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Apple Plans End of iTunes

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Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#141

Post by forrestthewoods »

lucisferre wrote: post #105
forrestthewoods wrote: post #98

Hallelujah. iTunes is the single worst piece of software I have ever used. It’s the only software I’ve seen bring someone to literal tears. And it’s done that to more than a couple of family members. May it rot in hell forever.

> iTunes is the single worst piece of software I have ever used I mean sure it's bad, but I find it hard to take this statement literally for any HN reader. *Note that is not a comment about HN UX, just that anyone who uses software and technology extensively has to have used some pretty terrible software products in their lifetime.

I thought about it, but no I think iTunes is actually the worst.

Some software is broken. It doesn’t work. But iTunes is so bloated and janky I don’t think I could design something that bad if I tried. The concept of “syncing” is completely wrong in a multi-device context Venn diagram.

Plus iTunes has literally brought friends and family to tears. Actual tears. No other software has done that.

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#142

Post by insickness »

forrestthewoods wrote: post #98

Hallelujah. iTunes is the single worst piece of software I have ever used. It’s the only software I’ve seen bring someone to literal tears. And it’s done that to more than a couple of family members. May it rot in hell forever.

As a PC user with an iphone, I loathe the fact that I have to open itunes just to transfer some music to my iphone. Let me just drag and drop instead of forcing me to into some prolonged, annoying machination.

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#143

Post by untog »

rusk wrote: post #39
untog wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in a tiny minority. I say this as a fellow member of that minority. But our complaints have (and should have) very little to do with what Apple does or doesn't do with iPads.

Except that you need developers to build an ecosystem and Apple is currently alienating them in droves. developers developera developers as a wise man once said

I'm not seeing any decline in enthusiasm for iOS development, but maybe that's just me.

In any case, you can develop fully featured projects for iPad on the web too, you don't even need a Mac for that, let alone an iPad.

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#144

Post by kvark »

cuddlybacon wrote: post #37
kvark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minority here, I never understood why music players shifted towards iTune-ish style of owning and re-categorizing everything in their own way... I mean, OS has a file system, why not just rely on it? Throw some searchable tags in, and you get the same abilities but without obscurity.

What do you get from having the OS filesystem do the organization?

I get better reliability (say, restoring after power shutdown), portability (can copy files via external drives and/or network), discoverability (songs show up in regular search), interoperability (hypothetically, I'd be able to drag a song file into my browser to share it, accompanies by full metadata), and finally simplicity of the software (no need to reinvent the filesystem).

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#145

Post by kvark »

klodolph wrote: post #17
kvark wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minority here, I never understood why music players shifted towards iTune-ish style of owning and re-categorizing everything in their own way... I mean, OS has a file system, why not just rely on it? Throw some searchable tags in, and you get the same abilities but without obscurity.

What are you asking for, specifically? iTunes lets you organize music how you want on the filesystem, or you can let it organize the music for you. The only thing it doesn't do is present a view of the filesystem, but the Finder already has that.

I guess what I'm missing is just system-standard metadata format, like the one BeFS featured back in the day.

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#146

Post by stevewillows »

arafa wrote: post #131
stevewillows wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the version, but you can really trick out iPods. I've got an iPod Video (5.5) with an iFlash Quad [1] (up to 4x micro SD cards) with a 2000mAh battery, running Rockbox [2] I also replaced the rear panel since I didn't need the beefy 80gb version, and also the lock / headphone jack so they were both solid black. Rockbox is excellent because it runs off of a basic folder structure, but also has a library…

Seems interesting, especially since I used to use Rockbox. But my iPod Classic/6G is in the Rockbox unstable category and has apparently been that way for 2 years. Bummer, I still use mine all the time. :(

The port status for the 6G does look pretty good, though.

https://www.rockbox.org/wiki/IpodClassicPort

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#148

Post by scarface74 »

saurik wrote: post #77
scarface74 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No you don’t. With iTunes you could have smart playlists like “create a list of all of the songs I haven’t played in X days”. Normal people didn’t want to tag songs and use the filesystem. Do I really need to bring up the “No Wireless. Less Space than a Nomad. Lame.” Meme and how geeks didn’t get the iPod? https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

> Do I really need to bring up the “No Wireless. Less Space than a Nomad. Lame.” Meme and how geeks didn’t get the iPod? People love to bring this up... but that product (pretty much) did fail, in no small part because it had less space than a Nomad. The iPod wasn't successful until a couple revisions later and after the introduction of iTunes (which led to an end-to-end rethink of how you loaded music on these devic…

The nomad used a 3.5” inch hard drive so was much bigger and used USB1.1 which was much slower than FireWire.

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#149

Post by duxup »

nategri wrote: post #5

I remember when iTunes came out for Windows ca. 2003. I had friends with Macs so I leapt at the chance to try it for myself---it just seemed lightyears ahead of whatever I was using to interface with my music library at the time (Winamp, probably). And what a long, slow, weird, decline it's been since then.

I remember doing that and hating the fiddly interfere and instability of iTunes.

It felt to me like too much style over some unstable software.

Re: Apple Plans End of iTunes

#150

Post by jrochkind1 »

koyote wrote: post #107
jrochkind1 wrote: post #76

Hm, I wonder if I'll still be able to sync music and podcasts to my iPod. My 10-plus-year-old iPod is rock solid technology, hardware and software, just keeps on working. At this point it feels like some retro SF alternate vision of the future we could have had, with simple easy to use things that never broke.

Do you walk with your iPod in your pocket? The reason I am asking is because I am surprised yours has lasted so long. I had two and they broke within two years due to the mechanical hdd inside. (the headphones also broke, within a month each time; really put me off buying Apple products again)

Yeah, I've got a nano 4th generation, no moving parts in there, it should last forever, or until the battery goes, but battery still going just fine for me, can play more music than I've needed without a recharge.
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