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Apple Details iTunes Changes Coming in macOS Catalina
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This is my concern. I notice there wasn't a "Script" option showing in the top menubar of any of those new app screenshots. I use scripts all the time, not only whilst I'm actually sitting at my desk, using the app, but also remotely and automated, when I'm not there.
I have a script which runs at 3:00am when I'm asleep, which syncs my iPhone over wifi and updates it using various parameters defined in my Smart Playlists. Because I have many more GBs of data in my iTunes library than I would like to fit on my iPhone all at once, I use Smart Playlists to determine what has NOT been listened to or watched recently, to put that on my iPhone, and it also removes older music that I HAVE listened to recently. This way, I always have "fresh" music to listen to.
I realise that I am likely in a small minority doing things like this, but the point is that I CAN do it right now, and I would not be pleased if features like this get removed in updates.
Maybe this means next time Xcode updates I won’t need to explain to my wife and child why their movie just stopped... again.
Luckily for me, I keep my iTunes application and all my music and video files on a second mac, separate from my work Mac.
So I'm happy to NOT upgrade that Mac and to keep iTunes and everything else as it currently is.
However, my concern is, if I upgrade my iPhone to iOS 13, will the Mac running the older iTunes not recognise the "newer" device, and say that I have to upgrade to the new Music app in order to sync with it?
So I'm happy to NOT upgrade that Mac and to keep iTunes and everything else as it currently is.
However, my concern is, if I upgrade my iPhone to iOS 13, will the Mac running the older iTunes not recognise the "newer" device, and say that I have to upgrade to the new Music app in order to sync with it?
The script menu only appears in iTunes when you have scripts “installed” - otherwise it’s not shown.
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Backing up before a major os install is literally recommended action, straight from apple, so yes, he should.
Because since 2011, Apple has slapped onto what was originally just a music player:
- a music store front
- a video player
- a video store front
- an app store front (by now already removed)
- a podcast player
- an audio book player
- an audio book store front
- an ebook store front (by now already removed)
- a device manager
- and two failed music themed social networks.
That's why it is a bloated mess.
Great strategy. Next release, they can combine time machine with safari and mail.app, and then just call it “iWeb”.
I don’t disagree that iTunes works, functionally, but conceptually it’s a ducking mess.
No, that is wrong. Doing multiple things does not make it a bloated mess.
Your iPhone can do about a billion more things than this, but you wouldn't refer to your iPhone as a bloated mess, would you?
Or would you prefer to carry around an iPod to play your music, a phone to make phone-calls, a pager to receive messages, a laptop to browse the web, etc.
iTunes is great at doing multiple different things. It may have started out as a one-trick pony, but there's no reason why it should ever have stayed that way, or go back to being that way. As new user requirements came along, iTunes incorporated them well.
We have already seen that the decision to split eBooks out into a standalone separate app has failed miserably... duplicated files with non-sensical names, no ability to edit metadata, sync/transfer issues...
THAT is why people are hesitant about Apple's decision to split iTunes up even further.
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That analogy doesn't work at all, for one simple reason: the iPhone was designed for the beginning to be a multifunctional tool, and that multifunctionality has been further improved by opening the platform to specialised, dedicated apps for specific purposes - like music playing, like receiving messages, like accessing social networks, and so on -, which in addition also can offer alternatives to the stock apps for these purposes.
iTunes never was meant to be a multipurpose tool and it shows. The basic design has never really changed to adapt to the new functions added. All the new stuff was just crammed into the existing framework of a music player.
Fear of change (whether really justified or not) is not a good reason to turn a blind eye to the past's faults.
They’re unknowns to you because you don’t have the software. They’re not unknowns to Apple at all, they know what they’re going to release.
That true. Hopefully we know before final release and external drive library will be supported and clear info external drive library to new system.
It's just something that's fashionable to say. It's like "Starbucks coffee tastes burnt." People like to say it because that's what everyone else seems to be saying. Nobody can ever give anything approaching a cogent argument how iTunes is bloated or a mess.
