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How iTunes Is Changing on PC

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Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#141

Post by incanus77 »

breathen wrote: post #139
incanus77 wrote: post #138

The phrase “everything you needed to be entertained” is indicative of the biggest problem that I see with Apple today: a focus on consumerism and passive consumption. Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. It’s a very subtle difference, but it speaks to the attitude that Apple projects today. When was the last time the intersection with the humanities was mention…

> Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. This was (and is) also a blatant form of consumerism. I honestly don't see any difference in the negative effects on this outside of going through apple rather than my local FYE.

Sure, Apple aligned itself in a way that ultimately added to its and its partners’ bottom lines. But somehow, the company’s attitude felt aspirational to me in a way that it does not today.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#143

Post by Liquix »

breathen wrote: post #139
incanus77 wrote: post #138

The phrase “everything you needed to be entertained” is indicative of the biggest problem that I see with Apple today: a focus on consumerism and passive consumption. Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. It’s a very subtle difference, but it speaks to the attitude that Apple projects today. When was the last time the intersection with the humanities was mention…

> Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. This was (and is) also a blatant form of consumerism. I honestly don't see any difference in the negative effects on this outside of going through apple rather than my local FYE.

? no it wasn't. it was taking a beautiful, timeless, intrinsically valuable thing (music) and building a business around it.

the idea was that if iTunes is the best way to tag, collect, burn, and listen to music, people would naturally adopt it and then go spend money in the store.

this lies in contrast to modern apps' desire to provide an endless library of content within the app or paid service. drives up engagement but pretty soon the point is less "best in class for music lovers" and more "how do we keep them here forever spending money"

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#144

Post by PaulHoule »

CharlesW wrote: post #123
Night_Thastus wrote: post #105

Until iTunes gets better about specifying the exact level of quality of the music tracks I'm buying, it's still a no-go for me.

Purchased tracks are either 256 kbps AAC or ALAC (Apple Lossless). It's worth noting that Apple's AAC encoder beats everything else (I've done lots of testing), even though at 256 kbps this isn't a huge consideration. Their Apple Digital Masters program (formerly Mastered for iTunes or "MFiT") offers guidance and tools for labels, which is why Apple's iTunes catalog offers such consistently high quality. https://www.…

I keep most of my music in Jellyfin (at least most of the stereo as opposed to 5.1 music) I wrote a Python script that would download chosen albums from the server, run them through the Apple's command line AAC encoder, cache the results, and then carefully copy them in the right order to an exFAT file system on a USB stick that I use in my car.

I've been wanting to add a lot of Super Furry Animals albums to that stick but my mac mini died last year and I wasn't in a hurry to get a new mac. From time to time I think about pulling the SSD out of it and getting the Python script running on my Linux server, I could either use a MP3 encoder like LAME (always encoding at a high bit rate so it's going to be OK) but I do hear people have cheated to get the Apple AAC encoder to run on other OS

https://www.andrews-corner.org/qaac.html

I've used the same software to pack up music for my Garmin watch and for that I do use AAC Pro at 96kbps because I figure in the gym or out on a run it is a noisy environment. For that the Apple encoder really is superior to alternatives.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#145

Post by prmoustache »

plutokras wrote: post #20
eudoraexplora wrote: post #11

I like how Apple's page starts with "When iTunes was originally released, it had everything you needed to be entertained. Now, there are individual apps for all your media" - yes, exactly! That's the problem!

I disagree. It is nice to have separate apps for Music, Podcasts and audiobooks. You know, do one thing well. Spotfiy tries to do all of these and it's a bloated mess.

All are just...audio files.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#146

Post by prmoustache »

ghaff wrote: post #56
chrisjj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the problem with using one app for all audio files? I don't see why a user should be forced to use different apps depending on the type of the audio content.

Podcats (I use Overcast) are pretty different from music and I wouldn't generally intermix them. And you already have Library and Streaming modes of Apple Music so podcasts would be yet another mode.

Being in the same app doesn't mean you intermix them.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#148

Post by prmoustache »

gempir wrote: post #10
basisword wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the podcast apps that exist in the Apple ecosystem aren’t as good as Spotify Do you mean Spotify is better because it's all in one? Or specifically as a podcast client it's better? Because, as a podcast client, Spotify is shockingly bad. Perhaps the worst podcast client available. Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and Pocketcasts are all much, much better.

I hate Spotify Podcasts with a passion. The UI is lackluster, since it's just the same one from the normal Spotify Music experience. Because they bought Joe Rogan they had to add video too and video is horribly implemented. There isn't even an obvious way to turn it off. I consider myself tech-savy but I gave up trying to turn off and just switched to Apple Podcasts. Podcasts and Music are not the same. Please if you…

> Podcasts and Music are not the same.

Not a spotify nor Apple Music/Podcast/itunes user here.

Aren't both audio stuff where you press play, pause, stop, rewind and fast forward?

The only difference I can think of is that you might sometimes want to accelerate playback of podcasts but that doesn't mean it can't exist in the same player.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#149

Post by prmoustache »

niek_pas wrote: post #12
subtra3t wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To each their own. I personally like Spotify (as a podcast client) just the way it is, it does what I want it to.

> it does what I want it to This is Spotify's main advantage: most people already have it installed, and it's good enough if you don't care that much about the podcast-listening experience.

> if you don't care that much about the podcast-listening experience

What is so special about podcast-listening experience that you would need a specific player for?

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#150

Post by Macha »

jimmaswell wrote: post #132
karaterobot wrote: post #83

Has iTunes on Windows ever been good? I think I tried it in 2003-4, and it was garbage then, so I uninstalled it. In the intervening 20 years, I've never heard anyone say "it's good now!", so I never re-installed it. I assumed that if you were a dedicated Windows user, you just wouldn't use iTunes, and if you weren't a dedicated Windows user but loved your iPhone, you'd do what Apple wanted you to do in the first pla…

As someone who generally hates Apple, I actually enjoyed iTunes on Windows in the ~2007-2012 era when I had to use it to manage my iPod Touch (and second one a friend gave me, since I ran out of space on the first, spreading the MLPMusicArchive across both). Performed fine on my somewhat-potato laptops, had a nice interface and search function, got the job done syncing the iPods. I never got the big deal about iTunes…

Huh, that's exactly when I had to interface with iTunes and remember disliking it. It was horribly non native to the point that both it and Safari (which had a windows port in those days) ported the Apple font rendering which stuck out like a sore thumb.

Performance was also bad compared to Windows Media Player, never mind Foobar2000 etc.

And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software.

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