Just curious, as I despise iTunes, I'm hoping with iCloud I can finally say goodbye forever to iTunes. Is there any reason that will require us to keep iTunes?
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Will there be any need for iTunes once iCloud is here?
- Thread starter spinedoc77
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How would we get music, movies, TV shows, Podcasts, Audiobooks etc?
I quite like having one store to go to for all that stuff.
I quite like having one store to go to for all that stuff.
iTunes is the means to access the media on your PC or Mac. Do you ever access your music or videos there?
I assume you mean iTunes on a desktop/laptop?
If you want to go with just your iOS device and largely not interact with iTunes, then:
You can't edit ID3 tags without iTunes (can you?).
If you have music that isn't from the iTunes Store then you will have to pay for iTunes Match every year to get that music on your iOS device, though I don't think you could shelve your iTunes on your main computer completely.
What? I think you don't understand.
- you don't pay for iCloud
- the 5GB applies to things other than music, apps, books, TV shows, and Photo Stream. Music isn't counted in that 5GB at all
If you want to go with just your iOS device and largely not interact with iTunes, then:
You can't edit ID3 tags without iTunes (can you?).
If you have music that isn't from the iTunes Store then you will have to pay for iTunes Match every year to get that music on your iOS device, though I don't think you could shelve your iTunes on your main computer completely.
What? I think you don't understand.
- you don't pay for iCloud
- the 5GB applies to things other than music, apps, books, TV shows, and Photo Stream. Music isn't counted in that 5GB at all
With iCloud I wouldn't see the need to ever access my music or videos from anywhere but the cloud while I am on my device. If I ever wanted to specifically listen to music/video from my actual PC then I would also just access iCloud. Or at least I hope this is how it will work.
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The iphone/ipad devices have their stores, but I see what you mean on accessing them thru the PC/laptop. Possibly Apple would consider either making a standalone iOS app store for the computer, or integrate it into the Mac app store. But yes that is one point currently in favor of keeping iTunes.
Unless I misunderstand, if you want to access that stuff from your actual PC then iCloud would provide that media to iTunes, from which you would access it.
I see, that makes sense. To me it seems like Apple could have just made a web interface right on icloud.com to play your iCloud music, etc. iTunes just seems very bulky to just play your media from the cloud.
I read that the agreement that Apple has with the music labels means that they get a fee every time anyone downloads a track from iTunes Match. Because of this a web based streaming service would cost Apple a huge amount more than the "download to iDevice/iTunes" service they're going to give us.
What about future iOS updates? I looks like they can be done directly from the iPad without iTunes. Is that correct?
I do not understand this thread.
If the OP sees no need for iTunes, he shouldn't use it. If other users see a need for iTunes, they should use it.
My primary use for iTunes is to download and store podcasts and iTunes U material for later play, and I don't always have internet connectivity. I subscribe to some number of podcasts and have several dozen hours of new material available. iTunes works just swell for me, and I'll continue to use it.
If someone doesn't want to use iTunes, that's just fine by me. There are a whole bunch of programs in Mac OS X; we all use a subset of them.
If the OP sees no need for iTunes, he shouldn't use it. If other users see a need for iTunes, they should use it.
My primary use for iTunes is to download and store podcasts and iTunes U material for later play, and I don't always have internet connectivity. I subscribe to some number of podcasts and have several dozen hours of new material available. iTunes works just swell for me, and I'll continue to use it.
If someone doesn't want to use iTunes, that's just fine by me. There are a whole bunch of programs in Mac OS X; we all use a subset of them.
I don't understand your not understanding my thread.
From the looks of it if I want to access my music, videos, etc from the cloud on a computer I will have to install iTunes. I was simply asking if Apple had put in place anything that would not require me to install iTunes, such as a web interface to access my media for example.iTunes runs worse on PCs then it does on Macs so its understandable that a PC user might not like iTunes where a Mac users does.
Music has no DRM so you can store it wherever. But you need iTunes to get future purchases off iCloud that were made on your iOS device as far as I know.
Video is iTunes bound although if you have an ATV 2 it appears you can stream video purchases from iCloud and bypass the computer.
I dont know how photos and iCloud and windows works.
Home movies probably need iTunes unless you want to upload them to iCloud storage.
Even then not sure how You use I cloud storage on windows. Do you need to go through iTunes?
Anyway ITunes is a good program. The haters tend to make a mountain out of a molehill.
Video is iTunes bound although if you have an ATV 2 it appears you can stream video purchases from iCloud and bypass the computer.
I dont know how photos and iCloud and windows works.
Home movies probably need iTunes unless you want to upload them to iCloud storage.
