Engadget Editorial: Hey Apple, why does it take an hour to put an album on my iPod?

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
This one's been a long time comin', but the iTunes forced backup / syncing issue is no less real today than it was a decade ago when iTunes began to play a larger-than-life role in the operation of Apple's iDevices. As it stands, it's effectively impossible to use an iPhone, iPad or iPod without also using iTunes, and while Apple's done an exemplary job ensuring that it works with most major platforms (yes, Windows included), there's one nagging question that just won't go away: why?

Why what, you ask? Why iTunes, I say. Why does Apple force users into an experience that almost inevitably ends in sadness, if not outright disaster? It's a question that has baffled me for what feels like eons, and it's a gaffe that played a huge role in pushing me away from my iPhone 3G and onto a Nexus One in the summer of 2010. I should probably circle back and explain that I understand why Apple has interwoven iTunes with its iDevice line. iTunes isn't a piece of software; it's an ecosystem. The whole point of selling an iPod touch isn't to sell an (admittedly titillating) piece of hardware, it's to loop an end-user into a system that continually dings their credit card. And by making them work so well together, the company has created a decidedly beautiful scheme that keeps customers coming back for more -- I'm guessing the repeat business from iTunes users is downright staggering.

But here's the thing: what if I don't want to go all-in with that ecosystem? What if I enjoy casually using an app here or there on the iPhone, and what if I just want to throw Lupe Fiasco's latest record on my device five minutes prior to heading out on a ten-day road trip? What if I want to make quick and subtle changes to my iPod, iPad or iPhone, without iTunes selfishly consuming what's left of my day? That, friends, is apparently an impossible task, especially if you've got a handful of devices or -- gasp! -- more than one computer that your device talks to.

Here's an example: I download a new record from Amazon's MP3 store. That was fun and easy. Now, what I'd love to do is plug my iPod touch in and have it show up on my desktop as an external storage device -- you know, kind of like what happened back when iPods still used FireWire connectors. If that were to occur, I could drag those files over to a "Music" folder, and in the time it'd take me to yell "Hallelujah," I'd be ejecting the device and heading on my merry way.

Is that really too much ask, Apple? I'm guessing it's not, given that said scenario is exactly what plays out each time I port over an album to my Nexus One. That also means that it's on me to adequately backup the album I downloaded in case my device goes missing or otherwise self-destructs, but trust me -- me and my scheduled NAS backups can handle that just fine. Instead, a simple ten song transfer ends up taking between ten minutes and ten hours, depending on how long it has been since you last synced your device with iTunes. Apple's presumed reasoning here is that by forcing strongly urging users to backup their entire device with each change, they'll always be able to restore back to a familiar point in case of emergency. That's a fine concept, and I'm thrilled the engineers in Cupertino are looking out for the clumsy among us, but pardon me while I borrow yet another concept from Google: opt out. And by that, I mean avoid iTunes altogether and let us drag music over as if it's an external storage device.

While we're on the topic, let's briefly discuss apps. Quite frankly, I count us all fortunate that Apple lets us download apps directly to our iDevices, but once you start a sync, you best carve out enough time to allow your device and computer to level with one another. And if your app arrangement on your computer is any different than what's on your phone or PMP, get ready for yet another round of rearranging. Oh, and see that "Don't Sync Apps" button over there? Careful -- clicking it lets iTunes wipe all of your apps rather than simply opting out of a sync and leaving them the way they currently are on your device. Brilliant. Bloody brilliant.

I'll stop short of tackling the issue of using multiple iDevices on a single computer -- which frankly deserves a segment of its own -- and instead, will present a fairly simple solution that should unquestionably be included in the next point release of iTunes. Apple, stop making it impossible to manage multiple iDevices across multiple machines. Stop forcing people to backup their devices every single time. Let us manage our devices as if they're simple USB HDDs. A gentle nag (as you've already mastered with Time Machine) is enough. Or better yet, include MobileMe with every iDevice purchase and store everything in the cloud. Dreaming big, I know.

