Who else dislikes iTunes?

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by vinyl13, Oct 23, 2015.

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  1. AlanDistro

    AlanDistro Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sandy, OR
    "Analyze Audio" which automatically applies ReplayGain on a per album basis. iTunes' Sound Check only applies on a per track basis. That right there is worth the price of admission for anyone who listens to albums as a whole.
     
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  2. AlanDistro

    AlanDistro Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sandy, OR
    Or the fact that I can build my own views and updates never break them. Stuff was breaking all the times with iTunes updates.
     
    RolandG likes this.
  3. This would be a lot more interesting post if it were accompanied with some sort of explanation as to why not. The "never will" comment seems pretty ridiculous when devoid of context.
     
    mwheelerk likes this.
  4. AlanDistro

    AlanDistro Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sandy, OR
    Or maybe that it plays FLAC.
    Or maybe that it plays lossless BluRay rips in .mkv format.
    Or maybe that it writes my ratings to the standard metadata tags, not in a proprietary database that doesn't follow the track outside of iTunes.
     
    klockwerk, RolandG and detroit muscle like this.
  5. SoporJoe

    SoporJoe Forum Resident

    Location:
    British Columbia
    I use iTunes for my music, VLC for my movies. Works great for me.
     
  6. Steve G

    Steve G Senior Member

    Location:
    los angeles
    I don't update it because the updates are ginormous pieces of bloatware, but yeah, you are stuck using it pretty much all the time - it's okay for making .wav files into MP3s and vice versa, which has its commercial applications for sure - and yeah, I really hate it.
     
  7. OobuJoobu

    OobuJoobu Forum Resident

    Location:
    Yorkshire, UK
    I'm on iTunes version 10.something, anything from 11 onwards is not getting anywhere near my laptop.

    Updates are disabled and they're staying that way!
     
  8. Roberto899

    Roberto899 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    I think media monkey is a great free alternative.
     
  9. Mike Campbell

    Mike Campbell Forum Resident

    Location:
    Minnesota, USA
    Devoid....it is. No explanation necessary. I just don't like it. Every aspect of it is done poorly.
     
  10. Solitaire1

    Solitaire1 Carpenters Fan

    I respectfully disagree about Windows Media Player. When I tried to use it I had so many issues* that after a month I sought out an alternative.

    *The big one was album art which would move from album to album on its own and my fixes would not stay fixed.


    I think the problem with iTunes interface is that the program tries to do too much. I've mentioned before that I think iTunes should be split into several separate programs, each with an interface defined for its function.

    I agree about MediaMonkey. After giving up on Windows Media Player, I found MediaMonkey and liked it so much that I purchased MediaMonkey Gold and the added features were worth the price.

    Unfortunately, it wasn't out-of-the-box compatible with my current Walkman. Due to that, I decided to give Media Go a try and I find it a very useable program. While it doesn't have the power of the other programs, I like its simplicity. I don't have to sync my player with it, I can just select a song/podcast/photo/video and send it to my player. While it is a hands-on program (it doesn't have many of the automated features of the other programs so I have to manually do many things), I like that the program is fairly reliable (if I make a change, it STAYS changed).
     
  11. Stone Turntable

    Stone Turntable Independent Head

    Location:
    New Mexico USA
    billnunan likes this.
  12. Mirror Image

    Mirror Image 200 Years Of Anton Bruckner

    Location:
    United States
    I have an Apple Macbook and I only use iTunes to rip CDs. That’s it!
     
  13. Steve Martin

    Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy

    Location:
    Plano, TX
    I use iTunes extensively and that is the one thing I don't trust it for. Use XLD with AccurateRip or something to make sure you are getting error free rips.
     
  14. klockwerk

    klockwerk Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio USA
  15. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    The only reason I have iTunes installed on my desktop is to be able to pull a complete backup of my iPhone before updating it to a new version of iOS. iCloud backups are focused on capturing what Apple deems important, like photos and contacts. If you want to be able to fully restore everything (including app settings and data) to your phone in the event that an update fails, you need to have an iTunes backup stored locally on your computer.
     
    billnunan likes this.
  16. Prophetzong

    Prophetzong Forum Resident

    Location:
    NE WISC
    As far as subscription based services go the User interface of iTunes is just bad. Spotify does a much better job. And iTunes needs to have an ad supported free service like Spotify. I currently use paid Spotify premium and I would go with iTunes if they would learn and offer what Spotify does.

    I rarely use my computer. I have an iPad so streaming is my discovery tool for music. I never use iTunes on my computer. Why when I can buy the cd or lp? :agree:. Not wasting time and storage ripping CDs.

    Apple ought to put their efforts on a higher quality streaming service.
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2017
  17. kwadguy

    kwadguy Senior Member

    Location:
    Cambridge, MA
    Like most Mac software, it assumes I'm an idiot and therefore hides options and control.

    I'm not, and I would prefer to just navigate to where my music is located and drag and drop it to my player.

    Apple doesn't let me do that.

    So that's annoying.

    But it gets worse. One day, my daughter, who had an iPod, asked me if I'd add some music to her player. So I installed iTune, attached the player, and promptly had iTunes delete all the music on her player. It was legitimately loaded music, but for whatever reason, Apple decided the player should be wiped.

