Apple, iPad, and the Crime that is iTunes

[anjinha]

#1, If I buy a BB King CD, Then I want it in a folder labeled BBKING, ALBUM NAME, ALL SONGS ON CD... Who is silly enough to have multiple files? If it is a BBKing song featuring Eric Claptan, they whose song is it??? I manage my files in a certain order. It is up to the software to index it and let me search easily... BTW, with windows media player does with ease. I point it where I my music is, I plug in a mp3 player and either use a playlist or tell it what songs to sync.

#2 As I DO NO use I tunes to manage my music, I drag and drop my files using different software. I also allow my family to access my music from my network. So, if my brother wants a stone temple pilot, he can search in one place... you know using file management when YOU ARE NOT USING ITUNES... Also, I have multiple computers, I might want to transfer music and other files freely... You do know that you can only us one itunes library right? I can plug in any computer and transfer files. I only put music on my ipod, not the phone or the ipad. Now that I have other apps on my iphone/ipad that allow file management and drag/drop usb I put other files and have broadened the use out of these toys. And give me that arguement that they are not toys people use them in business. Yes they do, we do to... for email?! That is well nothing...

Dude, again, you can tell iTunes to not organize your music and then you can organize it any way you want. Just go to iTunes preferences, select advanced and uncheck the option to "Keep iTunes Media folder organized".

 

[Carouser]

Dude, again, you can tell iTunes to not organize your music and then you can organize it any way you want. Just go to iTunes preferences, select advanced and uncheck the option to "Keep iTunes Media folder organized".

woah woah woah put down the kool aid huh

 

[TheWheelMan]

Man, you people that love it fine... But this is a forum of not only rants, but facts. You fanboys spend too much time sipping apple koolaid and swiming in D-Nile. Some of us are just not chained to itunes. You lilke it, good. It is crap to me and until it changes or apple gives us a REAL IOS device management tool, I will keep as far away as I can... How I wish I could brag about it, but I cant. Believe me, I want to... I reeeeaaaaalllly doooooo...

I think it's hysterical when someone comes here and accuses people who actually know how to use Apple products, iTunes, etc., with no problems whatsoever, as fan boys. Sorta like going to a Justin Beiber concert and accusing all the young girls there of "drinking the Beiber-Aid". It's a Justin Beiber concert. DUH!

This is a Mac forum, dude. DUH! Go to a Mac haters forum if you want the majority of the membership to agree with you. Personally, I'm a PC lover, but I have an iBook, an iPod Touch, and a 1st Gen iPad I just bought, and I've been using iTunes for my music for years with no problem whatsoever. Have found syncing my iPad just as easy as syncing my iPod. In fact I've learned more about what iTunes can do since getting my iPad. It's not perfect, but it's no less perfect than anything else. It does what most need, and does it well if you take time to learn how to use it.

 

[Bartman01]

EDIT: I still don't understand what it is to be 'chained to iTunes'. What is it that iTunes stops me from doing? Manually renaming a few thousand files? That's a problem for people who have too much time or have some pathological compulsion.

Hate repeating myself, but manage a LARGE and diverse music library with something like J River Media Center (Windows only) - then try to use iTunes. iTunes is horrible by comparison. JRMC can handle any file type I throw at it, and can create or store 'invisible' stacked copies of different versions of files or transcode on the fly for compatibility reasons. My master media library is stored losslessly as either FLAC or MKV files (since MKV lets me keep the original video/audio/subtitles/chapters and can store multiple versions of each all in one file).

If you use and love iTunes and it fills 100% of your needs then more power to you - but your response does read like a 'fan boy' one (esp given the 'pathological' comment).

To throw a little reasonableness into the conversation:
If you are a Mac user with a large music library and can make iTunes sit and speak or even go get you a beer on command, I've got good money that says you have some apple scripts or automator processes in your bag of tricks somewhere. Consider now that Windows users don't have any of that plus the software in Windows is slow and buggy and glitchy by comparison to the Mac version (and not because it is running in Windows but because the Windows version is not well optimized).

For the Windows users, we have lots of choices while Mac users are pretty much stuck with iTunes as the 'best' option. Granted, iTunes is a much better program on the Mac and there are tons of 3rd party or roll your own scripts and automator tools to tweak it to your specific needs. But ultimately most Mac users have never used anything that is head and shoulders above what they are used to.

