[DougofTheAbaci]

I have to say, the Zune OS is looking a lot better these days. I don't know what the desktop app looks like but if it has anywhere near the level of thought that was obviously put into the phone OS it's likely a good product.
 
That being said, Aside from the top of iTunes, I think it's rather well designed. There are issues from a UI perspective that I notice, mostly odd button placement, but nothing drastic.
 
Also, I don't have the performance issue others do. Then... I have 12 GB of RAM so that likely has something to do with it.

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

I have to say, the Zune OS is looking a lot better these days. I don't know what the desktop app looks like but if it has anywhere near the level of thought that was obviously put into the phone OS it's likely a good product.
 
That being said, Aside from the top of iTunes, I think it's rather well designed. There are issues from a UI perspective that I notice, mostly odd button placement, but nothing drastic.
 
Also, I don't have the performance issue others do. Then... I have 12 GB of RAM so that likely has something to do with it.

Zune software is great other then the fact it lacks an equalizer. If you have the right tools you can customize your background to. You should check it out.
 
 

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

I have a Mac. Last I checked what software they did have was still in beta. Besides, I doubt the audio quality coming from that is any better than iTunes and iTunes works just fine for me.

 

[FloconsDeMais]

Quote:

Again, it's another extra step that ONLY iTunes has to do in order to play a resemblance of FLAC.
 
Who in their right mind would EVER do such nonsense of ripping their collection to an original archiving format, using an ogg container? Seriously...
 

It's not an extra step. It's just a conversion setting in FLAC that sets the container to ogg. That can be easily set up in whatever ripping program you use, including Foobar. It's not for me, since I use mainly 300-400kbps AAC for my library, but if anyone wanted to use iTunes as their main library and play flac, it can be done.
 
 
Quote:

I have been supporting free open source codecs and software before iTunes was around, and will be using free open source codecs and software after iTunes is no more.  I do not wish my lossless music collection to be held hostage by commercial interests (or at least minimize it).   This appears to be less of a concern now, but back when iTunes and other commercial software was deep in DRM I wanted no part of it.  I use Foobar now.  If something better comes along, I have no real loyalty to continue using Foobar and it will have no impact on my collection.

Your lossless music collection was never a hostage since there was never DRM on your own ripped CDs. As well,  ALAC decoders have been available for a while, including a plugin for Foobar, so there was never a risk that you wouldn't be able to play your collection.
 
 
Quote:

 

1. iTunes is resource hungry.  More CPU usage reflects more CPU noise.
2. iTunes limits you to graining, low quality, rips from nearly all composers.

 
You have no idea what you're talking about. iTune uses ~1-2% CPU when playing music on my machine. Foobar with Kernel Streaming or WASAPI sounds a tad better and I use it for headphone listening but cpu usage certainly isn't an issue. As for ripping, a normal cd rip will be audibly indistinguishable from an EAC rip, and if you need more anal retentive accuracy you can enable the error correction feature.
 

Quote:

Apple is a software company that is biased to their own hardware. Performance increases for mac but not for all software companies. I'm not going to buy an overpriced, cheap, low quality machine to listen to low quality rips.

 
I have OSX86 on my PC and I don't find its version of iTunes to be any faster than my Win 7 x64 version. Low quality rips...lol.
 
 
 

 

[jackmccabe]

My computer pretty much never ever shows any lag... until I try to open itunes.
Itunes is an absolutely awful program if you are using windows, it is buggy, constantly asks you to update, runs very slowly, non-customisable, limited codec support, limited feature support (foobar plugins) e.t.c 
On a mac it is better but I still hate it.

 

[Geruvah]

It's not resource hungry. At least not the latest version. In fact, my internet browser takes up considerably more resources. Look here:

Ignoring Firefox (because that has 5 tabs open), Chrome (freshly opened for the first time) only has one tab open and it's a youtube video. iTunes playing a very high bitrate song (and believe me, it was on for the past 2 days straight because I don't turn my work computer off). Both at the same time. Look at the CPU usage and REAL memory being used.
 
I'm willing to bet, I'll put money down on it for sure, that blindfolded, you can't tell the difference between itunes and fidelia on my setup.
 
The first part of Apple being very proprietary is true (I wish if I rockboxed my iPod, it would be easier to translate my playlists that are specifically ordered)
 
Mac users aren't limited to using a shoddy program, and this program isn't particularly shoddy. And I don't know what makes you think the iPod is of similar quality, I'm still using mine from 2005 and every original part is running great. Easy navigation.
 
I've had more hiccups with my Clip (both rockboxed and not) in the few months I've had it than my iPod's lifetime.
 
Point is, it sounds like you're just being spewing what many people say about anything Mac (yes, they can right-click. Get with the times) and rather than coming in here to either discuss, like the extreme Apple lovers/haters, you come in with a vendetta.
 
Pros with iTunes player (by personal experience):
No other program organizes as well as this.
It's really easy to use the iPod with it. Just plug it in and my playlists and the way they're organized are automatically synced. Easier and more fool-proof than the drag-n'-drop.
 
