Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi Discuss Bloated Software Accusations, Upcoming iTunes Plans

[bladerunner2000]

Christ, I (and many others) have been saying iTunes is a bloated mess for almost a DECADE. Why the christ does it take Apple SO LONG to get so many basic things right?!

iTunes in it's current stage should be called 'iMedia' seeing how it handles movies, music, online media purchases, internet radio, etc. Jesus christ. It should be one app for each media type and keep them BASIC.

 

[macmyworld]

Rubbish Apple. iTunes is crapware. Bloated and broken. My favorite skip when shuffling has been broken for a long time. Navigating is brutal.

The new Photos app is equally poor. I actually miss iPhoto.

 

[pgwalsh]

i think a deep look at iTunes is a must. there has to be a better way to use this app.

I agree, but I think the same goes for Photo's. I think they're both less intuitive asI find that I often miss features because I don't know they exist.
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Christ, I (and many others) have been saying iTunes is a bloated mess for almost a DECADE. Why the christ does it take Apple SO LONG to get so many basic things right?!

Because they don't listen to customers. Apple rarely listens unless there's a huge uproar.

 

[Rocketman]

The fact it's called iTunes but

Rename it iContent. Sad thing is if you lose the i you lose the momentum (mo-mo).

 

[jdillings]

Is enabling iCloud Music Library in iTunes still a death wish?

I believe so. I don't think they ever fixed it. Before trying it out, I would make sure you have a recent backup of your music collection. From my experience during the free trial, it completely screwed up my large music collection (changing artwork, replacing explicit songs with censored songs, replacing studio versions of songs with live versions, replacing single versions of songs with album versions, etc). Thankfully I had a backup.

I wish they would have an option that you could check that says "Leave my music alone" and I'd actually subscribe to Apple Music because I loved the Beats playlists for music discovery.

 

[rdlink]

I think iTunes has hit the size of what it does that it should be split back out into multiple Applications

iPod - your own music library
Music - Streaming music service
iRadio - The streaming radio
etc, depending on functionality

Also: start working on web applications for a few of these, like radio / music.

And finally fix the ridiculously large gaping memory leak hole that has existed in iTunes for what feels like a decade already.

I'm not sure I would like that. Right now I have my music, streaming music and radio stations in one place, and I like just being able to go to one app to open it. Having to remember, find and keep dock icons for three or four different apps for music would be irritating to me. Personally, i find iTunes quite snappy enough for my needs, and pretty easy to use.

Full disclosure: I haven't synched an iDevice to iTunes for years.

 

[Quu]

In my opinion iTunes should be just about music. It's time they moved all the other stuff out of it. Video, Apps, Device Syncing, Podcasts, Books, Ringtones and whatever else is in it that has nothing to do with Music.

The application is called iTunes, not iDoEverything. I've been using iTunes since 2004 (!!) and I used to absolutely love it. Now? not so much. The interface is so overly cluttered I find it a real headache to move from my main library view to my playlists and back. The application is full of interface inconsistencies and I really wish they would just redo the whole thing and axe all this extra fluff that should be in their own apps.

 

[KALLT]

I couldn't agree more. The decline in quality of Apple's software in the past 3 years has been Palpable, to the point where I'm embarrassed to show Apple software to my friends. Seems like a hall mark of the new Apple - let's paper over with new features, but not protect or test the core functionality. Even simple window UI operations frequently fail. It goes without saying that most of the time Apple has layered a new UI on top of the old one, they largely break the old one, because secretly, they've deprecated the old one and probably don't even test it. I think Apple need to add teams of software guys that do nothing but keep quality testing the OLDER UIs on OLDER hardware and tell the new guys when they broke something.

I now think of Apple a lot like Microsoft in the sense of they write bloated, buggy software that isn't tested well and they just don't care. Where there's still a difference is that if something doesn't work on Microsoft software, you're simply screwed, but Apple tech support will spend 3 weeks with you until you at least have a work around.

But I think Steve Jobs would have brought the living hell down on these guys and fired them all. I've been using Macs since 2007, and it's REALLY obvious how bad the apps have gotten.

It is interesting when you listen to the podcast, at around 25:00. They really sound like politicians. What was a pleasant podcast until that point became uncomfortable as soon as this topic came up. Suddenly they divert and talk about other things, create straw men and even outright reject what Gruber said or implied without even given reasons. They just never deal with the criticism outright. It is so unfortunate that, once again, Gruber fails to address the issue with concrete examples. You can hear that he just does not dare to do this.

This is so different from the interviews you see on YouTube where Jobs responded to direct criticism. This is what it missing at Apple, the public scrutiny and the opportunity to ask some uncomfortable questions.

 

[pat500000]

Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi spoke with John Gruber in this week's episode of "The Talk Show," where they commented on recent opinions that Apple's software isn't up to snuff and offered some details on a new version of iTunes coming in OS X 10.11.4.

