Why all the iTunes hate?

[MJinZ]

Itunes is one of the few great things Apple did right and better than anyone else.

Period.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Are you on a 64 bit OS?

Shouldn't be relevant, but yes.

[*] Half of my podcasts will randomly refuse to download with some fucking bullshit error message like "Error -89". Yeah, that's fucking helpful
Although the error code message is delightfully vague, have you googled it or gone onto Apple's forums to determine what it means?

Yeah, I have Googled it. It's a 404 error (why not just say that). And it's obviously WRONG because if I click "retry" about 50 times eventually it will work. This happens for lots of different podcasts, obviously it's incorrectly reporting the error.

[*] I can't create a playlist while listening to another playlist. What the fucking fuck? U SRS?
I don't believe I have ever had this problem. Are you generating a Smart Playlist, or trying to create playlist B as composed of files from playlist A? I just did the latter with no problems, and have done the former

Hmm seems I'm wrong about this one. I could have sworn last time I tried I couldn't do it.

[*] I can't play music by album
How do you mean?
[*] I can't play music by artist
How do you mean?
[*] I can't play music by year
How you do mean?
[*] I can't play music by genre
How do you mean?

This makes perfect sense.

[*] My song play count doesn't sync from my iPod
Never had that problem, ever

Well I have that problem.

[*] It keeps turning shuffle off for no good fucking reason
I have noticed that it maintains shuffle settings on a per-playlist basis, it is not a universal setting. If that is not what you mean, then I fear that I have yet again, not encountered your problem

Play my library on shuffle -> select playlist -> shuffle turns off. WTF?

[*] Constant fucking ads in the right sidebar
Have you considered closing the right sidebar?

Only about five hundred times.

[*] My library has randomly corrupted itself twice.
Are you entirely sure that it was random? I have moved/copied my library between at least 10 hard drives, across 3-4 systems, multiple times. It has been maintained and updated since 2004. It has been corrupted once, and that was due to the source drive.

That's nice. Google "itunes corrupt library" and see how many people experience this infuriating issue every day.

If I want to listen to just one artist, then I type the artist's name into the search box and I am left with just their music. If I want to listen to just one album, then I would do the same, or switch to album view.

And what if I have an album with the same title as the name of another band? What if I have an album named "Untitled"? What about self-titled albums? What if I want to play Roger Waters' album "In The Flesh" but don't want Pink Floyd's version of that particular song? This is retarded.

 

[TheStu]

Shouldn't be relevant, but yes.

I know that I have encountered some issues with 64bit iTunes in the past. You are using 64bit iTunes yes?

Yeah, I have Googled it. It's a 404 error (why not just say that). And it's obviously WRONG because if I click "retry" about 50 times eventually it will work. This happens for lots of different podcasts, obviously it's incorrectly reporting the error.

Can't help you there, but I mean, have you never gotten a 404 error on a website, tried again 2 minutes later and had it work? I know that I have. Usually a 404 means it is down for a while, but every now and again, it is just a temporary thing. Maybe due to iTunes and the source website not jiving.

Hmm seems I'm wrong about this one. I could have sworn last time I tried I couldn't do it.

Then it appears they fixed that problem

This makes perfect sense.

To you, and certainly to others, but I know that in the past I have gone to do something in WMP12 and been left without a clue how I got there and how to get back to where I was. I cannot say that I have ever had that problem in anything else, certainly not iTunes

Well I have that problem.

Are you COMPLETELY listening to the song? If you do not listen to the entire song it doesn't mark the play count. If you are doing that, and it still isn't recording properly, then have you tried resetting the iPod?

Play my library on shuffle -> select playlist -> shuffle turns off. WTF?

As I said, the shuffle/repeat settings are a per-playlist setting. I can understand why they would. I don't necessarily agree with the decision, but I can understand it. If you are listening to an audiobook playlist, you don't want them shuffled. So, you set the shuffle button once per playlist, and it remains set.

Only about five hundred times.

There is an option somewhere for it not to appear. I cannot recall where, it pops up the first time you run iTunes and close the sidebar. But that turns it off permanently.

That's nice. Google "itunes corrupt library" and see how many people experience this infuriating issue every day.

How many millions of people use iTunes? How many of them are 100% certain that they didn't do anything to cause it? How many of these people complaining have posted in 5 different places, the exact same problem, and google indexed it?

And what if I have an album with the same title as the name of another band? What if I have an album named "Untitled"? What about self-titled albums? What if I want to play Roger Waters' album "In The Flesh" but don't want Pink Floyd's version of that particular song? This is retarded.

"Waters The Flesh" should get you the album.