An iPhone is essentially a pocket computer, with a user interface designed to do allow running purpose - specific “applications” that further customise the user interface they provide, to suit the task at hand.
It’s like how you have a house and inside that house you have rooms designed for eg cooking (benches, cook top, oven), sleeping (bed), bathing (shower, bath) etc.
iTunes in that equation is the attic/closet/spare room where you throw all the stuff you know you want to keep but don’t have somewhere better to put it.
I'd disagree. You are making it sound like iTunes is an incoherent mess. Its not at all. Yes it does a lot, but its organized, efficient, and just works. Now we have to have 3 different applications to essentially do the same thing? How is that better?
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Yeah that doesn't really make sense to me. iTunes was a music player because that's all the devices that Apple was producing could do, play music. As the devices evolved so did iTunes. Just because it could do more than it could do originally doesn't make it bloated or messy. It changed and evolved because the devices could do more than just play music.
To me what Apple has done is make things more cluttered. You have to use several different applications now to do the one thing that iTunes did. You have to sync your phone in a different location. To me its almost backwards. Its taken one application that could do everything and putting it in several different places now. I'm sure it will work fine but the justification for doing it never really made sense to me.
Yay put me in the camp that says "I don't see the benefit of splitting up iTunes". At least I haven't yet.
If it's not faster and since the UI/UX seems to have gotten worse, what's the point besides change for change's sake?
If it's not faster and since the UI/UX seems to have gotten worse, what's the point besides change for change's sake?
It’s one app trying to do five things.
What does music have to do with movies? What do either of them have to do with ebooks?
Why in 2019 do I need to have a GUI app (iTunes) running to let my appletv stream the content on my Mac? Ditto for local device backups? What exactly does music have to do with backing up my phone?
The storage closet full of junk “just works” until you want to find something quickly.
They’re inherently different “tasks”. How is a dedicated, purpose specific interface not better?
Navigating iTunes has become increasingly more cumbersome as more stuff is added.
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From at least about the 2nd generation iPods have had a calendar and contact viewer.
Should they have been in iTunes?
Do you also still use Netscape navigator so that your email and web browsing is one app? Perhaps you use ClarisWorks and use one giant app for word processing and spreadsheets?
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Given how convoluted iTunes has become with menu upon menu upon tab, I’m not sure that’s even possible.
Music doesn't have anything to do with movies, which is why they are separated within iTunes. Its not like movies, music, etc are all mixed together in one big pile that you have to sort through. They are each in their own category inside the app.
Music has nothing to do with backing up your phone. iTunes backed up the phone and because everything was done in one place.
Won't you have to have the movies app running in order to stream content to AppleTV? How is that any different?
Finding something quickly is incredibly easy. You type it in the search box. You make it seem like all of these items are just in one massive list that you have to sort through. They are separated within the app and organized separately. Now they are going to be in separate locations and I fail to see how that is any better.
Apparently not, since media sharing is now part System Preferences. If true, then I like it - my iTunes server won't need to actually run iTunes to share the library. But there are still a lot of questions about how all of this will work.
How about video playlists? Can they still be shared? The TV app on iOS does not support them with my shared library, but they work on my AppleTV's and with iTunes on my Macs.
Ok I do like that. I never liked iTunes having to be running to stream my movies. Seems like they could have done that without killing the entire app though.
I'm fine with this, but honestly the complaining was unjust - all this is, is the same app split until 3 and removed from the little menu that let you switch between things. I always had it on music so it never bothered me - literally one little tab in the music app is going to be gone now and that's the only difference.
From that answer I can see that you never tried to add any media like movies or audiobooks from other sources than Apple's stores to your iTunes media library.
Guess what happens when you do that. They all get mixed together in one big pile, which is in this case is the music list. So what iTunes does here is essentially running back confusedly to momma.
Manually added media get only sorted into the corresponding categories after you manually edit the metadata, even when the type of media should be clear from the file format.