Last week, Re/code's Walt Mossberg wrote a piece entitled "Apple's Apps Need Work," pointing towards a "gradual degradation" in quality in several Apple apps and services like iCloud, Mail, and Photos. iTunes for the desktop was one of the most heavily criticized apps, with Mossberg saying he "dreads" opening it because it's "bloated, complex, and sluggish."

During the podcast, Gruber asked Eddy Cue about Mossberg's opinion, prompting him to give some background on how Apple wanted the iTunes experience to work. iTunes, Cue said, was designed at a time when people synced their devices via cable, so offering a centralized place with all of a user's content was key. With Apple Music, Apple decided on a design that would put music front and center while also integrating cloud music with hard copies purchased through iTunes.

​

"We decided in the short term that what we wanted to do is really make it when you're in music and iTunes, all you see is music," said Cue. He went on to explain that Apple is continually re-evaluating iTunes, and there are plans to release a refreshed version alongside OS X 10.11.4 next month.Cue and Federighi went on to talk about the issues that arise whenever Apple makes major changes to software, as there are always people who prefer not to see significant changes. According to Federighi, there's a "tricky balancing act" with software updates.The two also highlighted the immense scale that Apple is working on, with more than 1 billion active devices and 782 million iCloud users. More than 200,000 iMessages per second are sent at peak times, and there are more than 750 million transactions per week in the iTunes Store and the App Store. Apple Music has grown to 11 million subscribers and more than 2.5 million errors in Maps have been fixed, a number presented as evidence that Apple is continually working on its software.

"I would say first there's nothing we care about more," said Federighi, speaking on Apple's software and services. He believes Apple's core software quality has improved significantly over the course of the last five years, but pointed towards an ever-raising bar that pushes Apple to keep evolving and implementing new features. "Every year we realize the things we were good at last year and the techniques we were using to build the best software we can are not adequate for the next year because the bar keeps going up," he said.

Federighi and Cue's full discussion with John Gruber about the state of software, the desktop version of iTunes, and Apple's efforts to expand its public beta program, can be listed to over on the Daring Fireball website.

Article Link: Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi Discuss Bloated Software Accusations, Upcoming iTunes Plans

APPLE...you should continually re-evaluating your itunes before releasing it. As matter of matter..don't release it until everyone on this planet gives you a green light.

Hey APPLE, what were you guys good at? I seriously hope you meant "JK." What sort of techniques were you using to bring this abused OSX? You can't can handle your own low quality creation of OSX? What happened to Jon, the slim creator?

 

[Michael Scrip]

Over 500 movies, over 50 TV shows (7 TB).
But I consider anything over 200 GB a large library for iTunes.

While the size of the audio and video files themselves total hundreds of gigabytes or even terabytes... the database is actually a much smaller file.

I never understood why iTunes chokes on a large library. Isn't it just an XML file or something?

 

[darkknight14]

I don't know. The newest versions of the iTunes have been horrible. Personally, I miss the older older UI

Agreed! Lets get back to basics with the sidebar, simply switch between music, movie, podcast collections with ease - the digital stores themselves need work to.

I am interested to see the improvements the guys were talking about! I still believe Apple will get it right in the end.

 

[firewood]

I think Apple need to add teams of software guys that do nothing but keep quality testing the OLDER UIs on OLDER hardware and tell the new guys when they broke something...

Steve Jobs is reported to have said the opposite: Apple should not be tied to its legacy software, but instead ignore the past in order to move more decisively into some future vision. The Mac was incompatible with the Apple II cash cow, 68k support was dumped, PPC support was dumped, Carbon support was dumped, armv6 iOS device support was dumped. And etc. No QA for that older hardware or UIs.

 

[BillyMatt87]

So I am listening to Lady Gaga.... And I go. OH I want to listen to Poker Face, and if I don't own that song I have to switch apps to listen to it? And then I go... Cool! Now I want to listen to a radio station of songs like this. And I need to swift to yet aNOTHER app?!

No. Just no. All music, in one place. Take out the videos, pictures, apps and sync tools etc.

But why would you have 3+ apps that all involve listening to music?

Maybe you are a Facebook engineer. And you headed the Facebook messenger app. And now you are building a Facebook timeline app. And a Facebook status app.

Clean design can do LOTS of things. Look at say... Logic. Or Photoshop. Each of those do near EVERYTHING there is to do with audio files or pictures in one app.

Well some of us want a music app like before: a beautiful and elegant iPod player, not some bloatware that tries to coerce you into subscribing to a streaming service. I miss the days when the iPhone and iPad could properly function like an iPod.
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Steve Jobs is reported to have said the opposite: Apple should not be tied to its legacy software, but instead ignore the past in order to move more decisively into some future vision. The Mac was incompatible with the Apple II cash cow, 68k support was dumped, PPC support was dumped, Carbon support was dumped, armv6 iOS device support was dumped. And etc. No QA for that older hardware or UIs.

