bankshot said:I've said this many times before, but it always bears repeating...
This is really starting tp p*** me off. I browsed the new iTunes pages at apple.com and still found no mention of gapless playback. Apple doesn't freaking care. It's pathetic. This is a feature that should have been in iTunes 2 at the latest so that those of us who really care about our music can enjoy albums without jarring gaps of silence between tracks. Now we have iTunes 5, and presumably it still isn't there.
What about when you said the Apple employees working on iTunes/iPod were all music lovers, Steve? Sounds like a lie to me. Nothing but empty hype. People who really care about music would not stand for such shoddy playback.
We all love to trumpet the fact that Apple is the company that pays attention to detail. I call BS in this case. This is one detail that's been glaringly neglected time and time again. Surely one Apple engineer realizes this is a problem and would like to fix it? It's not that difficult - numerous solutions exist. If Winamp can do it, why not iTunes? And don't get me started on iPod...
I'll go ahead and give it a try (nothing keeping me on 4.9), but I have zero hope that it was added and simply not mentioned. Apple does not always pay attention to detail - in the case of their music products they seem to only pay attention to what's hip or cool. I'm getting sick of it.
If any competitor's product even approached the ease of use and integration between iTunes and iPod, I'd jump ship in a second and replace my stolen iPod with something else. As it is, I keep waiting for the new generation of iPod that won't mangle my favorite albums. Seems it won't happen any time soon.
And before anyone replies, the following are not acceptable solutions:
- Cross-fading
- Ripping a whole CD as one big track
If a 20-year-old CD player can play without gaps and skip tracks, I want my state of the art jukebox software and device to do it too. Is that really too much to ask?
Unfortunately the masses don't care (they just want to shuffle), so Apple's ears are (tone) deaf to this request. What about the details, Apple?
</rant>
There, that felt good.
But if you did care about music as much as some of us you would rip the album into one track and also have it seperated as multiple tracks also. All of my Eno, Vangelis, Miles, Boards of Canada, Classical, Floyd, Radiohead, Tortoise, Aphex Twin, etc. are done like this. B/C I care enough about music to give myself multiple choices. This IS a solution to the problem. I try not to rely on others to solve my problems.
And if you REALLY care about music iTunes and the iPod are not your best means to listen to it anyway........you need to go high end with all your equipment. That means full quality cd's with a high end stereo system and a top of the line amplifier into some awesome headphones and speakers.
Gapless playback would be a great bonus, but it's not a necessity.
