Why iTunes?

[kurosov]

I still don't like the automatic importing (when sometimes I just want to PLAY a song not suck it into my library)

I personally find the automated importing feature of iTunes to be one of the best features you can have in a player. Having the software automatically organise your library of songs into a single location under artist>album is a godsend.

Quick look and snow leopards ability to play media files from the icon are much more useful for those who want to just play a track quickly without having to import.

I have seen people argue against the auto import feature before and they always seem to spend more time either looking for their song in whatever application they use, or worse from random folders all over the place than actually listening to the music.

The playlist features on iTunes are also the best in any application Imo. Genius and the new genius mixes also work a charm.

The one main gripe i have with iTunes is something that isn't really done well on any application. Lyrics Support. While you can add and view lyrics on itunes it is not the best method of presentation. Lyric support on the iphone is great and i'd love to see a quicklook-esque method of viewing lyrics in iTunes without having to use a buggy app like GetLyrical.

 

[janstett]

There you go contradicting yourself one sentence after you make a statement. You have third-party options. Apple isn't forcing you to do anything. If you choose iTunes to manage your music, it offers you two options to manage your music - automatically or manually. If you don't like those options, there are alternatives.

You aren't following basic logic.

Apple is FORCING you to do it their way. 3rd party solutions are not endorsed nor supported by Apple. Apple has been known to force the shutdown of 3rd party options (such as EFI hacks to run OSX on PCs). Apple can break these unsupported, unofficial 3rd party solutions at whim. I don't know about you, but I'm speaking from experience. I used to use XPlay on a PC to manage my iPods. Apple broke it time and time again when they updated iTunes, and you'd have to wait weeks (or months) for them to catch up with what Apple broke. News flash -- Apple doesn't give a carp about these 3rd party solutions, and when they do care it's to make them shut down and go away. The recent Palm Pre hack to sync with iTunes is the perfect example. Apple repeatedly broke it, on purpose. It's no different with the 3rd party iPod management software.

Sounds like a pretty reasonable design decision to me. Any system designed to have the only copy of a music file on a portable music player is asking for trouble.

It sounds absolutely retarded to me. The point is I have my music file ON MY PORTABLE SYSTEM I don't need another copy on my Mac in perpetuity. I can keep my master copy on a NAS, or a portable hard drive that isn't always plugged in, or on another computer with a bigger hard drive, or burned on a BD-ROM. Why should I be forced to waste disk space on ANOTHER copy in my iTunes library?

Once again, every other portable music player on the planet works this way. Perhaps you should actually use one for comparison.

You don't need to move the music to the Mac to sync with your iPod. It can stay on the NAS. All you have to do is make sure iTunes knows where it is.

Nice try, but that assumes you're always on your home network (or in the case of a portable hard drive, that it's always attached and turned on).

Or you could use an external drive.

Again, no, you don't have to store them on your MacBook's SSD. You can store them on an external drive.

Which I'd have to carry around from home to work with me? Great idea, why didn't I think of that!

No contortion necessary. Set up playlists for each iPod. Sync.

Setting up playlists for more than 40,000 songs IS contortion.

Picking out high resolution music (24 bit, 48kHz or greater) from the rest of the music IS contortion.

I guess you have 100 songs to manage. I've got 40,000.

See my comment above. Having the only copy of the file on a portable device is bad design asking for lost data.

No, that assumes that people have their only copy of their media in iTunes. Now that is asking for trouble. Anybody with a serious media collection does not store it in iTunes, it's backed up on a hard disk or on a NAS or burned to DVD/BD-ROMs.

If that argument worked, Apple wouldn't be Apple.

Apple's way or the highway, right? Sometimes Apple doesn't do things the best way and they should adapt. Like they did when they moved to Intel.

Why would having several programs to do what iTunes does be more efficient than doing it with one program?

The same reason iTunes doesn't do spreadsheets or word processing.

Yet.