I do appreciate that you restrained yourself from dropping an expletive on every line, it detracts from the fact that you could be having genuine issues, and simply makes you look like an overreacting, crazy person that cannot have a rational conversation.

 

[MrColin]

For all of the claims of microsoft being evil, apple is many times worse IMHO. Thier products are designed to control the users freedom. They have even sued people for blogging about their products before. There was a story recently that an apple store in california refused to sell an ipad to a handicapped lady because she didn't have a credit card (and presumably wouldn't be able to pay apple more money through the stupid device).

iTunes on windows is a resource hog, its library is difficult to manage on any platform and it installs three different services, one of which can hose your network connection (mdns responder). OSX is awesome for people that don't even want to know what a computer is, or where their stuff is on it. Apple is douchebagery writ large.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Because it really is horrible software. It's not the worst, but it's a long shot from being anywhere near the best overall, and Apple really could do better. It is snappy on my machine, but that is compared to my old machine, which was about 4 years out of date by the time I upgraded. Compared to almost every other program I use (the only exception being Opera) it is horribly slow, horribly unresponsive, and horribly, frustratingly, difficult to use. This is not to mention all the stupid services that Apple requires you to install on your machine to use additional functionality (Mobile device support, Quicktime, Application Support, Bonjour if you want to stream over a network...), as well as all the services and software that Apple tries to sneak past you with as few people knowing as possible (Bonjour, Apple Update, etc.). It does not have support for .flac or any other lossless formats except for .wav and .m4a, and it tries its damnedest to get you to screw up your entire music library into duplicated aac files

However, I do like certain features it has and which other music players seem to have dropped purely for the sake of being different to iTunes. The search function works very well, so does Genius (I don't personally use it, but my friend does whenever people are around for background music, and it all sounds good, with seamless genre transitions and good flow), and the UI is far superior to everything else I've used apart from Foobar2000, and that's only because it was fully customizable. It also organizes music, podcasts, ebooks, and movies into separate categories, and that's one of the reasons I actually use iTunes now, the other being video support.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

For all of the claims of microsoft being evil, apple is many times worse IMHO. Thier products are designed to control the users freedom. They have even sued people for blogging about their products before. There was a story recently that an apple store in california refused to sell an ipad to a handicapped lady because she didn't have a credit card (and presumably wouldn't be able to pay apple more money through the stupid device).

iTunes on windows is a resource hog, its library is difficult to manage on any platform and it installs three different services, one of which can hose your network connection (mdns responder). OSX is awesome for people that don't even want to know what a computer is, or where their stuff is on it. Apple is douchebagery writ large.

Yeah, it was because she didn't have a credit card. The reason for that is they need to be able to track how many iPads each person buys, and a credit card would allow them that. They've done this before to limit how many iPhones are sold. It's because of supply constraints. Has nothing to do with "wouldn't be able to pay apple more money through the stupid device".

 

[sandorski]

iTunes is fine.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

iTunes is fine.

Negatory.

 

[rivethead]

I'm using Media Monkey to manage my library and sync my iPod (2nd Gen). Works awesome.....I store my library in FLAC and MM will convert to MP3 ((variable rate)...or any format iPod is compatible with) on the fly and sync.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Latest bug I've seen was the "iTunes was unable to load provider data from sync services", had to go back to an earlier version of iTunes to get an iPhone 3G to sync again.

Before that it was the Quicktime plug-in in IE8 bug that slowed down IE to a crawl. (especially noticeable on the Apple site, of course)


I had been using iTunes for years and got fed up a few months ago. I got rid of all the Apple software on all my computers. (iTunes installs like 8 programs)

iTunes+QT for Windows is a good example of programming gone wrong.

 

[alyarb]

its funny that this is a thread. but yeah i hate itunes. in fact, for the very rare occasions when I need to sync an .ipa, I keep a copy of itunes tucked away in a VM specifically to keep my physical machine lean and sterile. most of my apps are .debs that are SSH'd, my movies, music, and things that itunes cant sync like my pdfs are all over SSH.

 

[Miramonti]

I haven't used Itunes for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if its a 3gb program by now.

 

[accguy9009]

if you guys really HATE itunes then time to ditch your ipod touch and iphone.

That is exactly what I have done. I actually really like the ipod hardware. I use the itunes radio streaming service almost daily, I really enjoy it. I despise however having to go through the laborious process of putting music on my ipod via itunes. In fact I refuse to do so. I looked into some of the other options out there and decided, for me, it wasn't worth the hassle. I sold my ipod and bought a 8 GB generic personal unit that plays my mp3 and flac files. I rotate my music and I can live with this storage capacity. I now buy my mp3 files from amazon and get my movies from netflix. I don't need to "validate" or authenticate any devices or computers. I normally buy CDs and use Exact Audio Copy produce lossless backups of my CDs. I lov the ipod. I lov itunes but refuse to use them together since, for me, its a huge pita. I love my Android too!!