 

[Carouser]

It's one thing to have some specific needs or preferences which iTunes doesn't address; that's fine, then one can use alternative hardware and software. It's quite another thing to say iTunes doesn't do X, Y, and Z when it clearly and easily does all of those things. Furthermore, the whole point of a media manager is that you don't do dumb things like organizing files based on the filename they display in an OS file manager and manually creating and sorting folders. I did that more than a decade ago and good riddance to the practice. If correcting factual errors about what iTunes does makes me sound like a fanboy that problem's not on my end, and I stand by the idea that punching F2 over and over to rename 10,000 files is moronic.

I use iTunes in Windows. It does what it says and what I want it to do. There's a few things I would change if I had the choice but have learned how it works with little trouble. What else is there to say?

 

[Bartman01]

It's one thing to have some specific needs or preferences which iTunes doesn't address; that's fine, then one can use alternative hardware and software. It's quite another thing to say iTunes doesn't do X, Y, and Z when it clearly and easily does all of those things. Furthermore, the whole point of a media manager is that you don't do dumb things like organizing files based on the filename they display in an OS file manager and manually creating and sorting folders. I did that more than a decade ago and good riddance to the practice. If correcting factual errors about what iTunes does makes me sound like a fanboy that problem's not on my end, and I stand by the idea that punching F2 over and over to rename 10,000 files is moronic.

I use iTunes in Windows. It does what it says and what I want it to do. There's a few things I would change if I had the choice but have learned how it works with little trouble. What else is there to say?

I think you are misunderstanding some of the complaints about what it CAN'T do. In many cases it 'can' factually do something - but not the way many of us want or need it to do it and it provides little to no control over how it is going to do it. If it can do it, but not the way I want it done then for me it CAN'T do it. You may not agree with the way I want it done, or have any needs beyond what iTunes allows but that does not invalidate everyones needs that differ from yours.

You imply that the two choices for file management (as an example) are to let iTunes just do it for you or press F2 10,000 times. Using J River again as my example - if I want to rename a bunch of files after I have tagged them, I just let it rename based on tags. It orders them the way I want and in the folder structure that I specify - all in a few simple clicks. If I change my mind about how I want them stored, it is all redone in another couple of clicks. If I need a new tag or database field to help me group and sort my files, I just add one.

And speaking of tags, iTunes provides little to no control of what data actually gets written to tags and stores much of the data in the library file alone. Once you have dutifully rated and tagged all 10K of your songs and then want to use those files outside of the Apple idevice ecosystem you will be shocked at how little of that data is there for you to use.

If you live 100% within the Apple device ecosystem and only use codecs and file formats that Apple supports then iTunes is probably a more than adequate tool.

 

[fizzwinkus]

Hate repeating myself, but manage a LARGE and diverse music library with something like J River Media Center (Windows only) - then try to use iTunes. iTunes is horrible by comparison.

itunes seems to handle my tiny insignificant fanboy library very well.

i only have a 1.8 terabyte itunes library, but then i've meticulously added tags, artwork, rating and lyrics to each and every song. all songs were either ripped from cds or other high quality sources.

the great part is itunes allows me multi-room synced audio as well as video distribution. each hifi system in every room plays seamlessly with every other hifi, with all networked ios devices as remotes (mine and my friend's iphones, ipod touches and ipads can all control it)

but what do i know, i'm just a dumb apple fanboy.

 

[Krevnik]

Design Aside: This is poor design choice #2, and the worst one of the two. Right before Windows installs updates, it creates system restore points. Once the update completes, it doesn't overwrite that same restore point with a new one.

This is a bit backwards. The backup was made before the update was applied. The whole point is to have a backup in the event the update fails for whatever reason. The problem is this: The backup during the update is automatic. You can't turn it off either.

When it wiped out your apps, it also removed the app data (specifically it likely wiped out the data partition on the phone). So the backup as part of the update didn't include the app data. The other problem is that I don't think it keeps more than one backup every X hours. So when you do a backup + update in a short period of time, it 'merged' the backups. Normal backup scenarios don't do this (where backups are usually at least a day apart). An actual update in this case doesn't actually flash the storage partition where user data, app data, music/etc are all stored. It only flashes the OS partition.

