Little known iTunes 10 benefit • Hacker News Board

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#31

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 3:58 PM UTC

elblanco wrote: post #24

jsz0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB mass storage players also fail nicely at being usable for most normal people. Plug it in, get an Explorer window, now what? Open another Explorer window -- reposition windows so you can see both. Navigate to your music collection. Find the first thing you want to copy -- hopefully your music folder is well organized by filename. Copy (don't move!) files. Make sure there are no incompatible filenames. FAT32 isn't…

I guess you've explained why usb thumb drives have failed to take the market.

[deleted]

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#32

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 4:39 PM UTC

mitjak wrote: post #27

KingOfB wrote: post #9

Really? The feature's been in iTunes 9, and well, I'm a mac guy but #1 on HN?

No, it hasn't.

[deleted]

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#33

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 4:41 PM UTC

elblanco wrote: post #24

jsz0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB mass storage players also fail nicely at being usable for most normal people. Plug it in, get an Explorer window, now what? Open another Explorer window -- reposition windows so you can see both. Navigate to your music collection. Find the first thing you want to copy -- hopefully your music folder is well organized by filename. Copy (don't move!) files. Make sure there are no incompatible filenames. FAT32 isn't…

I guess you've explained why usb thumb drives have failed to take the market.

[deleted]

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#34

Post by aphistic » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 4:47 PM UTC

Wow, I guess they listened and I need to eat my hat... Or something.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653584

This is good news!

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#35

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 4:50 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #33

elblanco wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you've explained why usb thumb drives have failed to take the market.

[deleted]

[deleted]

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#36

Post by dualboot » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 7:57 PM UTC

SandB0x wrote: post #22

jsz0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB mass storage players also fail nicely at being usable for most normal people. Plug it in, get an Explorer window, now what? Open another Explorer window -- reposition windows so you can see both. Navigate to your music collection. Find the first thing you want to copy -- hopefully your music folder is well organized by filename. Copy (don't move!) files. Make sure there are no incompatible filenames. FAT32 isn't…

With a mass storage player: At least you have the option , and the device doesn't go out of its way to make life difficult for you and any software that tries to access it. People love to think that users are completely clueless, but it's not the case. The general user has absolutely no problem using a USB drive. Sure, it might not the most usable option but it's not as arduous as you describe. And organised music fo…

No offense but most "average users" I encounter have a terrible time with USB drives.

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#37

Post by sliverstorm » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 8:22 PM UTC

SandB0x wrote: post #2

Gee, now I feel like an idiot for buying a portable media player that just mounts as a USB drive.

Frankly, I have one that mounts as a USB drive and one that is an iPod, and I much prefer the iPod. Real sync capabilities make all the difference to me, and WMP sync is annoying, buggy, and slow.

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#38

Post by krschultz » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 8:39 PM UTC

jsz0 wrote: post #19

jrockway wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, you still can't copy music from a device back into iTunes. I mean, obviously the bits representing the music flow from the iDevice into the computer, but the computer doesn't belong to you anymore, so you don't get access to them. Silly user. USB devices fail in that they rely on the user to make his own decisions about whether or not to copy his friend's music collection. Apple devices let some music ex…

USB mass storage players also fail nicely at being usable for most normal people. Plug it in, get an Explorer window, now what? Open another Explorer window -- reposition windows so you can see both. Navigate to your music collection. Find the first thing you want to copy -- hopefully your music folder is well organized by filename. Copy (don't move!) files. Make sure there are no incompatible filenames. FAT32 isn't…

There is nothing intrinsic about USB mass storage in that experience.You can make an iTunes like experience based on USB mass storage drivers, Apple has chosen not to for other reasons.

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#39

Post by andreyf » Wed, Sep 08, 2010, 11:53 PM UTC

Setsuna wrote: post #7

swombat wrote: post #4

That's a pretty big feature change... is that a mistake or did they somehow slip that past the record labels?

>"slip that past the record labels" What does this feature has to do with that? /curious

Either (a) there were legal changes in Apple's contracts with the record labels, or (b) they might get be sued for enabling this feature.

Re: Little known iTunes 10 benefit

#40

Post by stoney » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 5:42 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #6

DougBTX wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

though of course you can copy music off an ipod by copying the mp3 files off it like any other mounted disk, except that they are in a folder with its hidden attribute set.

And they're renamed with obscure filenames, and you can't do this with iPods touch or iPhones.

I've got around this in the past by importing the bizarrely named files into iTunes and then telling it to automatically organise my library for me. It then uses the metadata in the mp3s to rename the files back to how they should be. Not sure if it still does that these days.