[Brooko]

Quote:

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.
 
 

BCasey
You might want to qualify this perhaps ......
 
Your Touch isn't the newer iPod.  It's a 2nd Gen Touch.  And you've had one break on you - so unless you can quote stats on a high failure rate of the G3/G4 iPod Touch, then this statement carries no weight: "Actually newer iPods are cheaply made. My iPod touch broke after 6 months and I babied it. That is not reliable at all."
 
I've had my G4 for almost 6 months - it is as good as the day I got it (knock on wood), and for the features I would definitely buy another one.  I used to be anti-Apple until I actually tried the iPod Touch - but using is believing.  It's a great product IMO.  I'm not a big fan of iTunes - but that's mainly because I use Linux most of the time.  It means I have to dual boot.  I know there are other things I could be doing - but dual booting is the easiest.

 

[calipilot227]

Quote:

BCasey
You might want to qualify this perhaps ......
 
Your Touch isn't the newer iPod.  It's a 2nd Gen Touch.  And you've had one break on you - so unless you can quote stats on a high failure rate of the G3/G4 iPod Touch, then this statement carries no weight: "Actually newer iPods are cheaply made. My iPod touch broke after 6 months and I babied it. That is not reliable at all."
 
I've had my G4 for almost 6 months - it is as good as the day I got it (knock on wood), and for the features I would definitely buy another one.  I used to be anti-Apple until I actually tried the iPod Touch - but using is believing.  It's a great product IMO.  I'm not a big fan of iTunes - but that's mainly because I use Linux most of the time.  It means I have to dual boot.  I know there are other things I could be doing - but dual booting is the easiest.

Interesting. I abused the living s*&% out of my iPod classic, and it still works perfectly 3 years later. I still have my 20gb iPod Photo (4th gen) from 2005, and it's still going strong (albeit covered in scratches).
 

 

[bcasey25raptor]

Quote:

Interesting. I abused the living s*&% out of my iPod classic, and it still works perfectly 3 years later. I still have my 20gb iPod Photo (4th gen) from 2005, and it's still going strong (albeit covered in scratches).
 

my ipod classic is 3.5 years old and it still works. i just feel the 2nd generation 8gb mc model ipod touch is made cheaply. i am not impressed at all.
 
 

 

[jackmccabe]

The older ipods generally have much better build quality, but if you open up an ipod classic you will see that all the parts are of dreadful quality.
The battery for example uses an extremely poorly designed connector that can easily be knocked lose.
The headphone jack and old button use wafer thing connectors that are extremely prone to damage.
I personally like older ipods (5th gen ipod video and older) but despise the new ones.

 

[domino584]

[size=medium]Do I ever dislike IE6...probably more so then iTunes.  (work computers, ugh).  [/size]
 
[size=medium]@FloconsDeMais [/size]
[size=medium]I've used previous versions of iTunes a few months ago.  I might not be up to date, but a couple of months ago it would take roughly 5 minutes to load on my 4.0 GHz AM3 555, an Intel V25-M SSD, and 8GB 6:6:6:18:1T 1.6 GHz DDR3.  Pair that up with the slow GUI, it wasn't helping.  Surely, a HD5850 should handle the GUI without any issues.  I guess I'm wrong with the amount of CPU usage, but surely, to take that long to load on such high-end hardware implicit horrifically bloated software.  Let alone, the conflicts it had with windows made me uninstall it in no more then an hour.[/size]
 
[size=medium]I got a gift certificate to iTunes around the same time I started to use it again.  Used to use it a long time ago but moved on from an iPod to a Cowon S9.  Apparently, all the audio files I could find were 128 KB/s mp3s.  They sure sounded graining compared to what I'm used to (1.15 MB/s FLAC and 320KB/s mp3s).  128 KB/s mp3s aren't even worth free.[/size]
 
[size=medium]@Geruvah [/size]
[size=medium]You can find benefits with everything; I'd give you that.  iTunes have done some positives, especially with combining everything from audio to video in a signal service.  [/size]
 
[size=medium]But this is about music.  No matter the amount of GUI tweaks or organization techniques you throw at it, when it comes down to how well the player plays the music.  128 KB/s mp3s is just not going to cut it.  I can get over the performance issues.  But when the audio quality is garbage, the service is going to be garbage.  This is audio, not a fashion show.[/size]

 

[FloconsDeMais]

Quote:

[size=medium]Do I ever dislike IE6...probably more so then iTunes.  (work computers, ugh).  [/size]
 
[size=medium]@FloconsDeMais [/size]
[size=medium]I've used previous versions of iTunes a few months ago.  I might not be up to date, but a couple of months ago it would take roughly 5 minutes to load on my 4.0 GHz AM3 555, an Intel V25-M SSD, and 8GB 6:6:6:18:1T 1.6 GHz DDR3.  Pair that up with the slow GUI, it wasn't helping.  Surely, a HD5850 should handle the GUI without any issues.  I guess I'm wrong with the amount of CPU usage, but surely, to take that long to load on such high-end hardware implicit horrifically bloated software.  Let alone, the conflicts it had with windows made me uninstall it in no more then an hour.[/size]
 
[size=medium]I got a gift certificate to iTunes around the same time I started to use it again.  Used to use it a long time ago but moved on from an iPod to a Cowon S9.  Apparently, all the audio files I could find were 128 KB/s mp3s.  They sure sounded graining compared to what I'm used to (1.15 MB/s FLAC and 320KB/s mp3s).  128 KB/s mp3s aren't even worth free.[/size]
 
[size=medium]@Geruvah [/size]
[size=medium]You can find benefits with everything; I'd give you that.  iTunes have done some positives, especially with combining everything from audio to video in a signal service.  [/size]
 
[size=medium]But this is about music.  No matter the amount of GUI tweaks or organization techniques you throw at it, when it comes down to how well the player plays the music.  128 KB/s mp3s is just not going to cut it.  I can get over the performance issues.  But when the audio quality is garbage, the service is going to be garbage.  This is audio, not a fashion show.[/size]

The music you buy through the service has nothing to do with the player and most everything is available in 256kbps AAC nowadays. Much of it has been in that format for the past 2 years. You're not forced to purchase music through iTunes. I've never bought anything from them.
 
iTunes is relatively slow to load, but it has nothing to do with a GPU or CPU limitation. I don't know why it takes so long, but once it's running I usually leave it open so it's not a big deal. If it's taking 5 minutes to load, then you have a fubared installation or some other system issues. It takes about ~15 seconds to load on my system on a cold start and ~7 seconds thereafter.
 
As for interface speed,  I have ~22,000 songs in my library (which bogs down Foobar, BTW) and scrolling is quite snappy. The slowest part is clicking between playlists/library sections. One of the reasons for that is because the program doesn't switch until the mouse button is released, which adds a fraction of a second to the action. The Opera browser used to have the same "feature" which made tab switching slow and made the overall user experience seem slow, despite the speed of its engine. They changed it in v9 and it's much more usable, at least to me.
 
I like iTunes, despite its infirmities, and I still use an iPod so it's sort of necessary with my apps and podcast subscriptions. There's lots of free stuff on the iTunes store as well so it's a very useful all-in-one resource. I use Foobar for converting files and critical listening to hirez music with headphones but iTunes is fine as a general player with my speakers.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

...As for interface speed,  I have ~22,000 songs in my library (which bogs down Foobar, BTW)...

 
I'm sorry to inform, but it most certainly doesn't. While foobar2000 doesn't have (by default) the same playlist management that iTunes has, it handles large playlists (+30.000) with ease, on both new hardware as well as on rather old machines.
 
Oh, and while a clean foobar2000 installation starts up in less than 5 seconds, when packed with tons of components and VSTs, it still doesn't take more than 10 seconds on old hardware.

 

[JamesMcProgger]

^ I have over 180 GB in foobar and rarely have the need to do a manual folder search, I even do all kind of relocations, renames and organize everything from my foo. never had a problem, and all that without interrupting playback.
even with the heavier foo mod, it was 2 to 3 times faster than itunes
 
iTunes was hell, 10 GB of music and it was slow as .. itunes. and my computer is quite powerful. everything was frozen when i threw something in the ipod, and even the music paused.
havent use itunes since almost 2 years now, and im glad.

 

[Geruvah]

It sounds like you're talking about the iTunes store, not the player.
 