    That's when I went from annoyed to pissed. And I've never used iTunes again.
     
    klockwerk likes this.
  18. InStepWithTheStars

    InStepWithTheStars It's a miracle, let it alter you

    Location:
    North Carolina
    I have never understood Mac computers, and I have never understood non-Apple phones. This poses a problem because I'm utterly convinced that Apple does everything they can to secretly sabotage their own products when used on Windows devices. That said, I cannot use a Mac for more than three minutes without becoming inconsolably enraged with a tremendous desire to throw a bowling ball at the thing, and I find iTunes equally unusable but for sometimes different reasons. Ugh. Anyway.

    How I manage my library is in three different folders: a WAV reference library, an MP3 reference library (gasp!), and my actual listening library (MP3). I import CDs as WAV (with only artist, album, disc/number of discs, and song titles) convert them to MP3, then move each one to folders in the reference libraries following this naming convention: "Title (CD Release Year - Label - Catalog Number - Barcode), then copy the MP3s to the listening library and further add album artist, composers, genre, year, sorting, and artwork (in that order).

    Then I move those to my godawful iPhone 7 Plus, roll my eyes in annoyed agony at the friggin terrible music app design (for crying out loud, add a classic view, you idiots!!!), plug in the idiotic headphone adapter which is another complaint (instead of two holes for water to instantly fill and ruin the phone, there's only one hole for water to instantly fill and ruin the phone! Better to lower that risk from 100% to 100% than to have the phone be usable when charging... goddamn idiots), use third party headphones because using the headphones the phone comes with is worse than stabbing yourself in the hand, and listen to badly brickwalled music because all the best bands hate my ears. But I suppose that last one's not technically Apple's fault. I still blame them because if you're gonna suck that bad, why not just go all the way?

    As far as iTunes itself, it's counterintuitive and seems to be set up to deliberately confuse, but after about seven years I know how to use it for everything I want to use it for (which is about 7% of the program). It eats up processing power like popcorn and makes the laptop roughly the temperature of the sun, and I will never learn that the arrow keys don't scroll but rather make me disoriented and pissed off, and it's very intrusive and I fear that it will replace them with incorrect versions, and I really do dislike it... but I could never figure out Windows Media Player or any of the non-Apple phones, and Groove Music can just plain go %$#@ itself.
     
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  19. Roberto899

    Roberto899 Forum Resident

    Location:
    California
    That's an awesome rant.
     
    klockwerk and InStepWithTheStars like this.
  20. mwheelerk

    mwheelerk Sorry, I can't talk now, I'm listening to music...

    Location:
    Gilbert Arizona
    It is really funny how each of us have our own preferences and to what extent some like their preference or dislike the other choice. I can understand how one might be frustrated with one OS or software and prefer another. For me I still use the most current version of iTunes and at this point mostly out of habit over years of usage and a little bit for the sync of my iPhone. JRiver is my main library management and playback software and I use dBpoweramp for ripping. I have to use a Windows computer at work (I have a MacBook at home) and I've learned to live with it if not like it until a couple of days ago. They just gave me a new laptop with Windows 10 and now I'm yelling at it until I become more accustomed to its little secrets. But that is the thing! All softwares, all OS, all versions of them have their uniqueness, changes and limitations. It's the nature of the beast. It's nothing personal really.
     
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  21. InStepWithTheStars

    InStepWithTheStars It's a miracle, let it alter you

    Location:
    North Carolina
    *takes a bow* I think these tirades are the reason my friends put up with endless pictures of Waterboys CDs from me.
     
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  22. Steve Martin

    Steve Martin Wild & Crazy Guy

    Location:
    Plano, TX
    Not true. I've never lost app settings and data using an iCloud backup/restore.
     
  23. fatwad666

    fatwad666 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fat City, USA
    Voted a reserved "yes". I still use iTunes for sorting through my digital music files and podcasts. But I've had many issues with it for all the reasons noted here and more. Am in the middle of re-building my library for the second or third time. It's gotten so annoying and administrative in nature, that I went back to listening on CD after a decade away. But still like iTunes overall as a concept and will continue to use it (cautiously!).
     
  24. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    I suspect that Apple has expanded the scope of what is captured in iCloud backups within the past several years. This article from 2014 explicitly states that there is a lot of data that iCloud does not back up and provides examples:

    iCloud vs. iTunes backups: The crucial differences that affect your data

    However, this very recent (May 30) post from Apple's support site states that both methods include "nearly all data and settings" stored on the device:

    About backups for iOS devices

    There's also this, from last September, in which the author is surprised to discover that iTunes backups aren't as complete as he'd thought, unless you follow a specific procedure (for what it's worth, I've always transferred purchases using the method described when making an iTunes backup, and I encrypt my backups):

    The difference between backing up an iPhone to iCloud and iTunes
     
  25. ShallowMemory

    ShallowMemory Classical Princess

    Location:
    GB
    Darn well loath it -hate's a bit strong but hey I feel like too somedays! - only installed in the Windows laptop for those Mastered For iTunes downloads which to be fair are actually pretty good but then it's so slow bloated trying to find find the titles you want to buy and as a non iPerson I have to make a shortcut to get to my iTunes library to drag and drop to the Fiio's. Also useless with a chromebook in the way 7Digital is very usable for the same role: download the zip file, unzip and drag and drop to the Fiio's, job done tm.
    For ripping hate is >< close to describe it, painfully slow, prone to errors it doesn't show, messes up taggingand doesn't include proper album art,so frankly I moved to dbPoweramp for that as it's just miles better all around before we mention the marvels of high bite rate Lame Mp3's that just play on anything.
    I think they need to redesign the thing between the store which should separate audio visual content from apps, have a zip download option and yes Flac options for audio downloads something 7Digital offer often for less.
    Then work on the media player
     
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