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Works fine for me buddy and I don't see the Internet clogged with iTunes issues. They change it, learn it

Well, you have to look to see. Since you've spent so much time trying to learn how a silly music app works, you may have missed it.

And for the record, Apple has made its name on making software that doesn't require a lot of effort to learn. That's WHY they exist. They would not have survived the 1990s if it weren't for this. So, when they take a simple program that works great (large database lag notwithstanding) and make it stupid, they aren't acting like Apple. It's a mistake on their part. They should basically trash v12 and prob even v11 and go back.

My audio system has Airplay built in. I find it easier now to pull out my phone to stream music than to use the Mac, because iTunes on the phone is still set up great. So, what does that say?

Buddy.

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Alien over Christmas (both festive family favourites...)
Now, that's a term I've not heard to describe that movie. :D
 
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Google is your friend.

Thats a lame comment. I can Google anything in Windows, OSX, cars, washing machines to view problems, problems exist everywhere for everything. But in the forums I frequent, am I bombarded with iTunes issues? No.

Aside from the odd genuine bug, its a user issue.
 
Now, that's a term I've not heard to describe that movie. :D

I may have been slightly facetious there...

... it really is a ball-ache. If I could only iron-out this audio-sync misery, I could actually get some movie-watching done - as it stands, I spend what little spare time I have faffing about with iTunes and all of its flaky crap, trying to stabilise it. Just as the OP puts it, I'm close to giving-up.
 
Thats a lame comment. I can Google anything in Windows, OSX, cars, washing machines to view problems, problems exist everywhere for everything. But in the forums I frequent, am I bombarded with iTunes issues? No.

Aside from the odd genuine bug, its a user issue.


Have you read your own post?
Illogical to an absurd extent: "You can Google anything", but that does not count because "problems exist everywhere for everything".


But the Fora you visit....
I guess you don't deny that you frequent this particular Forum. Though I have to admit I could not find any threads where you were specifically bombarded with iTunes issues, but there are plenty of threads with different iTunes problems:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1841179/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1843093/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1786762/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1842292/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1834172/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1745423/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1814583/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1828225/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1826482/
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1824970/

etc. etc.
 
I feel the same way. It's been going downhill for a while now... I think it started around 10 or 11. 12 is a whole new level of unusable, which really sucks for me because I'm fully invested in the Apple ecosystem.

There have always been haters, but I've been using it for 10 years and actually thought iTunes was great in the early days, and "good enough" up until a couple years ago. The new UI is just horrendous... I literally have to google how to do simple things like playlists... and then I forget and have to google it again. It's completely unintuitive, they've hidden some of the most basic elements of the UI.... arrghh... now you've got me started... :mad:

I'm open to hearing the alternatives. I already switched to Downcast for podcasts, and while not perfect, it's mostly been a relief. I've looked at some of the music alternatives, but having a difficult time finding seamless integration with both my Macs and iPhone/iPad. And I use an ATV3 for all my tv watching.

/rant

I fully agree. itunes is such a bloated mess that I would really like for it to be split into several different apps and rewritten from the ground up. and I agree that the itunes 12 UI is really horrible. I've been using it extensively since it came out and I thought I'd get used to it but I still hate it. it's very confusing and many tasks require too many clicks. some stuff is accessed on the right, some on the left, some at the top and some in the menu bar and it's hard to remember what's where. there is no rhyme nor reason to many decisions either. for example, home videos have their own tab at the top after you switch to movies but music videos don't. to get to them I have to go to music then to playlists (why?!) and only then scroll up and find them in the sidebar. How does this make sense?

and yeh, playlist management is terrible for anyone with a large media library. It makes me think that people who designed it only targeted it for people with very small music/video libraries and just a few playlists and never considered how it scales up.

but as you I feel stuck with itunes because of iphone/ipad/atv integration.
 
Well, you have to look to see.

