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iTunes will never work well

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Re: iTunes will never work well

#301

Post by pwthornton »

optimuspaul wrote: post #300

I have never understood why there is so much hate for iTunes. I think it's fine. It does everything I need it to and probably more. Why put so much energy into debasing something?

I think most users would agree with you. Hating on iTunes is popular with tech people, but I don't know if your average person cares.

The biggest complaint I have with iTunes is that it tries to do too many things, and it would be better to break the app up. It somehow got itself into the smartphone and tablet backup business.

Years ago, I wrote that iTunes should be split up into smaller apps: http://interchangeproject.org/2012/04/16/itunes-should-be-sp...

I don't know if I really care that much anymore, as iTunes works fine for my uses, but I'm also no longer a heavy iTunes user. I use my iPhone to play music at home and on the go. I watch movies either on my Apple TV or iPad.

I mainly use iTunes to see what's new in the store. That could be a reflection of using iTunes, however.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#302

Post by Willamin »

csydas wrote: post #251
TorKlingberg wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe, but I think there's still some value to a controlled management application for either a large volume or to at least ensure that it's not a faulty wireless connection. It's a lot easier to move a few hundred gig over lightning than it is over wifi, and that first impression is probably going to be the biggest. Then again, if they do go towards a totally wireless phone, I guess it would only be sensible to just…

A stand-alone management application for large volume already exists (intended for business and schools that issue Apple devices): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-configurator-2/id10371...

Re: iTunes will never work well

#304

Post by csydas »

Willamin wrote: post #302
csydas wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but I think there's still some value to a controlled management application for either a large volume or to at least ensure that it's not a faulty wireless connection. It's a lot easier to move a few hundred gig over lightning than it is over wifi, and that first impression is probably going to be the biggest. Then again, if they do go towards a totally wireless phone, I guess it would only be sensible to just…

A stand-alone management application for large volume already exists (intended for business and schools that issue Apple devices): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/apple-configurator-2/id10371...

Well, I was more meaning like moving 20+ gig of music or other data, not for managing devices. As far as I know, the apple configurator is more of a management tool not an individual device tool (for sending media)

Re: iTunes will never work well

#305

Post by gdulli »

jharohit wrote: post #295

There never was and never will be a better music player than Winamp! #WinampSkins

I was happily paying $10/month to Spotify but canceled my subscription because the desktop player was so bad and incomplete. After a while I realized that attempting parity with other players was not on their to-do list.

I'm not even a power user, there are many advanced and obscure features of Winamp/foobar I never used. But those products have the nuances of day to day management of playlists and usability figured out and Spotify in comparison doesn't care. It seems they'd be happier to have you use web/mobile and not even support a desktop player.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#307

Post by agentgt »

Almost every cloud music app I have used has issues with the concept of a "queue" or playing a snippet of something while I am in the middle of a playlist. Spotify, Mog , rdio, and itunes seems to never do what I want when it comes to "just checking out a song while other songs are playing".

Lets say you have enqueued up a bunch of songs on Spotify or perhaps have a really good shuffled playlist god forbid you accidentally click on a song instead of queue it.

Because of this annoyance at times I just give up and put on Pandora. Their song selection sucks but otherwise I think Pandora is fairly stress free UX wise.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#309

Post by newscracker »

javajosh wrote: post #41

For OSX VLC is a surprisingly good player for music and it supports FLAC. However I'm quite interested in building a dedicated OSS music player node/electron for OSX (and windows eventually).

Would you mind developing a QuickLook plugin for the latest OS X/macOS releases that could play FLAC? :) I've been breaking my head over it and don't seem to have any solutions.

Re: iTunes will never work well

#310

Post by newscracker »

Apple needs to allow importing songs into the Music app on iOS from any source, not just iTunes and its own store. This has been a long standing pain point. Not everybody wants Apple Music and not everybody wants to buy music from Apple. But there are people with existing music collections who want to add them to iOS devices easily without having to use iTunes.

This procedure works for iBooks, where you can add books from any source online through the share sheet. But it's not allowed for Music in 2016^, nearly 10 years since Steve Jobs wrote his Thoughts on DRM.

^: presumably due to licensing issues and/or agreements with the record labels and/or wanting a monopoly on music

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