Cons with iTunes player:
Proprietary. The only lossless you can play are ALAC and WAV.
The equalizer can be loads better. It's decent, at least. But Winamp has a really good equalizer in my opinion.
 
Quote:

1. iTunes is resource hungry.  More CPU usage reflects more CPU noise.
2. iTunes limits you to graining, low quality, rips from nearly all composers.
3. Apple is a software company that is biased to their own hardware.  Performance increases for mac but not for all software companies.  I'm not going to buy an overpriced, cheap, low quality machine to listen to low quality rips.
4. iPod users are limited to a shoddy program for their entire music listening experience.  Likewise, the iPod is of similar quality.

 
iTunes does not offer any benefits for music lovers.  It is a garbage application.

 

 

[jackmccabe]

You have a mac it is designed for mac's, on windows it is a whole different story.
RANT WARNING
Also Foobar is much more customizable and can organize your music in more ways than itunes can.
Foobar also supports almost all codecs.
Foobar is much faster
Foobar supports WASAPI and ASIO.
Foobar supports ipod syncing and can sync with other mp3 players.
Foobar has access to parametric eq's and tagging an decent replaygain
Does not require bloatware that itunes does.
Does not to ask me to update it every day even though I tell it I don't want any updates.
Updates are an actual improvement over the previous software rather than a buggy piece of junk that's impossible to downgrade from.
so from what I can see there is not a single downside of foobar compared to itunes.
 

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

Here's a question: How many of you who are complaining about resource usage are PC users? No, I'm not implying that you have an innate bias against Apple because you use Windows. The impression I've gotten is that until recently iTunes on Windows was crap. It was slow, rather buggy, and just didn't work all that well. At least, that's how I've always heard it spoken of by PC users. However, most of the Mac users I know have never talked about it being a resource hog. I keep very close tabs on what's using my system and for what. The only time iTunes really starts pulling in system resources is if I'm converting audio. Pretty much the only time.

 

[jackmccabe]

That is exactly what I said

 

[Roller]

iTunes on Mac is significantly different (read better) than on PC, performance wise. And I've yet to see it handling swiftly large playlists on either OS.
 
Oh, and the whole "iTunes runs fast on my machine because it has x, y and z specs" just doesn't cut it. Compared to foobar2000, it is a hog. But I'll give it that iTunes is basically an online storefront with audio and video capabilities (albeit limited), so it is excused from that point of view.
 
@Geruvah: If you have to compare an iPod to a Clip, you're doing it wrong

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

iTunes on Mac is significantly different (read better) than on PC, performance wise. And I've yet to see it handling swiftly large playlists on either OS.
 
Oh, and the whole "iTunes runs fast on my machine because it has x, y and z specs" just doesn't cut it. Compared to foobar2000, it is a hog. But I'll give it that iTunes is basically an online storefront with audio and video capabilities (albeit limited), so it is excused from that point of view.
 
@Geruvah: If you have to compare an iPod to a Clip, you're doing it wrong

Actually newer iPods are cheaply made. My iPod touch broke after 6 months and I babied it. That is not reliable at all. Although my iPod classic is going strong after 3.5 years. I know now that I will only buy classic's and Rockbox them. I expect that paying a premium would give you a superior product.
 
 

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

 
Quote:

That is exactly what I said

Sorry, I must have missed it. Still, it's a good point and worth repeating.

 

[jackmccabe]

If you have ever looked inside an ipod you would realize they are pretty much made to break after a year or.
Their build quality is just terrible the internals of the clip+ and iriver h140 are much better built.

 

[mark2410]

itunes is an abomination
 
i loath it and its the primary reason why i will not but an iphone or ipad
 
 
thing is i remember when it first came out, it was a really nice little programme but now its just awful

 

[DougofTheAbaci]

Quote:

If you have ever looked inside an ipod you would realize they are pretty much made to break after a year or.
Their build quality is just terrible the internals of the clip+ and iriver h140 are much better built.

 
Every iOS device, with the exception of my very first 40GB iPod, are still in use to this day. The only reason I got rid of them was because I wanted larger capacity. Granted, I don't throw my iPods around but the Classics have a hard drive inside them. What kind of idiot throws around a hard drive? I mean the other models use Flash Memory so there are no moving parts... But a hard drive has a number of fragile moving parts. Any time I've heard of someone breaking an iPod it's been because they dropped one of the HDD models a few times or it got wet.
 
Quote:

itunes is an abomination
 
i loath it and its the primary reason why i will not but an iphone or ipad
 
 
thing is i remember when it first came out, it was a really nice little programme but now its just awful

Spoken like a true hater.
 
Ugh. I'm done with this thread. With a few exceptions, most of the comments here can be summed up as follows: "I hate Apple. Apple sucks. Their software sucks. I just don't like them and, obviously, because I don't they must be bad." It's just as bad as people who condemn Microsoft all the time because of the problems with their software...