Done that, not much to see apart from whiners cos the UI changes. In fact, what i do see is no detail, just whining. The Ui is what it is its not a bug or an issue, get used to it

Since you've spent so much time trying to learn how a silly music app works, you may have missed it.

I havent actually spent much time learning it, didnt need to, as I lerant what I needed to know, without whining about UI changes. And its not a music app, its a content app, inclusive of backup, sync and app management




And for the record, Apple has made its name on making software that doesn't require a lot of effort to learn. That's WHY they exist. They would not have survived the 1990s if it weren't for this. So, when they take a simple program that works great (large database lag notwithstanding) and make it stupid, they aren't acting like Apple. It's a mistake on their part. They should basically trash v12 and prob even v11 and go back.

Can you go back to an old version? If so try that if 12 is a bit hard. Also you can get iTunes alternatives, I assume you can get them on OSX, you can on Windows. They look the same as well, albeit probably simpler to use




My audio system has Airplay built in. I find it easier now to pull out my phone to stream music than to use the Mac, because iTunes on the phone is still set up great. So, what does that say?

iTunes on the phone is for contents purchases, or do you mean the Music app?? Play in whichever way works for you. I can airplay easy, outside I use a UE Boom BT speaker, they are all easy, and iTunes is quite easy to use once you learn what you are having trouble with, and once you ignore the fact that the UI changes from time to time.

Buddy.

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Now, that's a term I've not heard to describe that movie. :D

.

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but as you I feel stuck with itunes because of iphone/ipad/atv integration.

In Windows you can get many iTunes alternatives, I assume as well in OSX
 
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In Windows you can get many iTunes alternatives, I assume as well in OSX
not when it comes to ipad/iphone/atv integration. for ipad and iphone it's pretty much itunes only if you want itunes match. for atv you can jailbreak but I don't like doing that.
 
Done that, not much to see apart from whiners cos the UI changes. In fact, what i do see is no detail, just whining. The Ui is what it is its not a bug or an issue, get used to it
I gave you detail. Are you denying it was "detail", or do you claim the word means something different than I think?

Why do they allow children in this forum?
 
I gave you detail. Are you denying it was "detail", or do you claim the word means something different than I think?

Are these bugs that everything doesnt work or work properly? Everyone has this issue, everyone? Everyone?

Why do they allow children in this forum?

We agree 100%

.
 
Have iTunes running on 2 separate computers in the house (a music server and a movie server). Have no issues, and the problems you guys have listed all have work arounds or just quarks you need to learn about.

I love it and swear by it. Have used it for 10+ years. Could it be worse? Yes, it could become one of the 1000's of other media organizers out there that do not provide even half of the functionality that iTunes does.

Please show me a organizer that exceeds iTunes in capability. Not just on one aspect, but on all accounts. :apple:

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In Windows you can get many iTunes alternatives, I assume as well in OSX

Programs like Foobar2000 are not alternatives.
 
Have iTunes running on 2 separate computers in the house (a music server and a movie server). Have no issues, and the problems you guys have listed all have work arounds or just quarks you need to learn about.

I love it and swear by it. Have used it for 10+ years. Could it be worse? Yes, it could become one of the 1000's of other media organizers out there that do not provide even half of the functionality that iTunes does.

Please show me a organizer that exceeds iTunes in capability. Not just on one aspect, but on all accounts. :apple:



Lol. You set up a challenge designed for failure. Regardless of the response you'll be able to cherry pick something iTunes excels at.

Regardless that is besides the point. Pointing out how much other things suck is merely slide of hand. There is no reason someone can't take the positives from ALL other apps and compare them to iTunes because Apple is capable of integrating them all (with in reason).

Personally I don't have a problem with iTunes however thats because I know what it is. Its an Apple storefront in the convenience of your home designed specifically to make money even at the expense of the user experience.

Anyone that has ever been really serious about music and movies (quality) will at least question the file formats iTunes supports. But alas higher quality file formats will only be supported when Apple sells them and more importantly can lock them down (which I don't have an issue with just illustrating a point).
 