I thought Steve Jobs' mantra was simplicity. iTunes isn't a simple music player. It's become an overly-complex mish-mosh swiss army knife.

 

[BaldiMac]

You aren't following basic logic.

Apple is FORCING you to do it their way. 3rd party solutions are not endorsed nor supported by Apple. Apple has been known to force the shutdown of 3rd party options (such as EFI hacks to run OSX on PCs). Apple can break these unsupported, unofficial 3rd party solutions at whim. I don't know about you, but I'm speaking from experience. I used to use XPlay on a PC to manage my iPods. Apple broke it time and time again when they updated iTunes, and you'd have to wait weeks (or months) for them to catch up with what Apple broke. News flash -- Apple doesn't give a carp about these 3rd party solutions, and when they do care it's to make them shut down and go away. The recent Palm Pre hack to sync with iTunes is the perfect example. Apple repeatedly broke it, on purpose. It's no different with the 3rd party iPod management software.

Again, Apple isn't forcing you to do anything. You have many options including third party solutions. The fact that Apple does not provide the options that you would prefer is not coercion.

It sounds absolutely retarded to me. The point is I have my music file ON MY PORTABLE SYSTEM I don't need another copy on my Mac in perpetuity. I can keep my master copy on a NAS, or a portable hard drive that isn't always plugged in, or on another computer with a bigger hard drive, or burned on a BD-ROM. Why should I be forced to waste disk space on ANOTHER copy in my iTunes library?

Again, you don't need a third copy on your Mac. Simply add the music from your NAS or portable hard drive to iTunes without copying it over.

Once again, every other portable music player on the planet works this way. Perhaps you should actually use one for comparison.

I have used other music players. Yes, they work differently than iTunes/iPod. The iTunes/iPod method seems to be preferable to the vast majority of people.

Nice try, but that assumes you're always on your home network (or in the case of a portable hard drive, that it's always attached and turned on).

No, it assumes that you have access to your portable hard drive/NAS when you want to sync. Same as how you have to have access to your portable hard drive/NAS when you you want to add music in the way that you described.

Which I'd have to carry around from home to work with me? Great idea, why didn't I think of that!

Why would you have to carry it to work? Isn't that what your portable music player is for?

Setting up playlists for more than 40,000 songs IS contortion.

No more contortion than your proposed method. It takes just as much effort to drag music to a playlist as it does to drag it to a device.

Picking out high resolution music (24 bit, 48kHz or greater) from the rest of the music IS contortion.

I don't understand your point here, but you can create smart playlist to filter music by quality.

I guess you have 100 songs to manage. I've got 40,000.

I've got about 4,000 songs. Your collection is bigger. Do you get points for that?

No, that assumes that people have their only copy of their media in iTunes. Now that is asking for trouble. Anybody with a serious media collection does not store it in iTunes, it's backed up on a hard disk or on a NAS or burned to DVD/BD-ROMs.

Plus the copy on their iPod. Plus the copies in the regular backup that they made of their computer or NAS or wherever the store the files.

Your original statement was that iTunes forced you to keep two copies of a music file. One on the iPod and one on iTunes on your Mac. It does not force you to keep any more copies than your method. You are not forced to keep a copy on your Mac. You can store the files externally.

Apple's way or the highway, right? Sometimes Apple doesn't do things the best way and they should adapt. Like they did when they moved to Intel.

No, Apple's way or somebody else's way. Why does Apple have to do everything you want them to? Their way does seem to be the best way for the large majority of the market. Sure it may not be the best way for someone who has 40,000 songs with a large number of those in a lossless format. Especially if you want to change up the songs on your device regularly from multiple locations. Not exactly a common usage scenario though. Right?

I thought Steve Jobs' mantra was simplicity. iTunes isn't a simple music player.

It wasn't designed to be a simple music player. It was designed to be a simple music manager. It was evolved to be a simple media manager. What exactly is complicated about it?