Instead of doing an update in this state (when you lose data), the first order of business should be to restore the device. Restoring from a backup will even restore app data for apps that aren't installed on the device. The problem here is that it isn't exactly obvious to users what the difference between Restore (erase + flash OS + restore backup) and Update (backup + flash OS) are, and when to use each when encountering problems.

 

[Carouser]

I think you are misunderstanding some of the complaints about what it CAN'T do. In many cases it 'can' factually do something - but not the way many of us want or need it to do it and it provides little to no control over how it is going to do it. If it can do it, but not the way I want it done then for me it CAN'T do it. You may not agree with the way I want it done, or have any needs beyond what iTunes allows but that does not invalidate everyones needs that differ from yours.

I don't think you understand what I am arguing against. If someone says 'iTunes doesn't do X' and it actually does X then they should be called on it and doing so doesn't make me a 'fanboy'. That's the level of discourse here.

I recognize that people have diverse needs and wants, but when those needs and wants don't match what a product offers that doesn't make the product junk/broken/whatever people have been saying. If the product doesn't work as it purports to, then it's junk/broken/whatever, but that's different.

Also, I didn't imply there were two choices for file management, I said that direct file manipulation without the intermediary of some manager is foolish. To lament that iTunes doesn't allow one to futz with files is (1) wrong and (2) misguided. Why, your praise for J River suggests you agree that some kind of software, rather than endless direct renaming of files like Artist_Song_Track_1_Album_1.mp3, is appropriate for this task. The criticism that iTunes doesn't let you manage things directly is ridiculous - the whole point of it (and other software like J River) is that you don't have to manage the files directly anymore.

 

[jaimeastin]

Bottom line is this, this is an apple board but not all are fanboys. Some of us come here and are on other boards for other devices we own and love. It is so nice for you the fanboys to accouse other people of not knowing how to use something when they complain. On the the other hand, I do not fault you for that. Shoot, in my line of work, it is almost always the the end users fault.

Good that itunes works for most of you, but like Bartman01, some of us use, have used, or actually want iTunes to be better. Until then, it sucks to me... Just this morning I had to sync my ipad to my mac to put a couple of movies on it... Shoot, I have to same files on a flash drive that I carry with me. I just cat get the the office and add the files later... I have to jump through hoops for what "I WANT". Yes, these are files that apple does not support... Yeah, I want more from my device see... You all live in this gated community and view this world as so perfect... You are so happy here that you dont realise there is more and better out there... Stuck in happy jail... But if you like it, good. Fine. Im breaking outta here...

Manageing files my way is not combersome at all. I dont spend all day hand holding, but I do want my files where I want them. If i rip, i want it were I rip... If I move it for whatever reason, I want the interface to pick it up. If I add new files, I want the interface to find it instantly... I dont want to tell itunes, oh yeah... i just put some new files out there and i want you to spend the next hour looking for them.

Find your reasons to justify for me, it wont work.. Me ranting about this sucky software here, does me no good. I will still feel the way I do and you the same. It is a poor way to manage your ios devices, period. I would not use it if it were not for my ios devices. Ive hated it since its inception... It has always been a mess, but then i never had to. Just bought music and left it alone. When other companies provided a means to get music, i ran away on hot coals with no shoes on... Past few years i have had to have it... Darn ipods, iphones, and ipads in my home and office.

I dont want to bash it because it is cool, its not... It does not work for me. My friends I know we all think we have a cool media setup that is so extreme... AHEM, In a slow-dumb voice....:"It works for me, I dont know why I doesn't work for you"... Silly rabbits, I manage my life different that you do. Not right or wrong... Just my way. Funny that i lot of people do it this way too... Music> Artist>Album>Files. One location, shared by many people in home AND OVER THE INTERNET using webdav, ftps, https, vpn, what have you. So, again to my brother, he need to get to the files out side of itunes on the net.. this was for that silly rabbit who questioned drag and drop... And It is not going anywhere... stop trying to justify it not being an option...

Finally I sip apple kook aid with linux ice cubes while sitting in a windows breeze. Why be limited? I will always find ways to make things better... Shoot... I have wasted enough time on this post... I sit in front of computers 10-14 hours a day home and office... Never is games or managing media files... It is work... I work for a very cool company and fill bad for doing this and not working... Dang... Shoot, in fact I will just go have lunce with my apple fanboy friend and my linux fanboy friend and the other who gives crap... Laugh talk rant about them all and have a nice day. You do the same