This has been a hot topic as of late here on these boards so it seems to be perfect timing for Engadget to come up with this.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/25/editorial-hey-apple-why-does-it-take-an-hour-to-put-an-album-o/
 

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
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2181811.jpg
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
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Not that I like defending Apple. But when I had an iPhone there was an option to not sync your entire library to the device. And I couldnt as my library was twice as much as the phone could hold. Then it was as simple as dragging and dropping which songs you want on the device via iTunes.
 

Zen0

Senior member
Jan 30, 2011
980
0
0
Cliffs:

"I want to do it my old antiquated way. Apple won't let me wah"
 

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
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I love how every feature Apple products don't offer are "antiquated" or "useless" in the eyes of Apple fanboys, until Apple DOES offer those features (with their slight twist) and then suddenly that feature is "revolutionary."

Just like Intel processors sucked until Macs had them, virtual desktops were wastes of time until Leopard added Spaces, iOS third party applications were a waste of time thanks to web-apps until Apple made the App Store, copy and paste wasn't a core phone function till Apple implemented it, and now the method of having to use software to copy data to a device is "the right way" while the more commonly used method of having independent devices (as seen with PCs, Macs themselves, Android phones, and pretty much every other consumer electronic device) is antiquated.

I can't wait to see the waffling when Apple finally removes the iTunes dependency. Knowing Apple they will add a little flair to it -built in wireless file moving capability or something- and suddenly this "old antiquated way" will then be "revolutionary."

(That is my addition to the upcoming flame war)
 

gorcorps

aka Brandon
Jul 18, 2004
30,736
447
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Cliffs:

"I want to do it my old antiquated way. Apple won't let me wah"

I am starting to believe you are TFP :hmm:

He had a very similar pro Apple troll style.

Anyway, the windows explorer style is faster and more efficient. Your time might not be spent better elsewhere, but I like my mp3 player transfers to be quick and easy. Not a night long event.
 

Zen0

Senior member
Jan 30, 2011
980
0
0
I am starting to believe you are TFP :hmm:

He had a very similar pro Apple troll style.

Anyway, the windows explorer style is faster and more efficient. Your time might not be spent better elsewhere, but I like my mp3 player transfers to be quick and easy. Not a night long event.

My Mp3 player transfers happen automagically.
 

pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
7,419
22
81
I am far from a fan of iTunes. I have had years of scars of "The iPhone 'iPhone' cannot be restored. An unknown error 1013 has occurred." and a whole host of other issues that eventually translated back to an outdated ituneshelper.exe that inexplicably never got updated with the rest of iTunes when I updated. iTunes is not my friend and I would avoid it if I could.

So, I'm not a fan of iTunes, but... you can opt out of the backup and will do the sync. I almost posted this at Engadget but it would get lost in the threads... but if you hit the "X" at the top when it starts to back up the device, it will cancel and then sync and then rather than the Engadget's 1-10 hour sync, it usually sync's in seconds or minutes. So the quoted article is not completely accurate - he's complaining that he can't sync one song without it backing up and that backups take too long, but you can skip the backup by hitting the "X"...
 

Gigantopithecus

Diamond Member
Dec 14, 2004
7,665
0
71
I owned an iPod Touch for about a year. I loved everything about the device, from the iOS to the app selection to its great battery life to being able to check my email anywhere on campus in under a minute to...you get the picture. I sold it and replaced it with a $30 Sandisk mp3 player a few months ago because I grew weary of iTunes. IMHO the software is garbage. Drag & drop > *.
 

Zen0

Senior member
Jan 30, 2011
980
0
0
I am far from a fan of iTunes. I have had years of scars of "The iPhone 'iPhone' cannot be restored. An unknown error 1013 has occurred." and a whole host of other issues that eventually translated back to an outdated ituneshelper.exe that inexplicably never got updated with the rest of iTunes when I updated. iTunes is not my friend and I would avoid it if I could.