 

[janstett]

Again, Apple isn't forcing you to do anything. You have many options including third party solutions. The fact that Apple does not provide the options that you would prefer is not coercion.

Let me say this one more time and make sure that I am absolutely clear about my point.

Apple does not endorse, nor support, 3rd party solutions allowing you to use your iPod/iPhone in means other than the way they intend.

That means jailbreaking your iPhone is not supported by Apple (and is often broken, on purpose, with new versions of the firmware and iTunes). It is no different with 3rd party solutions to manage your iPod.

Again, I have first hand experience having been a customer of XPlay and I watched the software rendered completely useless by Apple several times, one of which lasted on the order of 6 months. Apple doesn't care if unsupported 3rd party solutions are broken, and has often gone out of their way to break it on purpose. Once again the Palm Pre example shines.

If there's one lesson about Apple that can be learned over and over, it's that they are at best unconcerned with, and at worst violently opposed to, 3rd party solutions to their products. They can be broken and destroyed at Apple's whim and are NOT supported.

Again, you don't need a third copy on your Mac. Simply add the music from your NAS or portable hard drive to iTunes without copying it over.

And again, you are missing the point.

First, you ignored what I said about not always having access to the NAS (such as when the machine is on my work network and not my home network). If my iTunes library is on the NAS, then iTunes is completely useless when it's off the home network. If my iTunes library is local, playing a song from the NAS will copy it local (creating a wasted copy such as I've been talking about).

Let's take example one: I buy a Blu-Ray disc which has a digital copy for my iPod on disc. I have to import the movie into iTunes and then sync it with my iPod. I never, ever, ever intend to watch this on my Macbook. But I am forced to keep a copy in iTunes, wasting precious space on my SSD. I have the master copy on a disc that came with the Blu-Ray. I don't need it backed up. It's sitting there eating precious space on my SSD, laying there like a lump, for as long as I want to be able to watch it on my iPhone.

Let's take example two: As I mentioned I have 40,000 songs, most of them lossless. No way that will ever fit on any iPod. So I make a copy of it downsamples to 120 or 160 AAC. (Which is another gripe with iTunes, it won't automatically downsample your library to fit on your iPod). Now what am I supposed to do? Have every song twice, once lossless and once in AAC? Give up my lossless library? Make one playlist for each library? (That's another problem I have with iTunes, it doesn't support multiple libraries). What I'm forced to do is keep that second, lower quality library which will fit on my iPod on a second computer. Where it wastes disk space there. I'd rather dump it on the iPod and delete the low quality copy because I don't need it anymore once it's on the iPod. And if I ever need to get it back, I can regenerate it from the master lossless library.

Are you not getting it yet? I don't need iTunes wasting space on this garbage.

No, it assumes that you have access to your portable hard drive/NAS when you want to sync. Same as how you have to have access to your portable hard drive/NAS when you you want to add music in the way that you described.

And what if I want to add a song at work? Can't do it. Have to wait to sync at home. Further, that assumes this is something I want to add to my collection, when it could be something throw-away -- such as a friend saying "hey listen to this album" or a podcast. On every other media player this is simply not a problem. On an iPod/iPhone it's a problem.

Why would you have to carry it to work? Isn't that what your portable music player is for?

You suggested storing the master media library on an external disk. That would be what I'm not taking with me on the road. I'm not tethering my laptop to a 3 TB external drive that I have to carry around.

No more contortion than your proposed method. It takes just as much effort to drag music to a playlist as it does to drag it to a device.

My method (a): Downsample the library to lower quality to fit on an iPod. Dispose of low quality version once it's on the iPod.

My method (b): I know where my music is because I ORGANIZE it appropriately; all my hi-res music is segregated from the CD quality music. That all gets lost in iTunes.

I don't understand your point here, but you can create smart playlist to filter music by quality.

I guess you've never tried it. There is a "sample rate" option in smart playlist creation but no "bit depth". So I can find anything > 44.1kHz but not anything that is 24-bit. So, for example, the recent Beatles 24-bit FLACs would get lost because they're 44.1kHz and 24-bit.

