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How iTunes Is Changing on PC

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Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#291
post #232

I was briefly excited to hear they had separated media synchronization from the atrocity of iTunes. I just experimented with the "Apple Devices App" for PC. Unfortunately, the experience has been poor, which is what I should have anticipated given Apple's track record for PC software. First, the linked documentation provides no information about where to get the Apple Devices App. It turns out, it's only available fr…

Apple's fear of proper I/O strikes again. Forcing customers to use a shitty JUKEBOX app to manage all the content (including applications) on a handheld Unix computer was embarrassing on day one. But after a decade... and then more... it's offensive to those customers. Now they made the already-shambolic Windows situation even worse. It's bad enough on Mac, where the videos you shot yourself inexplicably wind up in t…

Never had a problem like this on Mac. When I shoot a video on my iPhone, it’s in the photo library on my Mac. Same with downloads, photos, passwords, safari tabs, clipboard and more. No transferring of files required at all, let alone through the Apple TV app?

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh, I didn’t know they’d dropped the basic model. It always made sense to me, at least: “pro” is premium in a power direction, “air” is premium in a lightness direction, and the base model is just the base model. But I guess it is unsurprising that Apple doesn’t want to do a base model, haha. Another way of looking at it, I guess, is just that it is an evolutionary process, and every MacBook is a descendent of the A…

The 2015-2019 12-inch MacBooks had zero benefits over MacBook Air, maybe other than the Retina screens, until the release of the 2018 Retina MacBook Air. Other than that, they had CPUs <= 1.4 GHz, a single USB-C port, and even the camera was only 480p. They were never cheaper than the base model of the 13-inch MacBook Air.

Oh wow. It did seem like an odd device, but I thought they were at least cheaper than the Airs. How strange of them.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#293

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…

> iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. I get much more enjoyment out of experiencing new music through radio functionality in Apple Music or Spotify than wasting time "collecting". It expands my horizons rather than limiting myself to what I already know I like. There's nothing passive about recommendations. I hear a new song I like, I go to research the artist, I start a new ra…

Spotify is great for discovery. There's nothing saying you can't also collect music.

If you've ever saved a song to your library or favorites, you're "collecting", just with less freedom

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#294
post #201

I use an old version of iTunes on Windows and haven't found anything better, for the following reasons: 1. It has a taskbar player, which is a tiny strip of media controls which sits in your taskbar. AFAIK the only other player to offer this is Windows Media Player. 2. It has the best-looking (for me) GUI with the column browser etc. 3. You can use parental controls to disable all the crap like the store/videos/radio…

> 1. It has a taskbar player, which is a tiny strip of media controls which sits in your taskbar. AFAIK the only other player to offer this is Windows Media Player. In the taskbar meaning where you select applications that can maybe show the window title but by default is just icons these days? Or the in the notification area / system tray? If the later, Winamp has a bundled plugin for that, and I believe Foobar2000…

It's the former.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#295
post #232

I was briefly excited to hear they had separated media synchronization from the atrocity of iTunes. I just experimented with the "Apple Devices App" for PC. Unfortunately, the experience has been poor, which is what I should have anticipated given Apple's track record for PC software. First, the linked documentation provides no information about where to get the Apple Devices App. It turns out, it's only available fr…

> If Android weren't so awful

What's so awful about Android? When was the last time you used it. I use both regularly and frankly find a lot of what Android does these days better.

Heck, Apple Music on Android is even my Music app of choice.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#296

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…

The Mac in the early 2000s was centered around creating. iLife was the big selling feature. As a kid, I was super thankful my parents bought an iMac because it meant I could create music in Garageband, organize it in iTunes, mix into into a home video that iMovie loaded from my digital tape camera over FireWire, then burn a DVD in... iDVD. I spent countless hours creating stuff that way, whereas on my previous handed-down Win98 laptop I only played games.

Not much of that works as a selling point anymore. iMovie and Garageband are still great, but they don't even come preinstalled.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. Or, better yet, creating. Time was when FCP trounced any video editor for Window, all of which were buggy and unreliable. Now, FCP is more of a niche product for pro or semi pro editors. Garageband was never the top choice for pros, but it was highly accessible at that time. Hours of fun for an adolescent. Now, it's weird…

This idea of a "low-end creation apps" always sat weird with me. As kids our go-to tools were usually pirated copies of Cubase, Vegas, and Photoshop. Garage Band, iMovie/Windows Movie Maker, or MSPaint weren't even considered.

"The King downloads Sony Vegas," a classic.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#299
post #295
post #232

I was briefly excited to hear they had separated media synchronization from the atrocity of iTunes. I just experimented with the "Apple Devices App" for PC. Unfortunately, the experience has been poor, which is what I should have anticipated given Apple's track record for PC software. First, the linked documentation provides no information about where to get the Apple Devices App. It turns out, it's only available fr…

> If Android weren't so awful What's so awful about Android? When was the last time you used it. I use both regularly and frankly find a lot of what Android does these days better . Heck, Apple Music on Android is even my Music app of choice.

I've switched back and fourth multiple times. After about 10 years on Android I recently switched back to iPhone for one feature and one feature only - its integrations with hearing aids. In every other way I can think of, I find Android so much better. I remember having the same reaction when I switched 10 years ago too.

Well, I switched for another reason - I've had three Pixel phones, and all three phones had hardware failures in less than 2 years, so there is that.

Re: How iTunes Is Changing on PC

#300
post #232

I was briefly excited to hear they had separated media synchronization from the atrocity of iTunes. I just experimented with the "Apple Devices App" for PC. Unfortunately, the experience has been poor, which is what I should have anticipated given Apple's track record for PC software. First, the linked documentation provides no information about where to get the Apple Devices App. It turns out, it's only available fr…

Apple's fear of proper I/O strikes again. Forcing customers to use a shitty JUKEBOX app to manage all the content (including applications) on a handheld Unix computer was embarrassing on day one. But after a decade... and then more... it's offensive to those customers. Now they made the already-shambolic Windows situation even worse. It's bad enough on Mac, where the videos you shot yourself inexplicably wind up in t…

This isn’t embarrassing. Apple is supporting their “older way” of doing things for longer than anyone else.

The fact that they let you do via cable so many things that their competitors have deprecated entirely or moved to cloud is commendable. These apps all still support iPods as well.

Tell me how to buy an album from Google and have it automatically sync to your iPhone when it’s plugged in to the computer. No cloud.

Tell me how to make a backup image of your Android phone without touching a Google account. Apple’s sync app can do it for you. Let me guess, you have to use a developer tool that wasn’t intended for the consumer?

Not sure what the hell you're talking about regarding Apple TV.

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