iTunes hate I've seen on the Net. Generally, it does what I want quite well.

I've just started using jriver which is being ported to the mac seems very fast and I also like the speed of the jremote. Early days for the program but love the sound quality.

Still using iTunes to buy content and using jriver as the media player.

Yes, all the time! I use iTunes 11.0.2 on a 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display and it never freezes up, even when I am syncing 2 iOS devices at once!

My iTunes library contains

-Over 1300 Songs
-Over 900 Apps
-A few movies, tv shows, music videos, books and podcasts

iTunes is slow because it's been added to for many years and is subject to feature bloat. What started out as a simple music player has become:

- Music Player / Library Manager
- Device Manager
- Music Store
- Movie/TV Player
- App Store & Management
- Podcast Manager
- Social Network (since removed)
- Media Server

Not to mention all of the little features added to grow the larger features (such as Genius & iTunes in the Cloud).

However, I still use it for several purposes:

1) Media server for AppleTV
2) Playing music: It might not be the best, but I haven't signed up for any music streaming services. Still, I see no reason to switch to a different program just to listen to music.

In short: iTunes meets my needs.

jdechko said:

iTunes is slow because it's been added to for many years and is subject to feature bloat. What started out as a simple music player has become:

- Music Player / Library Manager
- Device Manager
- Music Store
- Movie/TV Player
- App Store & Management
- Podcast Manager
- Social Network (since removed)
- Media Server

Not to mention all of the little features added to grow the larger features (such as Genius & iTunes in the Cloud).

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You forgot a book library as well. The feature bloat is a bit insane. I wonder if Apple will try splitting iTunes into separate programs, kind of like how iOS has different apps for music, podcasts, movies, and books.

I despise iTunes. I have Spotify that I Air Play to my TV for music and either my Apple TV or cable company for movie rentals.

I use iTunes twice a year or so when I decide to Sync my phone / ipad via laptop.

It's terrible in my opinion.