Using Smart Playlists I can find anything 48kHz and better but that's it, no bit depth.

I've got about 4,000 songs. Your collection is bigger. Do you get points for that?

Actually, yes, because

(a) I can't fit my collection on a single iPod, the main part alone is 550 GB and in total 1.5TB.
(b) I've had to transcode it to fit (a) which exposes the flaw with having to keep material around to sync in iTunes instead of just copying it to the iPod and being done with it, as well as the flaw of not automatically downsampling and the flaw of not supporting multiple libraries.
(c) I've had to deal with issues and limitations that simply don't effect you, so you don't see a problem.

I already mentioned iTunes doesn't support multiple libraries. With so much music, I have to segregate on categories:

- Main collection
- Hi-res collection
- Christmas music
- Comedy
- etc

iTunes only gets the main collection because I don't need to hear christmas songs or stand-up when I shuffle my library.

Plus the copy on their iPod. Plus the copies in the regular backup that they made of their computer or NAS or wherever the store the files.

(a) End users can't get the copy on their iPod back (through officially supported Apple means).
(b) Apple doesn't force users to make backups of their computer or nas or wherever they store the files.

Your original statement was that iTunes forced you to keep two copies of a music file. One on the iPod and one on iTunes on your Mac. It does not force you to keep any more copies than your method. You are not forced to keep a copy on your Mac. You can store the files externally.

Your math is off. One on the iPod and one anywhere else is two. Yes, it is obviously more complex than my method and you're wiggling out on a technicality -- that this mandatory 2nd copy can be stored externally to the Mac on an external hard disk or nas. I don't want that 2nd copy to be anywhere, it shouldn't exist. Again I point to my examples of a Blu-Ray digital copy (which is always on the disc in the slip case if I need it) or a downsampled throw-away copy of my master library or something throwaway like some music a friend recommends or a podcast. Don't need the 2nd copy to exist once it's on the iPod.

No, Apple's way or somebody else's way. Why does Apple have to do everything you want them to? Their way does seem to be the best way for the large majority of the market. Sure it may not be the best way for someone who has 40,000 songs with a large number of those in a lossless format. Especially if you want to change up the songs on your device regularly from multiple locations. Not exactly a common usage scenario though. Right?

I can agree that it fits most people who don't have gigantic media libraries. Yet if it's such a great model, why doesn't anybody else emulate it? Simple, because it is unneccessary and these other manufacturers aren't trying to sell music with their own online store.

It wasn't designed to be a simple music player. It was designed to be a simple music manager. It was evolved to be a simple media manager. What exactly is complicated about it?

It isn't a simple media manager either, for the reasons we've already hashed through (phone activation, calendar and contact book, firmware installation, etc.).

 

[jdechko]

Apple is FORCING you to do it their way. 3rd party solutions are not endorsed nor supported by Apple. Apple has been known to force the shutdown of 3rd party options (such as EFI hacks to run OSX on PCs). Apple can break these unsupported, unofficial 3rd party solutions at whim. I don't know about you, but I'm speaking from experience. I used to use XPlay on a PC to manage my iPods. Apple broke it time and time again when they updated iTunes, and you'd have to wait weeks (or months) for them to catch up with what Apple broke. News flash -- Apple doesn't give a carp about these 3rd party solutions, and when they do care it's to make them shut down and go away. The recent Palm Pre hack to sync with iTunes is the perfect example. Apple repeatedly broke it, on purpose. It's no different with the 3rd party iPod management software.

Sorry, but this is a terrible example of what you're trying to say. Third parties resorting to "hacks" to get this to work are just that, hacks. By their very nature, they are unsupported and likely to break during updates. The Palm Pre is another example of using hacks. However, Apple has a supported (and published) way for 3rd parties to tap into iTunes: through the iTunes XML library file.

