[fwojciec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by James63 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well I strongly feel that the people who bash apple have never owned one! I have used very thing out there (have also done some programing) and MACs are head and sholders above everyone. iTunes is not good for fiddeling with your music (EQ, what not) but it works fine and runs bit bit-perfect. I am a purest and never EQ anything. I used to not use iTunes and spent a lot of time managing my music files...one day I stopped fighting it and never looked back. I set it to rip and spit out the CD once I put the CD in. Now I can watch TV, or play games while I just through in a CD...in 5 minutes every thing is done and where it should be with album art and everything. I have over 1,000 CD in Lossless and with out iTunes it would be a total mess.

My question to you: how easy would it be for you at the moment to ditch itunes and start using a different program? Like you have said, without itunes your music would have been disorganized - in other words, you have come to depend on itunes for the task of organizing your music! At least now you have time to to "watch TV, or play games"... You have actually demonstrated perfectly how itunes achieves its subtle but pervasive "proprietary" effect - so thanks for this example

And yes I have used itunes, and I own an ipod. I would not want to use a computer made by apple, however, unless I would be able to install linux on it that is... but then, IMO, I have better options available as far as hardware is concerned anyways

 

[Chri5peed]

^ I think all Media-players have somewhat of a 'pervasive proprietry effect.'

If you've used WMP or iTunes for years and know all its subtle ways you're not going to change unless there is a major shake-up.
Also, why users can be highly defensive of 'their' program...

 

[fwojciec]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed /img/forum/go_quote.gif ^ I think all Media-players have somewhat of a 'pervasive proprietry effect.' If you've used WMP or iTunes for years and know all its subtle ways you're not going to change unless there is a major shake-up. Also, why users can be highly defensive of 'their' program...

That's why I much prefer programs that are as transparent as possible, and I prefer to access my music directly by accessing the folder structure where my music is stored, (I use MPD in Linux to do just that.) At the same time I could easily migrate my music collection to at any of least 5 different programs (Amarok, Quod Libet, Rhythmbox, Aqualung, or Exaile in linux - for example) in under 5 minutes (the configuration in each case would simply involve specifying the folder where my music collection is located in most cases). This is because my music is organized independently of any particular software platform - it certainly is possible. There are programs out there that do not try to create a proprietary effects also - the "proprietary effect" is not there by circumstance only, but by design.

I definitely agree with your last statement - that's how it seems to work very often, on some level at least.

 

[Chri5peed]

You can set up foobar to search via folder structure!:

Pretty pervasive though!

 

[immtbiker]

Using a combo of dBPoweramp and Ephpod, it is pretty painless to rip songs from my CDs or change any format into another one and then use Ephpod to arrange my drag and drop capabilities without having my hand forced by iTunes.

 

[japc]

Quote:

Originally Posted by James63 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well I strongly feel that the people who bash apple have never owned one! I have used very thing out there (have also done some programing) and MACs are head and sholders above everyone.

Want MAC/Apple problems?

A macmini that gave more disc headaches that i would ever imagined. Why? Because Apple's own fsck can not be bothered to fix all the problems and in their own support pages Apple advices 3rd-party software. It was an easy fix elsewhere on unix world.

MailApp insisting on duplicating e-mails when over IMAP that made a third of our clients go bezerk.

Batteries literally burning.

A macbook left overnight recoding stuff that had transmorphed (yes, plastic melts just nice) and developed an industrial chimney (and it smokes, or was it the mainboard?) and, of course, ceased to work.

All kind of mumbo-jumbo to put the mp3 with APIC and USLT tags on the wife's ipod. This could be very easy through amarok dcop calls but it was hellish. (hint: APIC should be added after USLT).

Screensaver that saved the screen but wouldn't keep a handless man out of your desktop.

Thid-party and more third-party to have basic funtionality (decend keyboard shortcuts, application starter, virtual-desktops,...).

On the server side they have neat grey boxes, with pretty blue leds but if you lean over it you endanger taking both raid disks out (done that) because they have no fscking extra protection on disk ejecting.

MACs are knee deep in crap as everything else.

 

[thebob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by poo /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are many including: restricted file format support, no auto album artwork download (unless you buy through iTunes store), the 'let iTunes manage my music' option screwing up folder hierarchy... could continue but that isn't really the point of this thread, and there are loads of others around that discuss it.

As long as you are ripping CD's then album artwork is automatic, unclick the 'let iTunes manage my music' and you dont have that problem.

iTunes 'Rocks', just for Podcasts alone it's worth using, but it rips lossless, it burns not only music CD's but also DVD backup discs etc.

I realise some people just don't like Apple, but mostly it seems to be ignorance about Apple products, or perceptions of 'Big Brother' which I think are truely deserved by the company from Redmond.

I hope a workround is found for you Linux/Unix guys, but I dont think it's realistic to expect support from Apple. Those opensource guys are smart they will just knock something together over the weekend.

Hell the Zune is only supported on M$.

