Apple & Itunes

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan

Originally posted by: franguinho
itunes + qucktime is the biggest piece of crap you can install on your computer, might even be worse than norton antivirus or, god forbid, norton internet security....

i use free MediaMonkey to sync my music to my ipod and there's also Anapod Explorer its cheap and can also sync videos which is a plus

i've been using my ipod with zero apple software installed for 6 months now and love it

Could you tell us why you think itunes+qt is the biggest piece of crap we can install on our computer? I love it when people make wild claims and don't back it up with the reasons they feel that way. Not that I'm agreeing or disagreeing with you, but I'm just curious as to why.

I personally have no beef with itunes/qt, but just wondering if I should jump on the bandwagon

quicktime is UNGODLY slow. i downloaded the HD trailer for supreme commander and it stuttered in QT. converted to wmv, and it played FINE (hell, the QT file played fine in QTalternative)

you need the full version of QT to run full screen, QT tries to take over as your default media player. the controls when playing a movie are horrible (click on the movie and it pauses, wtf is that?)

i havent used itunes since it first came to PC.. it was a ram hog then, and i couldnt minimize it (to the taskbar). winamp for life!

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: franguinho
the fact that you have to have everything updated for it to work is also annoying.

what are you talking about?

also why won't they let you copy songs from your ipod to your itunes? also automatic synchronization as soon as ipod cable is connected sucks i know a lot of ppl who 'lost' a good chunk of their music collection like this.

Why do you need to copy your music back to your computer, it should already be on there. I really don't see the point here unless you're trying to grab music from a friend... and if you have a legitmate reason, ie, you're a musician.. then the ipod isn't for you. I can see it being an issue at one place... trying to have your music at home and at work.

And how did someone lose their music collection exactly?

 

[CKent]

I'd never install Apple software on my pc. I'd also never install Bonzai Buddy, RealPlayer, CoolWebSearch, etc. To each his own though, I guess.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: loic2003
1) there's a neat feature that I believe was introduced in windows 3.1. All you do is click on the bottom right of a window with the mouse (thing with two buttons on it plugged into your computer), and move. You'll find the window changes to whatever size you wish. If that still upsets you, you can make it even tinier with the mini player. It is quite small.

winamp gives me full controls, the track time, and the name of the song with total time in a bar about 20 pixels by 400 pixels, docked to the top of my screen. it is completely minimal and yet still fully functional. mini player looks castrated. and huge.

 

[Alex]

Originally posted by: randomlinh

Originally posted by: franguinho
the fact that you have to have everything updated for it to work is also annoying.

what are you talking about?

also why won't they let you copy songs from your ipod to your itunes? also automatic synchronization as soon as ipod cable is connected sucks i know a lot of ppl who 'lost' a good chunk of their music collection like this.

Why do you need to copy your music back to your computer, it should already be on there. I really don't see the point here unless you're trying to grab music from a friend... and if you have a legitmate reason, ie, you're a musician.. then the ipod isn't for you. I can see it being an issue at one place... trying to have your music at home and at work.

And how did someone lose their music collection exactly?

dude you're gonna find that a lot of people want to be able to sync their ipods at home and at work so yeah that is definitely a legitimate problem.

and i'm not 100% sure how but there's a co-worker of mine who had to format his laptop a while ago and the first thing he did after was install itunes and connect it to his ipod. unfortunately he had only backed up some of his newer songs because he imagined the others were safely stored on his ipod and could be retrieved later.

as soon as he connected the ipod itunes start synchronizing and the end result was it deleted all of his ipod songs that weren't in his itunes library, leaving him with the handful of songs he had backup up.

now there's many lessons to be learnt here and this guy is by no means even computer literate (he had someone else format the pc btw) and it could have easily been avoided but since people are arguing that itunes is for less sophisticated computer users this is a good example.

now i tried to replicate this last week and it didn't work so maybe newer firmware and software updates fixed this... keep in mind this happened at the beginning of the year.

again that's what he said happened and it sounds plausible because why else would all of his songs suddenly get deleted from his ipod leaving only the ones in his itunes library?

so yeah that's a pretty damn good reason for being able to copy songs back and forth between ipod and pc.

i mean if you like a friend's song what's stopping you from just downloading it yourself? its not like they stop any 'illegal' music sharing like that they just make it a tad more inconvenient to do.

 

[randomlinh]

Originally posted by: franguinho
dude you're gonna find that a lot of people want to be able to sync their ipods at home and at work so yeah that is definitely a legitimate problem.

and i'm not 100% sure how but there's a co-worker of mine who had to format his laptop a while ago and the first thing he did after was install itunes and connect it to his ipod. unfortunately he had only backed up some of his newer songs because he imagined the others were safely stored on his ipod and could be retrieved later.

as soon as he connected the ipod itunes start synchronizing and the end result was it deleted all of his ipod songs that weren't in his itunes library, leaving him with the handful of songs he had backup up.

now there's many lessons to be learnt here and this guy is by no means even computer literate (he had someone else format the pc btw) and it could have easily been avoided but since people are arguing that itunes is for less sophisticated computer users this is a good example.

now i tried to replicate this last week and it didn't work so maybe newer firmware and software updates fixed this... keep in mind this happened at the beginning of the year.

again that's what he said happened and it sounds plausible because why else would all of his songs suddenly get deleted from his ipod leaving only the ones in his itunes library?

so yeah that's a pretty damn good reason for being able to copy songs back and forth between ipod and pc.

i mean if you like a friend's song what's stopping you from just downloading it yourself? its not like they stop any 'illegal' music sharing like that they just make it a tad more inconvenient to do.

I am weary on the work comment because I know quite a few places that give you 0 control of you PC. Maybe it's because of the area I'm in (lots of government work), but most of my friends have no freedom for it. But yeah, if that's the case, I say don't get an ipod.

and yes, they are just making it inconvenient, but something tells me it was all leverage for the music companies. obviously, it hasn't stopped the masses from buying it, just those more in tune with their computers. And that probably isn't apple's target audience. The "normal" user doesn't seem to care.

As for the formating of the ipod after a computer loss... yeah, that will happen, but itunes warns you "this is a different computer, if you sync, all is lost." I agree there should be a method to restore against this situation, but people should back stuff up too.

altho, if the ipod has disk mode enabled, there is a way to grab it all back (w/o using a 3rd party piece of software). It's all in a hidden directory, you would just need an id3 file renamer. But this of course, relies on needing to know, or know someone, to do it.

In the end, it's all about business for apple. if you don't like it, don't buy it. as it stands now, it obviously isn't important enough for apple.

 

[Alex]

true enough and i agree that they probably did that mostly for record companies etc.

i guess it works with their target audience and more advanced users will always find a way to get around stuff... there's so many good programs to sync ipod (mediamonkey & yamipod both free and anapod explorer is like $30) plus theres prolly many other tools so it doesn't bother me.

but going back to the original point of the thread i think most power users will agree with me that itunes is a piece of crap and totally unecessary and quicktime is more bloated than sally struthers.

that said, i can't wait to buy an 80GB ipod at the end of the year!

what can i say i got used to mine, i like it and i already have car adapters etc (my 60gb broke....)