I've just never had good luck with the software. Too many bad experiences that soured it. At one point I was able to sync the phone via media monkey and I was extremely happy. Worked like a charm. Had everything set up for all my portable devices. Then I updated the iOS and lost the compatibility
. Never been a fan of Apples proprietary nature. Never will be either.
Yeah, I feel clumsy too with itunes, and truth be told, I've also gotten my music deleted, more than once. It's no biggie though, since I know how to put it there and it doesn't take many minutes to put it back, even from my music folders. I've set up a specific storage folder for my iDevices where I put things I want on them, so in case itunes deletes them, I just press ctrl+a and drag'n'drop onto itunes and they're there again. That said though, I've only used itunes for syncing my iDevices, and not for listening to music or anything - perhaps I need to RTFM a little bit more to get more out of it. It's a chore now, yes, buit it's not that bad IMO.
Also, from my understanding, you can actually sync your music to your iPhone through Foobar with some addon. I've never tried it. I won't either, I want to learn itunes better.
Most music I listen to through Spotify (with offline sync) and that works like a breeze. Just select a playlist and hit "Offline" on it - and it will download it automatically for you. It's mostly those more "obscure" albums that aren't on Spotify I have to sync as mp3's via itunes.
I guess the old joke about apple simplifying to the point of absurdity still holds true, but I'm not sure if it's that simple. For example they could be so consumed by their own conceptual vision for their products that they are not willing to compromise even if it improves functionality. Minimalism is hardly ever practical.
I don't buy the SD card argument though - it's 100% bull. Everything is about the product line. I bet a big part of why they don't currently make a bigger smartphone is because they feel it would detract from their tablet sales, not because of some magical mean hand size (which strangely changed over the last year with the iPhone 4-5). Ultimately it's not a big deal as the ecosystem works quite well.
I've thought about that simplifying, and in a way, I'm not sure I think so myself. In a way, yeah - their proprietary software and hardware (lightning connector vs micro usb) are supposed to simplify things, yet when I look at the settings, I think my iPhone is actually comparable to my Note 2. I wouldn't say that settings wise, at least, they're simplifying things. Sure, the Note 2 is more customizable, with launchers, keyboards and so on, but as for the phone settings - they're pretty much the same, but with different language. Some of the things though, like the lightning connector, I actually like a lot more than micro usb. When trying to plug the phone in dark, the iPhone is plugged in within a second and with the Note 2 I have to fiddle around and try which side is supposed to be up and which side down, and so on. I don't know - some things are simplified, but also work better.
My gripe with iDevices before was that "hand holding mentality", but now with a lot more experience, I have to say that yeah, while they hold my hand at times, it's not absurdingly much and not to a degree that gets me irritated. As for the system being closed, yeah, it goes againsts my belief in open source, however, it's so well made that it's hard to dislike it. Also, there are upsides to closed systems as well.
Yeah, the SD card argument can be debated back and forth. I can both buy their arguments, and not. I mean, they already have some sort of wizardry going on hardware (AND software) design wise, and I'm sure that an SD slot would take a whole lot more man hours and design decisions and money to incorporate than just whiff hands and say "make it so". Maybe we'll see it if the iPhone gets bigger, but I think not. On the other hand, I bought the 64 GB version, and truth be told, that a whoooole lot of storage for a device primarily used when on the go between computers.
