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iTunes will never work well

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Re: iTunes will never work well

#241

Post by creshal »

the_other wrote: post #223
majewsky wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Not very discoverable if your dock is set to auto-hide. 2. On a large screen, this action (the trash can transformation) can happen very far away from the place you're looking at, which means that you will miss it. This is a general gripe of mine with Mac OS: It will regularly place popup dialogs on seemingly random screens. I have three active screens, and when I'm looking at the left screen, the right screen is…

If you can set your dock to auto-hide, and run three parallel screens, you probably don't need any of the other assistance you're looking for.

Why? Are people only allowed to have multiple screens after passing some OSX geek initiation rite?

Re: iTunes will never work well

#242

Post by spronkey »

threeseed wrote: post #99
kovrik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. I really love Apple, but I always find myself Googling for "Can I do that in iTunes?" (the answer is usually No) or "How to do this?". And I can't say that I want something weird. Some workflows look so simple and obvious to me (and I think most people have the same workflows), but they are literally impossible with iTunes and other Apple stuff. For example, I have a 2TB AirPort Time Capsule, but it looks impo…

a) Photos stores its library in your Pictures directory. You can back it up entirely to any drive. Or if you want individual photos just use the Export/Save menu option. b) Almost every app bar a few older ones can be made full screen. Unless I am confused there will be no black bar at the bottom. I definitely can't see it. c) You can do basic side/side tiling if your apps are full screen. Most people aren't clamorin…

Please. Don't try to defend Photos.app, it's an abysmal piece of junk. It breaks UI metaphors. Saving its library to your pictures directory? Sure. But it's a royal pain if I don't want to store those pictures on a Mac. Which wouldn't be such an issue if Apple let you upgrade the storage. But no, you can't do that. So buy iCloud and shut the hell up, right?

I find myself wondering daily, how the hell have Apple dropped the ball so badly, and how on earth have they not been steamrolled by Microsoft.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#243

Post by swiley »

SCdF wrote: post #226

OK, so I use OSX, and I want to play mp3s that I have locally, and see them in a library format that I can search. Even maybe have album art, though I'm not fussed. Ignoring itunes, how do I do it? What is a good fast low memory music playing app with library management? If I was on Windows I'd be using Foobar2k. On OSX it seems to be either itunes, a command line app, or various bloated messes that aren't honestly b…

Open cubic player might have OSX support (OSX has OSS right?)

Is it a mess? Yes, but it's not really bloated.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#244

Post by spronkey »

flukus wrote: post #63
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…

I've been wondering lately if it stems from the purchasing experience. I'm looking at getting a new PC lately and there are just so many options from supplier to hardware details. How many cores do I want? Which processor architecture? What nanometer size? How much RAM? How big a hard disk? What graphics card (a dozen questions on it's own)? Even if you restrict yourself to one supplier, they have dozens of variants…

Heh, Apple don't really make it easy anymore either. You have to choose upfront how much RAM and HDD you need, because unlike on almost every other decent manufacturer's higher end machines, you can't change them later.

But I agree. It's even worse with phones - have you seen the number of phones Samsung have? I have a nack for remembering model numbers and specs and even I find it absurdly difficult.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#245

Post by dade_ »

SCdF wrote: post #226

OK, so I use OSX, and I want to play mp3s that I have locally, and see them in a library format that I can search. Even maybe have album art, though I'm not fussed. Ignoring itunes, how do I do it? What is a good fast low memory music playing app with library management? If I was on Windows I'd be using Foobar2k. On OSX it seems to be either itunes, a command line app, or various bloated messes that aren't honestly b…

Quod Libet is cross platform and runs on my Ubuntu box, Windows Surface and MacBook Pro. It is fast, has a simple interface that actually works and has been extremely stable. It also manages playlists that work in my car's USB port. I do like having my music in the cloud, and finally settled on Dropbox. I am still looking for a decent Android Dropbox music player for this setup, but for iOS, I use Eddy cloud music player/streamer. It even bookmarks my place in audio books. Sad part about Eddy is that it takes so long processing my entire music library on Dropbox and starts the whole process over when reinstalled. Also, haven't figured out how to get it to work with playlists saved to Dropbox, but I have asked for the feature.

It was Apple's changes to the music app on my iPhone that finally annoyed me enough to seek an alternative setup which baffles me, because the only reason I was convinced to ever purchase my first Apple product was an iPod and they have completely screwed it up.

I did use Google Music, but Google's insistence that the desktop doesn't exist made it useless on Windows & Mac. I tried every Google Music app I could find for either platform. They are unstable, often slow, and usually break every time there is an API change.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#246

Post by nasduia »

striking wrote: post #23
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…

Their reputation stemmed from the days where everything was discoverable. Want to delete a file? There's a trash can glued to your dock. Need to perform a function but don't know the name? Look it up in the Help menu's search box. Now, though, they've done the Windows 8 thing of overloading gestures and hiding behaviors. Want to see your notifications? Two-finger swipe to the left, starting from the edge of the touch…

Wanted to eject a disk back then? Drag it onto the trash can. Not the most clever ui decision in the days when formatting floppy disks was a common task.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#247

Post by Klathmon »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #239
tomasandrle wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Could they drop the iPhone sync app completely? These days the iPhone should be able to do all the syncing it needs directly against the internet.

isn't itunes still needed in some "recovery" situations? Like fixing a bad update, backing up/restoring a phone, and (not quite along the same lines, but important to me) allowing install of in-dev applications.

I guess some of those could be handled by going into an apple store, but I'd still be a bit peeved if they removed the lifeline to my phone as a cost cutting measure.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#248

Post by matt4077 »

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…

Until a few years ago, the difference to windows was like night & day.

Whenever I had to use a Windows PC during the Windows XP - Windows 7 days, I'd wonder how Windows users ever got anything done.

Windows would almost constantly interrupt any sort of flow with notifications about updated virus definitions, really really urgent updates that need a reboot right now, the highly relevant information that I got a new DHCP IP etc. etc.

It's gotten better now I believe, and OS X usability has indeed suffered a bit while expanding in features.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#249

Post by puddintane »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #239
tomasandrle wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Could they drop the iPhone sync app completely? These days the iPhone should be able to do all the syncing it needs directly against the internet.

You still have speed issues with certain areas.

I'm no expert of course but areas like the south in the United States are still stuck on DSL lines and even older technology.

I would think that this would be reasoning for not doing that yet.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#250

Post by ForFreedom »

One of the features I hate in iTunes is adding music to the library. When adding songs it should create a shortcut from the music folder that is being added from rather than creating a copy of the songs in its folder. When creating a copy into the iTunes folder the storage space on the macbook is lowered.
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