If you'd done any fact checking, there are multiple programs that sync 3rd party devices with iTunes: RIM has the media connect software for both Macs and PCs that allows you to copy playlists and songs straight from iTunes. Then there's Salling Media sync, the missing sync and DoubleTwist that will sync iTunes media to a variety of devices. Of course, the caveat is that it won't sync DRM-ed files, but that's the nature of DRM in general, and has nothing to do specifically with Apple.

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with iTunes. It's a pretty poor experience on my computer (a windows desktop). The entire program seems to lock up during every iPhone sync and sometimes I have to restart iTunes 2 or 3 times for it to start playing music.

However, I love my iPhone and I need iTunes to manage it. I also love genius, smart playlists and having the iTunes store handy.

 

[BaldiMac]

Let me say this one more time and make sure that I am absolutely clear about my point.

Apple does not endorse, nor support, 3rd party solutions allowing you to use your iPod/iPhone in means other than the way they intend.

That means jailbreaking your iPhone is not supported by Apple (and is often broken, on purpose, with new versions of the firmware and iTunes). It is no different with 3rd party solutions to manage your iPod.

Again, I have first hand experience having been a customer of XPlay and I watched the software rendered completely useless by Apple several times, one of which lasted on the order of 6 months. Apple doesn't care if unsupported 3rd party solutions are broken, and has often gone out of their way to break it on purpose. Once again the Palm Pre example shines.

If there's one lesson about Apple that can be learned over and over, it's that they are at best unconcerned with, and at worst violently opposed to, 3rd party solutions to their products. They can be broken and destroyed at Apple's whim and are NOT supported.

You were clear the first time. It doesn't change the fact that there are third-party solutions that are legal and exist. If you don't update your iPod to an unsupported version, they will continue to work.

And again, you are missing the point.

First, you ignored what I said about not always having access to the NAS (such as when the machine is on my work network and not my home network). If my iTunes library is on the NAS, then iTunes is completely useless when it's off the home network. If my iTunes library is local, playing a song from the NAS will copy it local (creating a wasted copy such as I've been talking about).

I didn't ignore what you said. I simply said that you cannot add music from your NAS by your method or any method if your NAS is not available.

To avoid iTunes creating a local copy you can simply uncheck the box that says "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library."

Let's take example one: I buy a Blu-Ray disc which has a digital copy for my iPod on disc. I have to import the movie into iTunes and then sync it with my iPod. I never, ever, ever intend to watch this on my Macbook. But I am forced to keep a copy in iTunes, wasting precious space on my SSD. I have the master copy on a disc that came with the Blu-Ray. I don't need it backed up. It's sitting there eating precious space on my SSD, laying there like a lump, for as long as I want to be able to watch it on my iPhone.

You don't need to keep the copy on your SSD. You can either store it on your NAS (or other external drive) or delete the file in Finder. As long as it is still listed in your iTunes library, it won't be deleted from your iPod.

Let's take example two: As I mentioned I have 40,000 songs, most of them lossless. No way that will ever fit on any iPod. So I make a copy of it downsamples to 120 or 160 AAC. (Which is another gripe with iTunes, it won't automatically downsample your library to fit on your iPod). Now what am I supposed to do? Have every song twice, once lossless and once in AAC? Give up my lossless library? Make one playlist for each library? (That's another problem I have with iTunes, it doesn't support multiple libraries). What I'm forced to do is keep that second, lower quality library which will fit on my iPod on a second computer. Where it wastes disk space there. I'd rather dump it on the iPod and delete the low quality copy because I don't need it anymore once it's on the iPod. And if I ever need to get it back, I can regenerate it from the master lossless library.

First, iTunes does support multiple libraries. Just hold down option when you start it up. Second, again, you can delete the low quality copy if you'd like. Delete it in Finder, and leave it listed in iTunes.

Are you not getting it yet? I don't need iTunes wasting space on this garbage.