...slide of hand...

Sleight of hand...

There is no reason someone can't take the positives from ALL other apps and compare them to iTunes because Apple is capable of integrating them all (with in reason).

This is an asinine statement, the mere existence or omission of features is what causes favoritism in media apps in the first place, you couldn't put them all together because half of them would conflict and the other half would run your resource usage into the clouds.

Personally I don't have a problem with iTunes however thats because I know what it is. Its an Apple storefront in the convenience of your home designed specifically to make money even at the expense of the user experience.

You must use iTunes in a very interesting way, in the way that I use iTunes I am not exposed to any sales or ads in my usage unless I specifically navigate to them. Just a collection of music, apps, a couple of movies and my synced mobile devices easily navigable without excess crap.

Anyone that has ever been really serious about music and movies (quality) will at least question the file formats iTunes supports. But alas higher quality file formats will only be supported when Apple sells them and more importantly can lock them down (which I don't have an issue with just illustrating a point).

This is complete speculation, ALAC is an free to use license (that means anyone has access to the source and can implement it in their own software free of charge) that is practically identical to FLAC in lossless compression, AIFF is exactly comparable to WAVE and both are supported in iTunes. AAC, MP3 are natively support, Ogg Vorbis is a simple extension away. What more could you want? Extensions for OS X will allow you to do just about anything in the environment you could possible want.

I personally don't have a single issue with iTunes, it keeps my music organized how I like in a simple interface and allows me to keep an easily duplicated and backed up consolidated media location on an external disk. Granted I don't often use it for videos and movies but that's only because I prefer those on separate non indexed volumes in the first place.
 
I see I am among kindred spirits.
Yes, iTunes does suck. Each version since about 10 has progressively deteriorated.
User interface has become counter intuitive, functions that were obvious are now hidden (smart playlists, column view)and bugs appear throughout the app.

Its hard to believe that Apple's old mantra was "It just works".
In these days, it does not.
 
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Ugh that makes it a real pain for me to respond when not separating into different quotes.

Sleight of hand was a typo and enviably autocorrected.

I'll try to cover everything all at once as it runs together. I said taking the positive aspects of a lot of programs "within reason". Obviously its not within reason to add or remove features that cause conflicts.

You mention by doing so it would become a resource hog when that is what many people are complaining about in this thread. Even its storage requirements without any media is around 400mb......for an organizer and relatively limited player?

This is kind of where it comes together. Most of the 400 mb is the store functionality. I'm not saying iTunes bombards you with ads or forces you to navigate the store. What I'm saying is iTunes IS a store, it just also plays music and videos.

Btw just to point out under every album, TV show, movie or any media there is a "more from the store" button next to the artist. The store is always a click away too. Its rather discreet but regardless of what you are doing in iTunes the store is always a click away. Thats kind of irrelevant but since you brought it up.

Everything to do with iTunes is a well thought out way to make money. Its not a conspiracy I'm coming up with or anything like that its just the nature of their business.

As far as file support. I guess we'll just need to agree to disagree.



I personally don't have a single issue with iTunes, it keeps my music organized how I like in a simple interface and allows me to keep an easily duplicated and backed up consolidated media location on an external disk. Granted I don't often use it for videos and movies but that's only because I prefer those on separate non indexed volumes in the first place.


Ok, I have to ask. Why do you prefer non indexed volumes when it comes to movies and videos vs just using iTunes?
 
a bit harsh - is there something better?

I'll admit i don't love the current interface. However I'm not aware of another program that does everything it does. And for me it just works, works well, and across every single one of my devices - MacBook Pro, Home Built PC, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV. I store all of my music in iTunes Match and I can play it anywhere. I don't rip DVDs into it so i can speak on that experience, which seems like where a lot of the issues are that people are talking about.

It does sometimes feel sluggish on my PC, and i would love some Apple dust to be sprinkled on the interface because it feels akward to me.