Even then not sure how You use I cloud storage on windows. Do you need to go through iTunes?
Anyway ITunes is a good program. The haters tend to make a mountain out of a molehill.
With only 5 gb and all the digital movies I have on iTunes, iCloud is not enough. Why should I pay for more space when I have "free" space on my own computer?
The #1 reason why iTunes won't go away and is iCloud's achilles heel is free space. Apple obviously knows this and hopes people will be willing to pay for more space. If you REALLY need to put everything up, then feel free to pay extra $$ to add more space. Quite a few of my friends have more than 5 gb on their iTunes so iCloud's actual use to them will vary. All of them have told me they won't pay the extra $$ and will figure out what to limit on their iCloud account to keep it under 5gb.
As far as I know, you still need iTunes to access things so if ur hoping to junk iTunes, I don't think you can unless you want to jump to an Android system I've personally had no problems w/ iTunes on my PC.
The #1 reason why iTunes won't go away and is iCloud's achilles heel is free space. Apple obviously knows this and hopes people will be willing to pay for more space. If you REALLY need to put everything up, then feel free to pay extra $$ to add more space. Quite a few of my friends have more than 5 gb on their iTunes so iCloud's actual use to them will vary. All of them have told me they won't pay the extra $$ and will figure out what to limit on their iCloud account to keep it under 5gb.
As far as I know, you still need iTunes to access things so if ur hoping to junk iTunes, I don't think you can unless you want to jump to an Android system
I've personally had no problems w/ iTunes on my PC.I'd like to dump iTunes completey but can't. How else would you be able to sync movies (purchased, videos made with iPhone, etc.). The other question I have is in regards to photos. I understand how iCloud works with photostream, but iCloud doesn't backup all the photos in your albums. You still need a computer to store your photos.
The post-PC era is not quite here yet; but getting closer.
The post-PC era is not quite here yet; but getting closer.
I think you don't understand what iCloud is.
Movies aren't supported with iCloud yet, AFAIK. In other words, the 5GB cap is irrelevant. Furthermore, movies might very well end up like music which doesn't count towards the 5GB.
iCloud won't replace iTunes since it works through iTunes.
Also, you're not paying for space as much as you are paying for the connectivity. iCloud isn't a networked hard-drive to store things in, it's a synchronization service with tiered pricing for data transfer (roughly speaking).
Given those facts, I'm not sure what your point is. Do you and your friends see yourselves having over 5GB of docs and contacts or something?
As happy as I am about wireless syncing, backup, and updating in iOS 5, I'm still glad I have iTunes handy. It allows me to keep local copies of everything and run nightly backups, it allows me to run Home Sharing, and it allows me to easily access all my music when I'm *gasp* doing something at my computer rather than my iPad or iPhone.
That being said, I'm hardly ever at my computer anymore unless it's to adjust a scheduled backup task or sync my iPhone/iPad/iPod. So I think iTunes is probably going the way of the dodo at my house slowly but surely.
That being said, I'm hardly ever at my computer anymore unless it's to adjust a scheduled backup task or sync my iPhone/iPad/iPod. So I think iTunes is probably going the way of the dodo at my house slowly but surely.
All I noted still applies:
If you have a PC and like iTunes, you can continue to run it for whatever purposes suit you.
If you have a PC and don't like iTunes, you don't have to run it any more.
Apparently, there's now a third rule:
If you like iTunes but don't like how it runs on your PC, consider getting a Mac and getting rid of your PC.
5GB is for iCloud and not iTunes Music (storage) Match. Music Match is independent and limited to 25,000 songs (not space) with no option (at this time) to add more songs and costs $25 a year.
So, I can be anywhere in the world and listen instantly to the perhaps thousands of songs on my device, or ...
I can hope for a connection, for which I pay $80/month and only works in some places and usually slowly, and wait endlessly for a download so I can listen to a song. And don't do this too much or I will get an even bigger bill or even slower downloads.
Do people think this is actually a good thing? Am I missing something?
I can hope for a connection, for which I pay $80/month and only works in some places and usually slowly, and wait endlessly for a download so I can listen to a song. And don't do this too much or I will get an even bigger bill or even slower downloads.
Do people think this is actually a good thing? Am I missing something?
What are you going on about? I can take thousands of songs anywhere in the world AND when I'm around my home WiFi which costs way less than $80/mo or one of the billion free WiFi areas in the world (which work reliably and reasonably well) I can also access all my iTunes music. I can also do it through a data plan if I choose to. On top of that all of my devices are synchronized without having to do anything. You really have to work to gin up some kind of complaint about this. So to answer your question, yes, you're missing something.