Apple iTunes pros and cons discussion

The other thread was closed, attempting to start this discussion up again.

Reason is that it's actually relevant for me right now, as I'm looking into other long-term alternatives to Napster/Rhapsody given the recent WMDRM changes. So Apple Music, for example, is something I want to look into on both my Surface Pro and my MBP, so iTunes I believe is relevant there.

If we could limit the discussion to recent iTunes versions that would be appreciated (no need to complain about iTunes 10 if there were changes in 12 you haven't even looked at, for example). And what OS you've used it on that would also be appreciated as MacOS / Windows apps may act differently.

Thanks!

 

I use Apple Music and like it better than all the other options available and I have tried them all. And for me, Apple Music sounds the best of the bunch. I am using it with Amarra sQ+ as the sound engine. I am running all these on a late 2015 iMac with a Schiit Bifrost DAC feeding into my vintage McIntosh Mac 1900 receiver. I use XLD to rip CD's directly to ALAC and then use Metadatics to edit the meta data. I am very happy with this process.

 

Why did it close?

 

I suggest you add some qualifications - are you managing an iPad or iPod or iPhone? Downloading and maintaining a video library? Interfacing with AppleTV or some other streaming devices (which ones specifically - others may have experience to share)? Most of the complaints on the other thread (and in general) about iTunes are that it is a bloated mess when dealing with all this stuff, but those complaints may disappear if you limit it to music.

If you are considering using iTunes only as a music repository that's a different discussion, and I think iTunes will probably be better suited for this use.

 

Too much hate going on and not enough relevant discussion.

 

It all depends what you need fir day to day use.

The latest iTunes works perfectly for me as I play back a large collection of lossless music 2.5TB mostly from my own CD collection. It's on an external HD and the iTunes interface works seamlessly from separate 4 year old mac loaded with the latest OS.

I use airplay via an airport express to my stereo system. Works well and sounds good.

I buy a new mac about every three or four years and then rotate the older one as my primary music mac.

iTunes works great to get music to my iPhone and in my car using Apple CarPlay. But I never use or stream Apple Music.

I can't speak for Windows compatibility but the Apple echo system works perfectly for me. I always update to the latest versions.

 

For myself, it's a Windows Phone right now (not relevant to the discussion at all) and my Surface tablet. I may get an iPhone / Android device next year so I know that for Apple Music those would both work.

For this thread just iTunes in general pros / cons are fine by me. Either for Apple Music, iTunes Match, or just as a local repository.

 

Mac ecosystem here, iTunes naturally.

 

Apple Music and iTunes are almost like separate discussions to me. In fact, there's another lengthy Apple Music/Spotify thread around here somewhere.
I use an iMac, iPad, iPhones, MacBook Air computers for my wife and daughter. We no longer have PC's at home. I no longer work due to disability, so I'm not dealing with PC's at work either.
I honestly never had huge issues with iTunes on any of them. Again, what I complain about are features that are removed...like the ability to freely resize the album artwork, the ability to have two playlists open and drag and drop from one to the other (break out windows in general was a great feature), the ability to find duplicates in my library (need to find a 3rd party script), the interface looks like a 13 year old girl designed it...and it's still non-functional through multiple updates. What are these little Artist bubbles? Why do some have a picture and some not? Why don't they ever fill in?


Needless to say, I can still put the thing in list view and get what I want out of it. It still plays back all my ripped files perfectly fine, and it's never lost a thing. I keep all my media on a separate HD...which is backed up.


Currently, I subscribe to both Apple Music and Spotify. We have an Apple Music Family Subscription and I have a Spotify account for myself. I personally prefer Spotify. I like the way people can share playlists, I like the interface better. The reason I keep Apple Music for my family is that Spotify does not offer clean versions of their music. So, unless I want my 11 year old daughter inundated with F-bombs, I keep Apple Music too. She actually asked to hear the cleaned up versions instead. As far as I can tell, the libraries are identical. I haven't found anything in one that wasn't in the other.

 

Cons:

Getting greeted by the iTunes store sometimes when I start it up. Um, no thanks, but prefer to see Internet Radio when I boot the program up instead.

Internet radio skipping stations. And playing a different one instead. This is most likely because of a couple of reasons.

Pros:

Nice layout

Lots of stations to choose from

Stream names are very clever

Has local stations (You have to look really closely to find them though).

 

This has been mostly restored in the latest version. I'm glad to have that back, too!

 

Yea... It's why I'm sticking to iTunes and NOT Apple Music.

 

I'm mostly wedded to the Apple ecosystem so iTunes makes sense, and for the most part I find it does what I want it to do. I do have a couple of Windows machines, but I don't have any major issues with iTunes there either to be honest.

My music library primarily consists of ALAC CD rips or needle drops, with a smattering of some purchased AAC files. Lately I use Apple Music a fair bit because it's a fantastic way to discover new music and I really enjoy some of the radio offerings as well. It can be nice to listen to music outside my collection, almost like listening to FM broadcasts way back when.

I'm not wild about the iTunes interface, though I admit I don't have a ton of suggestions for ways to improve it. It does seem bloated and often unintuitive, but it doesn't bother me enough to make me want to switch to anything else. And when I explore other offerings, I usually wind up thinking that maybe iTunes isn't so bad after all.

And really, the way I tend to listen to my digital music is more of a set it and forget it kind of thing. I've spent time with Roon and think the interface is awesome, but when I'm listening to digital I'm usually also doing something else, not sitting there in the sweet spot looking up interesting data about the artists, whatever. So for the way I listen, Roon + Tidal doesn't offer me any advantage over iTunes + Apple Music.

