Who here HATES iTunes and thinks it's a bloated, buggy, overly complicated, slow POS?

[sammich]

I love my iTunes. I don't use any of the artwork views, and it's always visible on my 2nd screen. I never notice it impacting on the performance on my other programs, I play games with iTunes in the background. This is iTunes for OS X. Over 6500 songs and videos in my library.

Granted I don't like how iTunes isn't multithreaded (ie when you plug in your iDevice to sync), but it's hardly the demon that everyone seems to experience.

And this is on a Late 2006 MBP, if it doesn't suck on my machine, there's something else wrong and not iTunes.

 

[McGiord]

I concur that iTunes is not the best Apple software, even many people disagree and it is considered to be one of the apps widely installed in Windows.
Anyway, it is slow, specially to sync iPhones. All the diagnostics stuff that apple by default collects makes it slower. With the latest updates it is supposed to be faster, some MR members have posted about it indicating a speed improvement.
The iTunes store is what I do really consider to be the slowest of the pack.
And besides the iTunes jail, why can't we delete on the iPhone/iPods the videos or music that we no longer want. I travel away from my Mac and many times I am stuck with my iPhone full of videos that I watched and need to recover space to but new ones in, I would like to know how to do this without neeeding my Mac. Why can't we do that? I hope that I'm wrong and that in iOS4 there is something to do it, or if there is an app for that?
[EDIT]
To delete iPod content without connecting to iTunes, in iPhone OS 3.1.3, just swipe with your finger over the item in the iPod app, and it will show a red delete button, so to delete things it is fine, and you can get free space to get new content from the iTunes store or wherever you get things into your iPhone.

I still wonder if there is an approved App to manage without iTunes. When we don't have our iTunes library with us we need a way to get items in the iPhone. There has to be a way out there?

 

[grahamnp]

Functionally, I like iTunes but it really needs a complete overhaul.

 

[bartzilla]

So don't use it!

It works perfectly fine for me. Zero problems on a decent-sized library.

How big is that "decent-sized library"? iTunes chugs a good bit for me with a 140Gb music library. You might say "I'm not surprised with a library that size" but that does point to a system that gets slower the more you use it.

Functionality wise, I do like it. I find a lot of Windows users I speak to have problems you don't see if you're a Mac user, because Windows users are used used to doing things in different ways and iTunes does expect you to do things its way. Once you learn to go with that flow then I think it's quite good in terms of functionality. Whether you should have to work that way is another question. It could stand to be a bit more flexible.

I do also wonder if, functionality wise, it's becoming a bit bloated as a centre for media management AND device Syncing, whether things would work better if those functions were split somewhat.

 

[Kieranic]

Why can't we just drag and drop music and videos directly onto our phone like we can with just about every other media player?

...I do that with my iPod. I love iTunes, I can't live without my music. I find it brilliant on the Mac, it is slower on Windows but meh.
I hate the idea of syncing music. There's music I love in my library, but don't want on my iPod.

 

[Porco]

I'm playing an MP3 and downloading 4 files in iTunes right now, it's using about 10% of 1 CPU and about 115MB of RAM on a dual 2.5Ghz G5 PowerMac with 5.5GB of RAM.

I don't understand why people have such a bad experience with it. Enable 'Manually manage music and videos' and there really is very little to find wrong with it as far as I can see.

That said, I'd have no problem if Apple let people drag files onto iPods/iPhones in the Finder if they wanted. I just don't see the point really, it's not much faster as soon as you want to make a playlist or anything.

 

[TheIntruder]

iTunes needs to be rewritten from the ground up, right now it is a big piece of bloated garbage. They should go the quicktime X route.

I agree, but hopefully without the loss of certain aspects of functionality that QT X suffers in comparison with QT 7. Don't want to simplify it that much.

But yeah, it would benefit from a complete rethink of how it works in light of all the new devices that have emerged since it was originally conceived, as well as a rewrite as a full 64-bit Cocoa app.

I'm sure Jeff Robbin never imagined that SoundJam would evolve into such a monster.

 

[GGJstudios]

How big is that "decent-sized library"?

 

[bpanders]

I run itunes on my first gen Core Duo iMac, 2GB ram, and have a 985GB movie library and a 845GB music and TV library. I stream to my aTV and it works like a champ. I'm usually also running azureus (talk about a resource hog) and doing several other tasks during this and never had a problem.

