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Setting the bozo bit on Apple

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21–30 of 185 posts

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#21

Sync'ing from laptop to devices, via anything but iCloud, has gotten so much worse than it used to be. It used to be pretty good -- for it's time anyway. The ecology just isn't built for actual owned media anymore. And so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. I think this is probably true on Android too. I don't know about the Watch, or what the documented ways are to get media files on it.…

re: Android, I have syncthing running on a windows, Linux and android phone. I make a change in from my desktop PC and it nearly immediately replicates the changes on my other devices whether I'm on my home network, at work or abroad. works really well.

+1 for this. Not exactly a setup for the average Joe, but if you know your network/filesystem topology and have compatible devices, Syncthing is nothing short of a godsend.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#22
post #7

I echo this - I bought an apple watch but ended up returning it because it was so hard to reliably do basic tasks like connecting your AirPods and listening to a podcast. It would work fine ~80% of the time but sometimes it just wouldn't work at all and there's no clear fix other than resetting everything which is super annoying. Apple support was also completely useless. The apple watch hardware is amazing but the s…

Every time something goes wrong with my watch I have to fully unpair and reset it. Every time! It’s very frustrating. But when everything is working, I find it to be super useful… so what are you going to do?

Ask for a refund?

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#23

Sync'ing from laptop to devices, via anything but iCloud, has gotten so much worse than it used to be. It used to be pretty good -- for it's time anyway. The ecology just isn't built for actual owned media anymore. And so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. I think this is probably true on Android too. I don't know about the Watch, or what the documented ways are to get media files on it.…

I don't know, I can plug my android phone into my computer and tell it to pop up as a drive and drag and drop files from Nautilus... (or I can use Google Drive or SFTP...).

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#24

> iTunes used to be if not the, then certainly a flagship app for Apple. I have used iTunes off and on for around two decades and it has never been a great or even mediocre experience. It was always bad. The author is fondly remembering a time which might never have existed.

To be fair, SoundJam MP really whipped the llama’s ass. Apple ruined it after the acquisition.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#25

Sync'ing from laptop to devices, via anything but iCloud, has gotten so much worse than it used to be. It used to be pretty good -- for it's time anyway. The ecology just isn't built for actual owned media anymore. And so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. I think this is probably true on Android too. I don't know about the Watch, or what the documented ways are to get media files on it.…

> I think this is probably true on Android too.

Eh - it's not really the same. Android certainly still mostly pushes you at cloud based services (ex: Youtube Music/Amazon Music/Spotify/ETC)

But there's not really a "Standard" music player for the ecosystem, so the expectation is that you pick a 3rd party app you like and use that. And for the vast majority of those - the simple "you have a filesystem - play files from it" approach works just fine (ex: I use VLC for local content, and JellyFin for self-hosted music).

Personally - having my library hosted on my own JellyFin server is basically miles better than anything else I've found (And using either the native app or a specific music client for jellyfin).

The downside is the cost of entry is much higher, and it takes more time and effort to get setup the first time.

Also - your results will vary a lot more depending on which app you pick, and what features that company supports.

So... the experience defaults to something that's more complicated and less featurefull but can be significantly better than that available via iMusic/iCloud at the end of the day.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#26

> iTunes used to be if not the, then certainly a flagship app for Apple. I have used iTunes off and on for around two decades and it has never been a great or even mediocre experience. It was always bad. The author is fondly remembering a time which might never have existed.

For me, iTunes was quite good on Mac. It's the Windows experience that has always been an afterthought, for example: why is there not an option to turn off "black out other monitors when going full-screen on a movie"?

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#27
> OK, not a biggie, so export to m4a from QT Player.

Don't even need to do that, just change the file name suffix from .mp4 to .m4a

And in the Finder, right-clicking on a file gives a submenu "Open with..." where you can choose the application that will open it.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#28

> iTunes used to be if not the, then certainly a flagship app for Apple. I have used iTunes off and on for around two decades and it has never been a great or even mediocre experience. It was always bad. The author is fondly remembering a time which might never have existed.

for those that "deify" Steve Jobs, please recall the day that Jobs Apple CEO personally visited the tiny office of Audion developers, and told them "you have no chance" of marketing their fun and well-designed Mac native application.. as part of the iTunes rollout, backdrop anti-trust on MSFT over media tools.

Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple

#30

Sync'ing from laptop to devices, via anything but iCloud, has gotten so much worse than it used to be. It used to be pretty good -- for it's time anyway. The ecology just isn't built for actual owned media anymore. And so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. I think this is probably true on Android too. I don't know about the Watch, or what the documented ways are to get media files on it.…

> so many people have only a phone now, so no reason to try to sync. Wait until the AR glasses come out. I pretty much guarantee that media syncing will be a huge deal, and Apple had better get their iCloud act together by then. iCloud is a shambles; and I say this as an Apple user for more than thirty years, and has pegged his career to Apple.

What about iCloud is a shambles? In my experience it works fine, I save files on one device, and then I can access them on another.
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