I'm sure there are individual bits of software that perform certain features better, but none that I know of that does it all as well in one package.
Overall tho its the best thing out there for me and what i want to do.
 
Personally I don't have a problem with iTunes however thats because I know what it is. Its an Apple storefront in the convenience of your home designed specifically to make money even at the expense of the user experience.

Anyone that has ever been really serious about music and movies (quality) will at least question the file formats iTunes supports. But alas higher quality file formats will only be supported when Apple sells them and more importantly can lock them down (which I don't have an issue with just illustrating a point).

You do not need to pay any money to use iTunes. It is convenient to use the store, but certainly not needed in any capacity. I have over 1000 movies in my library and only 3 or 4 were purchased, and that was because they either are not available in physical format (independent films) or iTunes offered a higher resolution then what was available in physical format (1080p vs DVD release).

I refused to buy anything from Apple when they had their DRM on songs and the quality was low (years ago), yet it did not stop me from fully enjoying iTunes with my personal collection.

Podcasts are free.

The "quality is terrible" thing is completely subjective. You saying that 320Kbps M4A (or even lossless) is inferior or that a 1080p MP4 @ 18Mbps with 640Kbps AC-3 is inferior is no more valid then me saying that you have fallen for snake oil.

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My biggest gripe is that many people will complain about iTunes and say it sucks, yet no one has ever offered an alternative that surpasses iTunes in functionality.

That's great that some other app does 1 or 2 aspects better, but how does that help me with all the other stuff iTunes does?

I can't replace iTunes and keep the functionality.
 
My biggest gripe is that many people will complain about iTunes and say it sucks, yet no one has ever offered an alternative that surpasses iTunes in functionality.
That's because there isn't one. That doesn't mean iTunes sucks any less though.

This is one of those cases where Apple has a practical monopoly on this software. I've tried several music player alternatives on OS X, and they either are extremely niche (i.e. filling a void left by iTunes, e.g. FLAC), and/or they seem like under-developed/beta software. There's just no money to be made in spending big bucks developing an OS X music player when iTunes comes free with every Mac.

It's not just iTunes though. Unfortunately, the entire trend of software these days is to obfuscate the UX. And I'm not by any means an iOS 7 hater or a Yosemite hater - I actually like the flatter, simpler visual aesthetic. But it's gone so far overboard in hiding buttons and draining everything of visual cues, that it makes simple things really difficult. I spend half my time moving my cursor around the screen waiting for invisible buttons to reappear. It's really freaking nuts. Software UX in general reached its usability apex around the mid-2000s... and it's been downhill ever since. And there's no good reason for it. UX has become like fashion - the focus is no longer changing things to make them "better", but changing things to make them "different". And that really sucks for software, and it really sucks for users.

p.s. too many people in this thread have gotten stuck on the OP's rant about adding a movie to iTunes... it was an unfortunate example that I knew most wouldn't relate to, but it was just *one* example of a couple of dozen areas where you can end up very frustrated with iTunes. It's not like you can "fix" that one example and now iTunes no longer sucks.
 
That's because there isn't one. That doesn't mean iTunes sucks any less though.

This is one of those cases where Apple has a practical monopoly on this software. I've tried several music player alternatives on OS X, and they either are extremely niche (i.e. filling a void left by iTunes, e.g. FLAC), and/or they seem like under-developed/beta software. There's just no money to be made in spending big bucks developing an OS X music player when iTunes comes free with every Mac.

It's not just iTunes though. Unfortunately, the entire trend of software these days is to obfuscate the UX. And I'm not by any means an iOS 7 hater or a Yosemite hater - I actually like the flatter, simpler visual aesthetic. But it's gone so far overboard in hiding buttons and draining everything of visual cues, that it makes simple things really difficult. I spend half my time moving my cursor around the screen waiting for invisible buttons to reappear. It's really freaking nuts. Software UX in general reached its usability apex around the mid-2000s... and it's been downhill ever since. And there's no good reason for it. UX has become like fashion - the focus is no longer changing things to make them "better", but changing things to make them "different". And that really sucks for software, and it really sucks for users.

p.s. too many people in this thread have gotten stuck on the OP's rant about adding a movie to iTunes... it was an unfortunate example that I knew most wouldn't relate to, but it was just *one* example of a couple of dozen areas where you can end up very frustrated with iTunes. It's not like you can "fix" that one example and now iTunes no longer sucks.