I know you say the computer isn't the problem, but what else are you running on the machine?

 

[Compile 'em all]

I hate every software made for managing mp3 players. Itunes, Zunes software.

I have my music organized by folders on my computer why can't it be organized by folders on my mp3 player. I understand putting artists and albums together but I have that done already in a folder format and when some songs don't have the proper artist or album name it screws up in Itunes. I can't put all of my music on my mp3 player because it would take for ever to go through and tell iTunes what artists and album every single song belongs to.

No offense man, but enjoying organizing "files" into "folders" on your "file system" is a mindless stupid activity that should be delegated to a piece of software. No one and I mean NO ONE should have to do that.

I agree that it requires having properly tagged music, but why shouldn't you have them properly tagged? If you bought them from iTunes or amazon or any other place they would be tagged as they should be.

 

[petrucci666]

Safari and iTunes on Windows is a POS, what's new about that?

 

[globalist]

No offense man, but enjoying organizing "files" into "folders" on your "file system" is a mindless stupid activity that should be delegated to a piece of software. No one and I mean NO ONE should have to do that.

I agree that it requires having properly tagged music, but why shouldn't you have them properly tagged? If you bought them from iTunes or amazon or any other place they would be tagged as they should be.

This. Untagged mp3s are so 2002...

 

[daze]

I like iTunes...I still have nightmares from using Musicmatch with my first gen ipod back in the early 2000's.

My God! That brought back terrible memories for me. I still have that 20GB iPod somewhere which I used to use as a hard drive till the new MBP removed the Firewire 400...

iTunes is very good. PC version blows, and can be expected. Want a faster "experience" and all the visualizers? Well, buy a Mac or live with the less optimized Windows version. Want to use something like Winamp and do manual management of music using files and folders? Then, I think you'd appreciate getting one of those cheap MP3 players that map themselves as a drive and you drag and drop stuff into them. You have to decide if playlists, ratings, playcounts are necessary or not and then make your MP3 player purchase wisely.

 

[kasakka]

I don't understand why people have such a bad experience with it. Enable 'Manually manage music and videos' and there really is very little to find wrong with it as far as I can see.

If it only was that simple. I've tried enabling Manually manage music and videos but it seems to work only on one machine and as soon as I try to move something from another computer it wants to erase my iPhone.

It doesn't help that it is noticeably slow (whether it's adding music, changing sync settings or whatever there is always delays) and probably one of the worst performing Mac apps. It also doesn't remember where you were in the playlist when you restart the app, syncing while browsing songs is awkward because the song position bar gets constantly replaced by syncing messages.

Overall it's just poorly written and poorly designed software that has very limited support for anything really.

On Windows I've resorted to using Foobar2000 with the iPod Manager plugin but on Mac there are no working alternatives it seems.

 

[xi mezmerize ix]

I use a MBP for my iTunes. I have no gripes with it at all. I download songs and vidz from LimeWire and they are instantly imported into my itunes library. I plug in my ipod and it gets updated. Maybe its cuz ur using a pc (piece of crap)

 

[dXTC]

My observations on some of the comments here (paraphrased)...

1. "iTunes won't let me just drag and drop onto my iPod/iPhone-- WTF?"
This limitation was probably demanded by major music labels and movie studios as a condition of their allowing their content to be sold through the iTunes store, in an effort to deter wholesale piracy. I don't see it going away anytime soon.

2. "iTunes is SO slow on my PC."
Keep in mind that iTunes is Mac native, and that the Windows version is a port. It's faster now than it was several years ago; I remember iTunes 5 on Windows, and it was rather slow. I have 9 on an XP box now, and it's better, but not like 9 on my iMac. Until recently, Mac users have had to put up with inferior ports of popular Windows games and productivity apps for eons. Consider iTunes a sort of karmic payback.

For further comments on speed, see the next observation.

3. "Why does iTunes get slower the more I use it?"
That's because the iTunes library is not, repeat not, a relational database. It is an XML-style text file that must be parsed in its entirety upon launch. This "parsing" (i.e. interpretation of the XML data into individual music or video "records" for view or manipulation in the application) is what takes so long for iTunes to launch-- the more media you have, the more data there is to parse before anything shows, especially if you have your default iTunes view set to CoverFlow.