Well I'm sick of IveOS, I want a proper and professional redesign!

 

[John Mcgregor]

Rubbish Apple. iTunes is crapware. Bloated and broken. My favorite skip when shuffling has been broken for a long time. Navigating is brutal.

The new Photos app is equally poor. I actually miss iPhoto.

Bloated is not an argument.

 

[caliban10]

This was just a PR exercise because the noise about apple's quality decline was getting louder. Depressing.

 

[carrrrrlos]

Spotify for the win!

 

[routine_analyst]

I think iTunes has hit the size of what it does that it should be split back out into multiple Applications

iPod - your own music library
Music - Streaming music service
iRadio - The streaming radio
etc, depending on functionality

Also: start working on web applications for a few of these, like radio / music.

And finally fix the ridiculously large gaping memory leak hole that has existed in iTunes for what feels like a decade already.

You'd call your music library a term that is becoming obsolete and break up radio and music? That makes no sense. Music is music, regardless of source. Problem is just the organization.

In addition to these 3 items... the application syncs and manages apps on your iDevices, your Movies library and store, your TV purchases and store, etc. These are the services that shouldn't be in iTunes and bloat the application.

Music
Video
Apps

Those are the 3 apps they should break out into, not "iPod" "Music" "iRadio".............

 

[verniesgarden]

They really should separate it into 2-3 apps:

1. Music Storage
2. Music Streaming
3. Music Store

Why in god would you want that?

 

[routine_analyst]

I think that would be too extreme, that's all music functionality and should be in one App in my opinion. I would split like so:

iTunes - All Apple's music-related functionality, with a store, streaming etc.
Video - As above, but for video like movies, TV Show's etc.
iOS Manager - Sync & Update iOS devices. Plugs into the above apps to fetch playlists & content.

Exactly. Music, Video, Apps.

 

[Dustman]

If we could go back to this and just add an apple music tab that'd be great.

 

[Kobayagi]

I know Apple's OSX hasn't been bug free and it's annoying. But honestly, iTunes is working really great for me since I got my first MacBook in 2011. Never had one issue with it. Just as a reference, I'm on Yosemite with iTunes 12.3.2.35
The only change I didn't like in this version is the minimal visual change in albums, they put them closer together. Not sure why it needed to be so, now it looks a bit crowded. But it's just a small, visual thing. The software it self just works great.

 

[sshambles]

iTunes needs a major overhaul before things are close to useable.

I've personally switched to Swinsian to house all my music and organise it.

iTunes now is just for iPhone and iPod storage for my devices to put music on - though Apple Music is doing a great job of destroying that idea for iPhone. I swear I need internet or cellular coverage to access the music that I put PERMANENTLY on the iPhone. AM is more of a problem for me than iTunes, but the most recent iTunes bug (continuous spinning beach ball for 30secs after editing or adding new music) tipped me over the edge in that dept.

 

[bob24]

I think iTunes has hit the size of what it does that it should be split back out into multiple Applications

iPod - your own music library
Music - Streaming music service
iRadio - The streaming radio
etc, depending on functionality

I personally do not agree with this at all. The main reason I am using Apple Music is that it is the only service which seamlessly integrates my iTunes purchased music, ripped CDs, and favourite streaming albums in the same library.

There are still many things I listen to which are not available for streaming and having them in a separate place is a pain.

I also think it would be bad marketing strategy for them. If they were making streaming completely separate, I would probably switch to another service like better (and I don't think they'd have 11 million subscribers). As it is I find it a shame not to move to that other service, but I have no intention of doing so because this is what I had before Apple Music and I was really not liking to have 2 separate music libraries spending on whether it is rented or purchased.

 

[SSDGUY]

"We decided in the short term that what we wanted to do is really make it when you're in music and iTunes, all you see is music…"

Hmm … all I ever see in iTunes is the music that is not currently playing, then trying to remember how to get the music that is playing. iTunes has become the most unintuitive music app out there. Nowadays I tend to play my local music library via the Spotify app.

 

[McScooby]

I couldn't give a toss about the cloud services, I haven't signed up to music, all mine is local & a huge library it is.
I'd just be happy if they could sort out home sharing with iOS devices, it's fine on TV, but sucks like for long time major on iPhone, bit of a thing in common with mail! I tried to sync it last night on the iPhone & whilst it shouldn't take up space, it sucked up 10GB & counting, & never got past halfway, i.e. doesn't work, & the other I've been asking for since day one is an option to create a playlist out of every album to make it easier to sync with phone, I shouldn't have to resort to attempting to use a 3rd party app or spend countless hours on such a mundane thing. & for the ability for iTunes to search the comments field when doing a search, the Metadata's there as Steve showed off when demoing Spotlight for the 1st time! As for the critics saying they're not updating as they've lost iTunes DJ, how exactly is this any different from up next, you still get to change the order, do genius & drop stuff in?!