I did a Google for iTunes alternatives and a lot of useful looking results.

Can you give me some examples, just 4 or 5, of the invisible buttons reappearing?
 
Its not just iTunes, it is OSx and iOS and apple whole interface design since Steve Jobs death and Jonny Ive took over the direction of the "look" of the systems and hardware.

What we are getting now is Johnnies vision of apple, a sterile plastic-y flat, uninspired look, instead of the Steve Jobs warm , usable, instinctive and intuitive to use look and feel.

We have gone from "It Just Works" to "Your Using it Wrong" as the Apple motto
 
Its not just iTunes, it is OSx and iOS and apple whole interface design since Steve Jobs death and Jonny Ive took over the direction of the "look" of the systems and hardware.

Yes, the look has changed,but how much has it changed?? All that has changed is the flatness regime. That is NOT an interface design change, everything else, EVERYTHING ELSE is in the same place.

What we are getting now is Johnnies vision of apple, a sterile plastic-y flat, uninspired look, instead of the Steve Jobs warm , usable, instinctive and intuitive to use look and feel.

How is skeuomorphic more useable? Instinctive? Intuitive?, geez, its JUST an icon for god's sake. Yes the old ones looked cool as they were detailed and cool, but its JUST an icon

We have gone from "It Just Works" to "Your Using it Wrong" as the Apple motto

So the icons go flat, how can I use it wrong or it not just work, when I am still touching the app icon?
 
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I did a Google for iTunes alternatives and a lot of useful looking results.
And... what?... you want a cookie? ;)
Can you give me some examples, just 4 or 5, of the invisible buttons reappearing?
It’s not like I keep a list or anything, but okay, here’s a random sampling…

  1. OS X - scroll bars.
  2. iTunes - Put cursor over Apple logo to see button to switch to mini-player or see what’s up next in cue.
  3. Contacts - to open an address into Apple Maps.
  4. Safari - to close a tab.
  5. Windows 8 - Charms Bar. This is in the hall of fame of UX clusterfcks (W8.1 brought some of the sanity back).
The thing is, it’s so prevalent now that this has just become the new “normal”. It’s all over the place in subtle and various ways.

Sometimes it’s the opposite of trying to find an invisible button. I often use Parallels in full-screen mode, and the Windows software I use has the infamous Ribbon (another flawed UX concept), and every time I go up to the left-hand corner to click the Application icon to open a file, the Parallels “Exit Full Screen” hot corner activates, instantly captures my mouse click, exits full screen mode, and dumps me back into a “Window” mode. It’s just idiotic design.

We have gone from "It Just Works" to "Your Using it Wrong" as the Apple motto
Spot on!
 
Be careful what you say/ask for. Yes, it could actually be worse.

BTW, the reason iTunes is the way it is, it's the all-in-one syncing/drm/developer connection/movie showing/app buying/app installing/money making frankenstein.
 
I find it easier now to pull out my phone to stream music than to use the Mac, because iTunes on the phone is still set up great. So, what does that say?

The Music app on iOS is terrible. Just barely usable with a large-sized music library, especially if you're also into classical music, or like to browse by composer or use playlists to organize and view your library! It wishes it was as useful as iTunes. :confused: I don't get all this complaining about iTunes on the Mac when Apple appears to be doing absolutely nothing about the lack of capabilities of its iOS counterpart. Why isn't there already an 'Up Next' list on the iPhone?! It's been how long since iTunes DJ was introduced on the Mac?

edit: http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/articles/comments/using-party-shuffle-in-itunes/
 
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