Quote:

[size=medium]Do I ever dislike IE6...probably more so then iTunes.  (work computers, ugh).  [/size]
 
[size=medium]@FloconsDeMais [/size]
[size=medium]I've used previous versions of iTunes a few months ago.  I might not be up to date, but a couple of months ago it would take roughly 5 minutes to load on my 4.0 GHz AM3 555, an Intel V25-M SSD, and 8GB 6:6:6:18:1T 1.6 GHz DDR3.  Pair that up with the slow GUI, it wasn't helping.  Surely, a HD5850 should handle the GUI without any issues.  I guess I'm wrong with the amount of CPU usage, but surely, to take that long to load on such high-end hardware implicit horrifically bloated software.  Let alone, the conflicts it had with windows made me uninstall it in no more then an hour.[/size]
 
[size=medium]I got a gift certificate to iTunes around the same time I started to use it again.  Used to use it a long time ago but moved on from an iPod to a Cowon S9.  Apparently, all the audio files I could find were 128 KB/s mp3s.  They sure sounded graining compared to what I'm used to (1.15 MB/s FLAC and 320KB/s mp3s).  128 KB/s mp3s aren't even worth free.[/size]
 
[size=medium]@Geruvah [/size]
[size=medium]You can find benefits with everything; I'd give you that.  iTunes have done some positives, especially with combining everything from audio to video in a signal service.  [/size]
 
[size=medium]But this is about music.  No matter the amount of GUI tweaks or organization techniques you throw at it, when it comes down to how well the player plays the music.  128 KB/s mp3s is just not going to cut it.  I can get over the performance issues.  But when the audio quality is garbage, the service is going to be garbage.  This is audio, not a fashion show.[/size]

 

 

[jackmccabe]

I think to sum it up people dislike itunes because it is poorly ported to windows and there are much better alternatives.

 

[mark2410]

Quote:

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...

oh i dont hate apple i hate itunes, that said i do somewhat hate apple for insisting you use itunes if you want to use any of their products. 
 
i really dont get why apple dont put more effort in to making it less crap so it gives people a good impression of them.  i did think about getting an ipad but that itunes lock in is what just keeps putting me off.

 

[xnor]

^ I think that many people don't really see the lock-in as such, but instead they see an ecosystem where hardware and software work together, out of the box, with minimal demands on the user, i.e. it just works.
 
People with more sophisticated use cases, or power users, or people that simply don't like vendor lock-in will most probably steer clear of iTunes & co.
There's no need to hate Apple for that, it's part of their strategy. Like it or don't, as simple as that.
 
This should also answer why they don't "put more effort in it". They don't primarily want to make it more sophisticated.

 

[Roller]

^ Well, just like many other apps, so would iTunes greatly benefit from having the option to select from Basic mode (user friendly, or the current state of iTunes) and Advanced mode, giving the user the added flexibility it might require.
 
What I really can't swallow is the fact that iTunes is indeed getting more and more bloat with each passing version, and I strongly feel that they should at least offer the standalone proprietary driver on their download page, instead of the users needing to unpack their suite files in order to get them. But, I guess it does indeed go for convenience, though cluttering a system more than it should.

 

[Sylverant]

[size=10pt]I never hated itunes, quite on the contrary. The iPod nano 1G brings back good memories; it single handedly brought me here.[/size]
 
[size=10pt]It was all of the ripping problems and distortion/clipping I was getting with just slightly scratched cd's that made me realize something had to change. I had to re-rip my entire library as they were all used, badly taken care of cd's. With EAC's secure mode I didn't have to worry about cd's distorting or clipping on me; the cd just wouldn't rip in secure mode if it was too scratched. And to this point I've never been unable to get a decent rip via burst mode. EAC saved my entire music collection [/size]

 
[size=10pt]That said, I did try to optimize this mess of a library into itunes after copying it onto another HD. I think the best I got to was 22gb's of ALAC, all perfectly tagged and categorized by genre/album artist/etc. into the most beautiful coverflow you could imagine 

[/size]
 
[size=10pt]And then I gave up. My music library was growing too fast and updating itunes was too much of a chore. Foobar2000's "view by folder structure" implementation was an absolute godsend for me.[/size]
[size=10pt]Now 3 years and 100gb+ later I don't regret my decision. I still think itunes is great for people who can build up there library from the bottom and keep it up, which is why I gave my 8 year old sister my classic and have built up her collection to look like this: [/size]

 

[ert]

Quote:

 

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.
 

ALAC is not open.  Apple could at any time start charging to encode ALAC or go after people writing ALAC encoders like Microsoft did with WMV.  If iTunes or ALAC provided any benefit to using free open source software, I might see some appeal.  Given that free software handle encoding and playback quite well, there's no reason to use proprietary software.