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.
Setting the bozo bit on Apple
21–30 of 185 posts
Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple
#22I 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?
Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple
#23Sync'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: 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.
Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple
#25Sync'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.…
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.
Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple
#27Don'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.
Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple
#29Re: Setting the bozo bit on Apple
#30Sync'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.