I'm getting that you are a fringe use case. I get that you think that I'm trying to convince you that iTunes is awesome or something. All I'm trying to say is that most of what you are complaining about can be done with iTunes. Just not in the exact way that you would like.

And what if I want to add a song at work? Can't do it. Have to wait to sync at home. Further, that assumes this is something I want to add to my collection, when it could be something throw-away -- such as a friend saying "hey listen to this album" or a podcast. On every other media player this is simply not a problem. On an iPod/iPhone it's a problem.

The fact that you can only add music from one copy of iTunes is an actual issue. My understanding is that it's a concession to the music labels. Maybe, maybe not.

But in your case, you could just bring your MacBook to work.

You suggested storing the master media library on an external disk. That would be what I'm not taking with me on the road. I'm not tethering my laptop to a 3 TB external drive that I have to carry around.

Again, you would only have to bring the external disk with you if you wanted to add media from that external disk. If you wanted to add media from anywhere else, all you need is your MacBook.

My method (a): Downsample the library to lower quality to fit on an iPod. Dispose of low quality version once it's on the iPod.

My method (b): I know where my music is because I ORGANIZE it appropriately; all my hi-res music is segregated from the CD quality music. That all gets lost in iTunes.

As I pointed out, you can do this in iTunes.

I guess you've never tried it. There is a "sample rate" option in smart playlist creation but no "bit depth". So I can find anything > 44.1kHz but not anything that is 24-bit. So, for example, the recent Beatles 24-bit FLACs would get lost because they're 44.1kHz and 24-bit.

Using Smart Playlists I can find anything 48kHz and better but that's it, no bit depth.

I've never heard of bit depth, so my bad. But of course, you could put a note it the comments tag when you import them into iTunes to allow you to filter that way.

Actually, yes, because

(a) I can't fit my collection on a single iPod, the main part alone is 550 GB and in total 1.5TB.
(b) I've had to transcode it to fit (a) which exposes the flaw with having to keep material around to sync in iTunes instead of just copying it to the iPod and being done with it, as well as the flaw of not automatically downsampling and the flaw of not supporting multiple libraries.
(c) I've had to deal with issues and limitations that simply don't effect you, so you don't see a problem.

I already mentioned iTunes doesn't support multiple libraries. With so much music, I have to segregate on categories:

- Main collection
- Hi-res collection
- Christmas music
- Comedy
- etc

iTunes only gets the main collection because I don't need to hear christmas songs or stand-up when I shuffle my library.

Again, iTunes does support multiple libraries.

(a) End users can't get the copy on their iPod back (through officially supported Apple means).
(b) Apple doesn't force users to make backups of their computer or nas or wherever they store the files.

What is your obsession with officially supported by Apple? It is very easy to find and use a program that will allow you to retrieve music from an iPod. Do you require an Apple logo on everything you use with your iPod?

Your math is off. One on the iPod and one anywhere else is two.

I'm not sure where I said otherwise.

Yes, it is obviously more complex than my method and you're wiggling out on a technicality -- that this mandatory 2nd copy can be stored externally to the Mac on an external hard disk or nas. I don't want that 2nd copy to be anywhere, it shouldn't exist. Again I point to my examples of a Blu-Ray digital copy (which is always on the disc in the slip case if I need it) or a downsampled throw-away copy of my master library or something throwaway like some music a friend recommends or a podcast. Don't need the 2nd copy to exist once it's on the iPod.

It doesn't have to exist.

I can agree that it fits most people who don't have gigantic media libraries. Yet if it's such a great model, why doesn't anybody else emulate it? Simple, because it is unneccessary and these other manufacturers aren't trying to sell music with their own online store.

That's just messed up logic.

It isn't a simple media manager either, for the reasons we've already hashed through (phone activation, calendar and contact book, firmware installation, etc.).

Having a lot of features does not mean something is not simple. What does that fact that it can activate a phone have to do with you if you don't use those features? What do those features cost you when you are not using them- a few megabytes of disk space and a few kilobytes of RAM?