iTunes will never work well • Hacker News Board

Re: iTunes will never work well

#211

Post by kccqzy » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:11 AM UTC

coleca wrote: post #37

sparkzilla wrote: post #22

I spent almost two days trying to resync my music after iTunes deleted it for no reason. It's the worst software on the planet.

After I subscribed to iTunes Match, it "helpfully" reworked all of my ~4300 song iTunes library so that most of the songs where I ripped a whole CD into iTunes were now spread across various "Greatest Hits" albums from the same (or sometimes different) artist, with random cover art. And after reading Jim Dalrymple's horror stories of upgrading to Apple Music, I am fearful both of ever discontinuing my iTunes Match su…

iTunes Match never messed up my library, though Apple Music certainly did.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#212

Post by hawski » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:13 AM UTC

reitanqild wrote: post #202

lake99 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hit the directions button. You see two text fields, with the first one already filled out as "Your location". Change that. Enter the destination next. This was on Android. Is your UX any different?

There is no "directions" button that I can see in Google Maps on my Android.

Bottom right blue circle with icon of a road sign - right turn . It is quite useful button, it can show you also time tables for public transport near you. But I discovered it by accident so it is not that evident as most icons.

But usually if I want to search for directions not to or from current location I just search for destination and later just change current location to different thing.

What is missing for me is the ability to select time of arrival/departure for car navigation. It is useful to see how traffic is predicted to look like in advance. But you can get something a bit like this (with just enough advance) by creating event in calendar and using Google Now. It will notify you when you must go with taking traffic in consideration.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#213

Post by soufron » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:16 AM UTC

It's so true. We used to have very simple and efficient music players such as winamp. The problem was that they were playing free mp3 that you stored on your hard drive. With regards to that, iTunes is not a music player, it's a media manager. It's all designed around buying stuff, not playing it. It makes me think of the bad dvds with non-skippable trailers we used to have 10 years ago.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#214

Post by lake99 » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:28 AM UTC

flukus wrote: post #121

Dain42 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably outside the 95th percentile on that one, though, and good design targets the rest of the user base. I think most people probably just got annoyed by accidentally hitting those, or by them taking up real-estate or cluttering the view.

> You're probably outside the 95th percentile on that one In what way? If you mean one handed usage, it's pretty common here when people are standing on public transport, you need to hold on with one hand. If you mean the infrequency I need it, take a look through you're list of installed apps and tell me how many require zooming? Almost all are designed specifically to avoid it.

I agree with all you have written, but there is a way to zoom in or out without using your other hand: use your lips. "Muaa" zooms out, and "auum" zooms in. This will make public transport journeys more interesting (for the others).

Re: iTunes will never work well

#215

Post by massysett » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:39 AM UTC

tomasandrle wrote: post #174

It must be really hard to maintain and add features to such a huge old application. Platforms have changed underneath it, the devices and services it connects to have come and gone, Objective C has changed a lot as well. And then there's the Windows version... Still, iTunes is crap. I hated it so much that I wrote my own music player for iOS, just to avoid using iTunes for putting music on my phone [1]. My guess is t…

I think Apple would have split up iTunes long ago if it were only a Mac application, but they don't want to distribute a bunch of smaller Windows apps.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#216

Post by crummy » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:45 AM UTC

Dain42 wrote: post #118

cageface wrote: post #79

If you're using a Mac then you should go buy yourself a copy of Swinsian now: http://swinsian.com/ It's a lean, fast native player that supports tons of formats, has great library management features, and omits all the bloat and confusion of iTunes.

It doesn't really matter to me, as I'm not a Macintosh user anymore, but does it have the smart playlist feature like iTunes? That's the biggest thing I miss in most music players, including my current one, Google Play Music (with my all-access).

Not sure if you're aware but Simon Weber has a Chrome extension for smart playlists in Google Music.

https://github.com/simon-weber/Autoplaylists-for-Google-Musi...

Re: iTunes will never work well

#217

Post by kwijibob » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:45 AM UTC

tempodox wrote: post #167

So this dude made a couple of tweets, then he wrote a medium article about his tweets.

I actually found this method quite readable and a pleasant surprise!

Re: iTunes will never work well

#218

Post by coldtea » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 9:46 AM UTC

twhb wrote: post #122

jheriko wrote: post #11

i don't understand how apple have a reputation for good ui... all of their stuff is terrible. the main problem: zero discoverablity - i need to google how to do things, then get some snotty fanboy answer about how easy and obvious it is, but there is literally no way to infer the functionality from the design. they do love to steal context too... and interrupt your flow... ... i could go on and on, but having zero-di…

Speaking of, Apple is to blame for the absolute worst case of discoverability I've ever encountered: getting the iOS App Store app to list all apps labeled "Essentials". Dug around, couldn't find it. Googled it, found a few forum threads where everybody concluded it couldn't be done. Went into an Apple store, gave an employee a few minutes to figure it out, and he gave up. And yet, it's possible. Rather than just tel…

Took me no more than 10 seconds. After noticing that the essential terms is translated into a query for apps TAGGED as essentials by Apple (Facebook, Google Mail etc), I just put the term in quotes("essentials" vs essentials in the search bar).

It's a convention followed for literal matches in tons of environments (including Google Search IIRC).

Re: iTunes will never work well

#219

Post by tomasandrle » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 10:03 AM UTC

massysett wrote: post #215

tomasandrle wrote: post #174

It must be really hard to maintain and add features to such a huge old application. Platforms have changed underneath it, the devices and services it connects to have come and gone, Objective C has changed a lot as well. And then there's the Windows version... Still, iTunes is crap. I hated it so much that I wrote my own music player for iOS, just to avoid using iTunes for putting music on my phone [1]. My guess is t…

I think Apple would have split up iTunes long ago if it were only a Mac application, but they don't want to distribute a bunch of smaller Windows apps.

Sure. Hopefuly "a bunch" could be reduced to just two: Apple Music client and iPhone sync app. The rest would be removed without a replacement (on Windows). The headphone jack removal shows that Apple is willing to make people angry about some things for a long term benefit and iTunes is imho a good candidate for the next "act of courage", heh.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#220

Post by bshimmin » Mon, Sep 19, 2016, 10:05 AM UTC

One interesting thing about iTunes is that it is one of the few applications I can think of which manages to irritate both power/sophisticated users (ie. everyone here) and also regular users. I'm not sure anyone actually likes it.