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How iTunes Is Changing on PC

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Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#261

Post by recursive »

sleepybrett wrote: post #184
refulgentis wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never 100% understood it either, the only steelman I've been able to come up with over years is most people are like me and lose or damage the wireless earbuds every 6-12 months. I'm lucky enough to be a yuppie tech nerd with disposable income to treat it as a fact of life. Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year.

> Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year. Except that you are not, there exists a 8-10$ dongle from apple for lightning to headphone and, i just had to check, there exists a usb-c to headphone dongle for the same price range if you happen to have the newest gen phone. So instead it's a forced march to buy a new dongle if you happen to lose your cheap wired headphones/earbuds, assuming…

I don't like dongles. It's another piece. It plugs into the same place the charger does.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#262

Post by chrisjj »

WorldMaker wrote: post #183
chrisjj wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is preventing you playing music if you install another app not worse?

If the other app is better and worth installing?

That doesn't avoid this worsening of iTunes.

At best it merely avoids some users caring.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#263

Post by afandian »

sunshowers wrote: post #210
crowcroft wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience you almost entirely lose the human experience of sharing playlists, talking about new discoveries, getting together with people to listen to new music. For each individual it is probably a better experience, but there is something lost still. I don't know if it's fair to lay blame for that on Apple though, it seems like that's where things are going anyway in some many dimensions of life.

Just the other day, I discovered a rather incredible ambient/drone album using a nonstandard tuning [1] via Spotify's Discover Weekly, and excitedly pinged all my art-music-liking friends about it. [1] Trances by Jules Reidy: https://juliareidy.bandcamp.com/album/trances

After using Spotify for over a decade I moved to Qobuz, mostly on principle. Most of my library was transferred.

The one thing I miss is the recommendations, especially as I like music that isn’t very mainstream. It might be that Spotify’s algorithm is better than Qobuz, or it has a huge amount more data.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#264

Post by recursive »

incanus77 wrote: post #170
recursive wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a presumption that if I want anything other than what they're giving me, it's me that's wrong. Just like they did with the headphone jacks.

I’m not sure I’ve ever understood this take. I think Apple has always been like this (one-button mouse, B&W display, proprietary keyboard plug, dropping the floppy, adopting USB, adopting FireWire, making the original iPod only function as a FireWire hard drive on Windows, etc.) But, like any product maker, the choice of whether you buy it or not is up to you. If you don’t like the whole package, find another option?…

I mean, that's what I'm doing. I stopped buying apple stuff about 20 years ago. My phones are Android, which I'm not exactly thrilled with, but consider to be the lesser of the evils.

But let's be real, a smart phone is practically a requirement to participate in modern society, and there are two options. iOS and Android. "Opting out" is becoming increasingly hypothetical.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#265

Post by chrisjj »

sleepybrett wrote: post #193
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.

Because there are specialization that are important. Longer form audio generally requires a more robust set of controls for chapters, audio playback speed, timed skips and resume than a bog standard audio player. Not to mention that a podcast player is going to need functionality for finding new podcasts, displaying information both at a podcast level and individual episode level, providing some kind of way to 'subsc…

> Because there are specialization that are important. Longer form audio generally requires a more robust set of controls for chapters, audio playback speed, timed skips and resume than a bog standard audio player

That's merely a reason not to use one /inadequate/ app for all audio.

Inadequacy is not an app requirement.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#266

Post by atribecalledqst »

paulrpotts wrote: post #248

iTunes was a complex mess with too much functionality in one app, but for many years it worked really well for me. Replacing it with the new apps has been a process of removing functionality I relied on, obfuscating and making less user-friendly existing functionality, and pushing people into using cloud services. Some examples: - Older versions of iTunes had a great "home sharing" function that allowed sharing the l…

WOW finally I encounter somebody with the same use case as me in the wild. I thought that would never happen. Except I stream off my 2007 Macbook instead, which is basically just a NAS to me at this point. (I actually do own a Synology NAS but have not integrated it with this existing system)

I hate the UI on Apple Music enough that I don't use iTunes Home Share anymore, but instead run an instance of MPD and then just control playback through ncmpcpp. But to modify tags, add ratings, etc. I have a Screen Sharing session open to the 2007 machine to use iTunes. I have an ongoing project to write a web app that would free me from iTunes altogether, but it will be a while before that's usable.

I don't remember if I ever encountered the disconnection issues you did with a modern machine + home sharing with an older one. The thing that drove me the most nuts was that I could not use home sharing if I was using my headphones over bluetooth. They had to be plugged in for home sharing to work.

My favorite trick was when I figured out how to get the advertisements from home sharing forwarded over VPN, so I could use it when I was on work travel. Unfortunately that broke when I upgraded from Mavericks to High Sierra and I never figured out how to fix it.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#267

Post by a1o »

ghostpepper wrote: post #239
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having a wire is an obvious advantage, even if the negatives you listed are true. Obviously this only applies to me, but having to avoid yanking or catching me headphone cord significantly impacted my range of motion if I was doing anything other than walking or sitting down.

Indeed Apple AirPods are such a step above in usability of even other wireless headphones, let alone wired, that they're almost a separate product category. They're so much better than what we had before that once you've used them for a few days it's hard to go back.

I have AirPods Pro but ended up prefering the Samsung Galaxy Buds (had many different iterations of them from Samsung). Samsung products compatibility is overall better with non-Apple products and it works ok with Apple products too.

If you have to use Windows computers for work and use Microsoft Teams and all that, Samsung line works. If you want to connect with a Linux computer, Apple AirPods get terrible audio quality (and had same issue on Windows 11), but the Samsung Galaxy Buds (all of them) seem to work fine.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#268

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

asciimov wrote: post #258
jamesrr39 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Android weren't so awful Just curious, what is it that people don't like about Android?

Updates. No guarantee that you will get the next OS update even on a brand new phone. Which stinks when financial apps require you be on the latest OS. Yes, this happened to me a decade ago on 2 different Android devices. Since then I've moved my family and extended family to iOS and my ongoing tech support is dramatically reduced.

You should try a Pixel with GrapheneOS.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#269

Post by Terretta »

chrisjj wrote: post #53
Terretta wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't make it worse. If you don't want to change, don't install the replacement apps.

How is preventing you playing music if you install another app not worse?

But they didn't do that, you did that, by installing the other app.

If you don't install the other app, iTunes is the same.

You indicated a preference for the new Music experience by installing it.

If you don't indicate that preference, iTunes doesn't change.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#270

Post by sunshowers »

afandian wrote: post #263
sunshowers wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just the other day, I discovered a rather incredible ambient/drone album using a nonstandard tuning [1] via Spotify's Discover Weekly, and excitedly pinged all my art-music-liking friends about it. [1] Trances by Jules Reidy: https://juliareidy.bandcamp.com/album/trances

After using Spotify for over a decade I moved to Qobuz, mostly on principle. Most of my library was transferred. The one thing I miss is the recommendations, especially as I like music that isn’t very mainstream. It might be that Spotify’s algorithm is better than Qobuz, or it has a huge amount more data.

I've tried several other music platforms, but nothing has really expanded my musical horizons like Spotify's Discover Weekly. Even 5-6 years ago, most of the electronic music I listened to was relatively mainstream like Boards of Canada (BoC is great music, don't get me wrong). Last year, the album I listened to the most was Se Ve Desde Aquí by Mabe Fratti [1].

[1] https://tinangelrecords.bandcamp.com/album/se-ve-desde-aqu

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