 

[monolith]

Quote:

Originally Posted by thebob /img/forum/go_quote.gif As long as you are ripping CD's then album artwork is automatic, unclick the 'let iTunes manage my music' and you dont have that problem. iTunes 'Rocks', just for Podcasts alone it's worth using, but it rips lossless, it burns not only music CD's but also DVD backup discs etc. I realise some people just don't like Apple, but mostly it seems to be ignorance about Apple products, or perceptions of 'Big Brother' which I think are truely deserved by the company from Redmond. I hope a workround is found for you Linux/Unix guys, but I dont think it's realistic to expect support from Apple. Those opensource guys are smart they will just knock something together over the weekend. Hell the Zune is only supported on M$.

iTunes can't find the artwork for over half of the music on my computer.

EAC rips better than iTunes. Many programs can do more CD/DVD burning related things.

Podcasts are the only worthwhile feature I've ever found in iTunes. It didn't take long before I got tired of having to make a playlist for every compilation.

I've actually begun to like a lot of Apple products recently, and I want a Macbook (though that's mainly so I can use Quicksilver, the greatest program ever written), but iTunes is really terrible.

 

[Chri5peed]

Lol, using iTunes to rip CDs on a PC.


'But its Lossless!'

^ If you think that, you don't know how ripping works.

 

[jbloudg20]

The problem, is that the new version of iTunes creates a hash from a unique Firewire (they call it that) ID that each new iPod has. This hash is written into the itunes database file that goes on to the ipod. Then you turn on your ipod after syncing, it checks this hash, and if the id in it does not match the id from the player (or if it isnt there at all), then the ipod rejects the itunes database file. The songs are still on the ipod, but the OS will not recognize them.

The Linux guys have hacked this hash already, and wrote the algorithm to straignten it out. At the moment it has not been incorporated into one of the existing applications (gtkpod), but one can manually put the hash into the database file using their algorithm. It is a bit tedius, as everytime you update the database, you have to run the file through the executable.

Rest assured, it will be incorporated into one of the main stream programs, then all the inept windows programmers will figure out what to do with it

I'm only teasing of course, to you windows lamers, er.. hackers.

 

[oicdn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheMarchingMule /img/forum/go_quote.gif The average consumer (and that of course is a big slice of the pie) uses everything Apple in the first place for their iPods, so Apple will only be encouraged to keep using this practice.

The funny part is, alot of your consumers bougt apple computers to match thier iPods...talk about bassakwards

 

[Chri5peed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbloudg20 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Rest assured, it will be incorporated into one of the main stream programs, then all the inept windows programmers will figure out what to do with it I'm only teasing of course, to you windows lamers, er.. hackers.

Lol, thats funny. Or not, because there are not many Apple programmers not working for Apple.


Macs are famous for being user-friendly but not very deep. As 'System Administator' I can do what I like to my PC. If I buy something I think that gives me the right to break it.

Otherwise it'd be like buying/owning music with some sort of copy-protection...but no, thats a ludicrous analogy.

 

[thebob]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chri5peed /img/forum/go_quote.gif Lol, thats funny. Or not, because there are not many Apple programmers not working for Apple. Macs are famous for being user-friendly but not very deep. As 'System Administator' I can do what I like to my PC. If I buy something I think that gives me the right to break it. Otherwise it'd be like buying/owning music with some sort of copy-protection...but no, thats a ludicrous analogy.

I think the problem here is what they "are" not what they are famous for.

Mac OSX has a command line terminal that gives you all the power of UNIX.

Another poster mentioned that there are "not many Apple programmers not working for Apple.", the OSX install DVD' provides you with a full suite of free developer tools to prototype, compile, debug, and optimize your applications, speeding up your development .... developer.apple.com/tools/

It was also mentioned that unless I can install Linux then I don't want it, you can with bootcamp, but why bother cos you can run LINUX software on it anyway.

jbloudg 20 Wants to view the files on an iPod that is not synced to his machine, if you think about it it is not suprising that this is made dificult, so as not to attract the ire of the labels. But check out iPodripper.

Lets get back to iTunes. Apple makes iPods and provides software that acceses every feature on that device. It's called iTunes. The reason that they would prefer people to use it, is that it makes support possible.

Support is something that most of the people answering this thread don't appear to want to use, but the majority of Apple customers want an easy powerfull, full functioned interface with maker support.

Walk into an Apple store, go to the Genius Bar and ask a serious question, and it gets answered. Phone them up, you get to talk to a real person that knows the answers. This system works.

Now you can use one app to do this, and another app to do that, and gripe if the manufacturer updates hardware/software/firmware that breakes your after market kludge.

Or... just use iTunes and get on with enjoying the music.

 

[jbloudg20]

Eh I don't gripe. After all, Apple gave an honest attempt to lock us into the program. The Linux guys said screw you apple...

It took 2 days for them to crack it. Soon, the option will be there for me to use my ipod in Linux. I am a Linux programmer, and we are on our own to make things work, and we successfully do that.

I'm not sitting here crying to Apple about how their ipod donesnt' work. I take my own steps to resolve the issue. So I choose to NOT use iTunes, and enjoy the music.

 

[macbrush]

I used to be a hardcore manage-my-own-files head, and since I have seen my friend (a never-sleep Linux guru and a mastering engineer) smoothly and incredibly stupidly easily and surprisingly effectively uses iTunes to manage his thousands and thousands of tunes, I switched and never look back.

You simply have to be creative, put useful keywords in "comments" if necessary, and use smart playlist "smartly". Last and not least, backup your files (that hold true whether you use iTunes or not, don't blame anyone for lost of files, backup is a common sense in computing).