The biggest speed jump that Apple could make would be by changing iTunes's core engine into a true relational database. Only the parts of the Library that show first would have to be processed upon launch. This would, however, be a complete shift in programming paradigm.

EDIT: One more observation: Proper media tagging + Smart Playlists = smooth sailing. Just saying.

 

[Cougarcat]

The biggest speed jump that Apple could make would be by changing iTunes's core engine into a true relational database. Only the parts of the Library that show first would have to be processed upon launch. This would, however, be a complete shift in programming paradigm.

Maybe we'll see iTunes X in the fall? A completely rewritten and rethought cocoa iTunes, similar to what apple did with QT X.

 

[dXTC]

Maybe we'll see iTunes X in the fall? A completely rewritten and rethought cocoa iTunes, similar to what apple did with QT X.

That would be nice, yes. The trick would be to streamline the database engine to prevent further bloat.

However, I hope that it won't be limited to Snow Leopard; there are many that repurpose their older Macs as media servers upon getting a new Mac. Similarly, abandoning XP support would tick off a considerable number of iPhone/iPod touch users who still use pre-Vista PCs and see little reason to upgrade.

 

[ShawnLGarrett]

Mac OSX

Your running an apple program on a windows based pc... Buy a mac. Mine runs like a dream with 2gb of ram and a 2.0 ghz processor.

 

[longball11]

It's cool

 

[SG1-1]

I use the mac version, and even that is slow and buggy.

B.S.

Reading all you previous Posts Its real interesting and obvious your hate for Apple even though you try to act like you own or are going to purchase one of their products.

Give it up, iTunes runs Fast and stabile on the OSX platform, Don't make it out to be sluggish.

With over 8362 "Eight Thousand three hundred and sixty two" Songs not including my Audible Purchases of over 235 Audio books and All the Movies and TV shows with podcasts, iTunes runs fine for me on my Mac's.

This is just a Troll bait School boys complaining club to have something to do and with no facts to back it up.

Facts are if it's so bad buy a Creative or Microsoft Zune and enjoy that experience. Talk about Buggy Non Working Garbage software.

My Daughter was given a Zune for a Gift a few years ago, The software is Slow Buggy and plain downright Awful, but to each his own.

 

[monolog]

+1

I couldn't stand iTunes stalling my PC anymore. So I bought a Mac. Still, it's horribly slow. What a piece of junk.

Also, I have yet to find a way to quickly queue a few songs? And by 'quickly' I don't mean building a playlist.. Any advice would be highly appreciated -- thanks!

 

[monolog]

B.S.

Reading all you previous Posts Its real interesting and obvious your hate for Apple even though you try to act like you own or are going to purchase one of their products.

Give it up, iTunes runs Fast and stabile on the OSX platform, Don't make it out to be sluggish.

With over 8362 "Eight Thousand three hundred and sixty two" Songs not including my Audible Purchases of over 235 Audio books and All the Movies and TV shows with podcasts, iTunes runs fine for me on my Mac's.

This is just a Troll bait School boys complaining club to have something to do and with no facts to back it up.

Facts are if it's so bad buy a Creative or Microsoft Zune and enjoy that experience. Talk about Buggy Non Working Garbage software.

My Daughter was given a Zune for a Gift a few years ago, The software is Slow Buggy and plain downright Awful, but to each his own.

OK. I own a Macbook Pro 13", a Mac Mini, several iPods (1st gen, classic, nano, touch), 2 iPads (WiFi only), 2 iPhones (3G, 3GS). So, I am pretty heavily invested in Apple products. Yet still I think iTunes is a piece of junk.

But maybe that's only because I need it to manage 11'931 files, 3000+ more than you. Then again, managing that handful of files should be considered a piece of cake these days. So, iTunes' performance is not acceptable to me.

 

[sishaw]

The problem is, as far as I can tell, everything else out there is an even worse buggy, bloated, overly complicated, slow PITA.

 

[rev316]

Not a huge fan of iTunes (performance, mem. usage), but it's the only player that does everything I need, relatively well.

I would end up spending hours cobbling together shareware apps to perform the same tasks, and that's just not a solution.

A rewrite is by no means a small job for Apple, but it's certainly inevitable.