 

[AnitaPeterson]

After a few months of use I take back anything good I ever said about iTunes. What an absolute pile of shit. Fuck you Apple for subjecting anyone to this poorly written piece of software.

man, oh man!

It takes guts to admit such a thing, especially considering how the thread got started... bravo!

 

[tweakboy]

LOL, nice fix. Gotta a friend. I think they are hard @ optoimizing the nvdiadi to

 

[SpanishFry]

itunes sucks.

how do you not watch folders yet???!!!!!

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

itunes sucks.

how do you not watch folders yet???!!!!!

Oh yeah this is something I forgot to put in my bullet points. Ugh. (Windows Media Player is only marginally better in this regard).

 

[WT]

Sharepod !! I loaded that before I loaded Itunes on my PC, and I only use Itunes if its an emergency. Damn, I hate Itunes.

 

[homercles337]

Are you on a 64 bit OS?

No offense, but first of all, you seem to be spewing a lot of vitriol over a piece of software that as others have pointed out, has alternatives, especially if you are on Windows.

Secondly, to me at least, it is possible that a few of your problems could stem from user error, or your unwillingness (completely understandable I might add) to conform your 'workflow' to iTunes methodology. If I want to listen to just one artist, then I type the artist's name into the search box and I am left with just their music. If I want to listen to just one album, then I would do the same, or switch to album view. As for the genre or year, that would require a smart playlist, but that takes 5 seconds to setup.

And yes, Safari is fairly bad on Windows, it doesn't fit at all.

TheStu, no offense, but your post is riddled with contradictions. You seem to be spewing a lot of Apple propaganda over a slight to your place of worship. My only question is, what are you even doing in SW for Windows?

 

[JJChicken]

I got one for christmas. my brother would be pretty offended if i got rid of it. and it's a pretty neat little device, except itunes blows.

I hate how you can only sync your ipod touch w/ one computer, and if you connect it to any other computer, your entire library can easily get clobbered.

you can move music to ipod w/ mediamonkey, but videos and photos still have to go through itunes.

Also, have you noticed how much bloatware *cough* spyware*cough* apple installs on your windows machine and bogs it down? like quicktime and all these other services that run in the background that try and take over your machine? its their secret way of getting computer novices to bitch about "how slow windows is" and plant the seed to get a mac. I also wonder how much those services drain battery life on a laptop

Fuck, I didn't think of it this way. Man that's pretty low - even by Apple's standards.

 

[Firsttime]

I'm not an iTunes fan, I bought a touch so I use it, I knew that was part of the deal going in. I however am not really a big fan of using it as my daily media player. I would gladly switch over to another manager if it could do two things.

1. I need this view of my albums, there just isn't any other way around it for me. I listen to my music by album generally and I like being able to visually browse that. Other players do album art displays but not like this, with the thumbnails and whatnot.

2. I really like genius shuffle, it's kind of like a targeted shuffle and I enjoy it for the most part, I would like something equivalent in whatever I use.

If I could take care of those two things I would gladly ditch iTunes. I've tried a lot of other players but haven't been able to do both in any of them.

 

[Homerboy]

I'm not an iTunes fan, I bought a touch so I use it, I knew that was part of the deal going in. I however am not really a big fan of using it as my daily media player. I would gladly switch over to another manager if it could do two things.

1. I need this view of my albums, there just isn't any other way around it for me. I listen to my music by album generally and I like being able to visually browse that. Other players do album art displays but not like this, with the thumbnails and whatnot.

Umm even WMP does that. I'm guessing that songbord does too (haven't used in a long while)

 

[Firsttime]

It displays the album art, alphabetically with each letter on a different line, so there is a lot of scrolling required. Like above in GA's post, but the art isn't size adjustable as far as I can tell so you can fit lots on a the screen. I don't know if maybe there is a way to change it, I looked and nothing popped out.

 

[Homerboy]

It displays the album art, alphabetically with each letter on a different line, so there is a lot of scrolling required. Like above in GA's post, but the art isn't size adjustable as far as I can tell so you can fit lots on a the screen. I don't know if maybe there is a way to change it, I looked and nothing popped out.

I'll ahve to check when I get home. I could have sworn this was possible.
Have you tried Songbird? Again, I haven't touched it in probably a year, but it's an opensource media manager with some pretty slick plug ins (at least in my opinion)

 

[evident]

try mediamonkey, but it'll cost you.