So, I'm not a fan of iTunes, but... you can opt out of the backup and will do the sync. I almost posted this at Engadget but it would get lost in the threads... but if you hit the "X" at the top when it starts to back up the device, it will cancel and then sync and then rather than the Engadget's 1-10 hour sync, it usually sync's in seconds or minutes. So the quoted article is not completely accurate - he's complaining that he can't sync one song without it backing up and that backups take too long, but you can skip the backup by hitting the "X"...

He, like everyone else, has no clue how to use even the basic functions of iTunes.

It's to be expected.
 

Zen0

Senior member
Jan 30, 2011
980
0
0
I owned an iPod Touch for about a year. I loved everything about the device, from the iOS to the app selection to its great battery life to being able to check my email anywhere on campus in under a minute to...you get the picture. I sold it and replaced it with a $30 Sandisk mp3 player a few months ago because I grew weary of iTunes. IMHO the software is garbage. Drag & drop > *.

You never learned how to drag and drop into iTunes did you?
 
Aug 23, 2000
15,511
1
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The excessively long wait times are so you can queue up some romantic music, light up some candles and open a bottle wine. This way you can have a nice romantic evening while getting screwed in the @$$ by Apple.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
You can drag and drop if you tell it to manually manage your music library on a device.
 

zerocool84

Lifer
Nov 11, 2004
36,041
472
126
Syncing my iPod Touch (and iPhone, when I had one) never takes me more than a minute. Certainly not "ten minutes to ten hours."

Engadget's quickly succumbing to flamebaiting for traffic rather than breaking news and insightful commentary. Case in point: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/23/visualized-a-foxconn-worker-walks-into-an-apple-store/

Engadget has always done stuff like this and that. It's nothing new. Plus it's nothing new that Engadget has always been more Apple biased but it doesn't stop me from reading there even though I don't like Apple.
 

AstroManLuca

Lifer
Jun 24, 2004
15,628
5
81
Cliffs:

"I want to do it my old antiquated way. Apple won't let me wah"

Plugging in your cable and using a bloated piece of does-everything media management software to "sync" is antiquated. A relic of an older time when people used a cradle to sync their Palm Pilots.

Forward-looking smartphones and MP3 players give their users many ways to transfer their music, either by mounting the drive, wired or WiFi syncing, or cloud storage.
 

Mr. Pedantic

Diamond Member
Feb 14, 2010
5,039
0
76
Drag and drop is great, and I wish Apple added that feature to iPods/iPhones/iTunes as well, but I can't really think of a better way to sync multiple playlists each several hundred songs long.
 

Tegeril

Platinum Member
Apr 2, 2003
2,907
5
81
I used to have the long backup issue with my old iPhone 3G. Whatever happened with the iPhone 4 eliminated it. It does a quick 30s backup, sometimes a bit longer if it's been a while since my last sync, and then it puts the music on the phone quickly.
 

pm

Elite Member Mobile Devices
Jan 25, 2000
7,419
22
81
He, like everyone else, has no clue how to use even the basic functions of iTunes.

It's to be expected.

Zen0, could you try to be a little less condescending? I don't think the fact that you can cancel backups is common knowledge. In fact, I don't even think that hitting the "X" thing is at all intuitive that this would kill the back up and move on to the sync. I certainly don't think it's a "basic function" of iTunes.

I only found it out by accident when I - like the author at Engadget - was in a hurry to get my iPad to sync before a flight and saw it doing it's backup thing and out of frustration I hit the "X" next to the backup text near the top and to my surprise it stopped and just did the sync really quickly. Since then I use it all the time.
 

cronos

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2001
9,380
26
101
He, like everyone else, has no clue how to use even the basic functions of iTunes.

It's to be expected.

I agree, iTunes is not for 'him and everyone else'. It's only for special kind of people. The 'X' is like the most powerful function ever. When in doubt, always hit the 'X'.