When I do sit in the sweet spot doing the 'audiophile' thing I'm almost always spinning vinyl. I don't see that changing either.

 

iTunes Rocks. (That is all)

 

Yeah, thread got off track with generic discussion about Apple vs PC

 

You need iTunes to get Apple Music on a Surface Pro and MBP. You should run the latest version to guarantee as smooth as possible Apple Music experience. Not much else to discuss.

 

Apple Music is best on iOS and Macs because it works with Siri. If you go another route, Spotify starts making more sense.

The main upside to Apple's service (outside of Siri) is that it will match your own music. However, I recommend backing up your iTunes Library (if you have one) and your music before turning that on. Also, you will inevitably have some music that does not look right on Apple Music...it could be a live album instead of studio or an incorrect album cover. If you are extremely anal, it could drive you nuts. Personally, I like have my library (with the exception of the random issue) matched and love being able to pull up a bootleg or something not available on the service (though, they have added albums by the Beatles and Neil Young, so that gap is always closing). In other words, I am not as concerned about having a song or something incorrect when I have millions of other songs at my fingertips to choose from.

One other benefit of Apple Music is that on iOS, you have the ability to connect to iTunes via Home Sharing and have it temporarily replace the matched music while you are on network. So at home, if you have ALAC files, they can be accessed from the app.

 

This can be a generic iTunes discussion as well. As long as posters can keep their emotions in check.

 

I've been using iTunes since Day 1, which was in January 2001. It debuted several months before the very first iPod was introduced. I still use it every day and I enjoy it immensely.

I know there are a lot of complaints about iTunes being too bloated, and I disagree. But I think that's because I know the program so well and have been able to tweak it to my liking by following various tips and tricks over the years.

For example, there is a way to set up iTunes so that you have a very minimalistic interface. If you only use it to play and catalog your music, here are some instructions for setting up a very streamlined iTunes experience:

http://www.kirkville.com/how-to-set-up-itunes-as-a-minimalist-music-player/

For what it's worth, I don't subscribe to Apple Music and I don't use iTunes Match. I'm old school and I prefer to purchase and own my music.

For discovering new music, I use Spotify because I hate the way Apple mixes in my own, carefully procured library with the Apple Music files. It's very hard to tell them apart sometimes, and it's so easy to make accidental deletions this way. I'd much prefer it if they kept my purchased library completely separate and isolated from any Apple Music files.

 

Some great points in there. I'm still using 12.2 so haven't 'discovered' that finding duplicates is no longer available, (though I did notice it moved from one menu to another a little while back).

I'd add one more point about the artwork - some iterations ago it also lost the ability to show in large view images that weren't square. So gatefold artwork that is rectangular now shows as a square image with black bands on either side when in small view, and as a cropped square in large view (losing both ends of the gatefold). Previously the whole rectangular image would show with the window exactly sized to the image.

With respect to the image above showing two artists without specific images - is this because those artists don't have artwork embedded or associated with those particular tracks? Clearly you have at least one track that lists the artist as "Beatles" instead of "The Beatles".

That's a good article - very clear with pics - thanks for posting the link.

I think using iTunes well and finding it able to achieve what you'd like it to do is analogous to setting up home. After a few attempts one realises that you need to plan how you want things to be, and set it up prior to shifting things in. Do that and it'll be probably be very close to what you want. Eg, setting up a dedicated drive for a large music library and 'keeping it organised' is easy to do once you realise it's a good thing. Attaching (embedding) artwork at the time of ripping or adding to the library is also a good thing as it helps prevent files being overwritten if you do it a long time later. Being consistent with (precisely) naming is crucially important (as it's a computer).

What I'd like to see, in addition to the return of non-square artwork display? - Only the ability to give full date to tracks rather than the year only. So when I sort by date, it's actually calendar order , rather than just year grouping sorted either by artist or name. That's it. (I know that one can manipulate the 'sort' tag to do this by adding codes such as 20171226 to the album name, but I like to keep my tags (all) user friendly and not clogged up with code).

 

iTunes and Winamp were my main audio players for a while till I started archiving my CDs digitally as WAV and FLAC files. Now Winamp alone is my go-to player.^^
I use iTunes only then when I buy music in the store which is seldom nowadays. But I can say that iTunes (version 10) is great for organizing playlists.

 

I've never had the slightest glitch with iTunes on the music side. Video is a bit of another story. My only issues have always been the limitations in organizing a substantial video collection. Always seems to assign most of my videos to Home Movies, no matter how I try to get the Metadata straight before importing.

My main use for iTunes any more is as a feed for my AppleTv. Roon accounts for about 90% of my listening these days and the 10% that I include for vinyl, is diminishing slowly as I have moved farther towards digital especially since getting the Gumby.

 

LOL all my handbraked DVDs that I use for flights and stuff are "Home Movies" to ITunes no matter how they are tagged. At least they show the cover tags. I think the only way to have "movies" or "TV Shows" is to purchase them or use a download code. Apple/iTunes doesn't like that I rip my movies.

 

There's an easy fix for that:

• Right click (or control click) on the video file in your iTunes library
• Choose "Get Info"
• Click the "Options" tab
• Select the media kind (in the example below, it's a movie from my DVD collection, so I chose "Movie")
• Click OK

The video file should now show up as a movie in the Movies Library and not as a Home Video.

Or avoid using iTunes for your ripped video collection and use Plex instead.