Hatred of Itunes

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I'm in the 'My Music' itunes section. I have one screen with a list that can be sorted alphabetically by name, time, album and artist (and genre if I actually gave a shit to label my music that way. even if everything was categorized by genre, who really gives a shit).

Great, I'm playing music now. YAY BEACH BOYS MIX

Now I open winamp to compare the main itunes library screen with winamps.

Winamp is split into 4 windows that let you quickly jump from one spot to another. I can't really compare the practicality and functionality of this layout with itunes layout without having yall here to see what I'm talking about. Suffice to say the speed and ease of jumping anywhere in my library and the ability to quickly pull up every album for an artist in one concise space makes itunes look like a big floppy turd.

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 21:45 (eight years ago) link

Also, why can't I choose which folders itunes uses for my library?

How the fuck does itunes know which music and videos to pull off my computer and put in its' library?

I'm going to get to the bottom of this cesspool if it kills me.

Join me tomorrow as I look at itunes 'My Playlist' section!

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 21:51 (eight years ago) link

oh, one last thing. I just maximized itunes to see what songs were on the Beach Boys mix playlist. The playlist isn't there! I had to click the the weird ._ symbol next to the heart on the itunes player and even then it only shows what's songs are coming up next. I can't see any songs I just played WTF. Also this upcoming songs list is bulky as fuck and I have to use the scroll bar. Where the fuck is a normal playlist screen!?!?

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 21:58 (eight years ago) link

okay somehow I minimized itunes into a little player box. Like a tiny player window screen. There is no maximize button.

I repeat THERE IS NO MAXIMIZE BUTTON. The rest of itunes disappeared. I'm fucked. YOu cant get BACK INTO FULL ITUNES>FDSFKS

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 22:03 (eight years ago) link

this must be what its like to use an apple computer

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 22:04 (eight years ago) link

whoa check it out it's the internet
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203128

brimstead, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 22:50 (eight years ago) link

and?

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 22:57 (eight years ago) link

...if you are defending itunes by linking to the itunes help page then I think you are missing the point

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 22:59 (eight years ago) link

Right now I'm listening to Bee Thousand and each track is playing twice in a row because I have two copies of Bee Thousand. I don't really mind because this album is great but I decided to try to change to just one album. This is proving to be difficult. Actually, nope it's impossible. I just have to delete one of the albums off of itunes I guess.

wooooooosh

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 23:05 (eight years ago) link

yep, separating two identically labelled albums in itunes is impossible

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 23:06 (eight years ago) link

I jumped the gun.
Confirmed impossible in Winamp also.
Although I don't normally stick both of those in my winamp library. With itunes I don't have seem to have much of a choice.

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 23:16 (eight years ago) link

that help page shows you how to do the shit you don't know how to do, but it sounds like you just want to throw a public tantrum or something so farewell, have a blessed day

brimstead, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 23:49 (eight years ago) link

lol
i'm pointing out stuff that is bad about about the interface etc. stuff that a help page won't fix you fucking maroon

The Once-ler, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 23:56 (eight years ago) link

sorry, language

The Once-ler, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 00:02 (eight years ago) link

i think you're just not very good at using computers. it's ok ;-)

brimstead, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 00:28 (eight years ago) link

Right now I'm listening to Bee Thousand and each track is playing twice in a row because I have two copies of Bee Thousand. I don't really mind because this album is great but I decided to try to change to just one album. This is proving to be difficult. Actually, nope it's impossible. I just have to delete one of the albums off of itunes I guess.

wooooooosh

― The Once-ler, Tuesday, September 1, 2015 7:05 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Unless you have a super huge number of songs on there, can't you sort by date added and delete one of them? Unless you downloaded them at the EXACT same time?

Iago Galdston, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 00:50 (eight years ago) link

uncheck one of them

A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Wednesday, 2 September 2015 00:53 (eight years ago) link

'date modified' worked after I found out had to add it to the column categories. but really that was a stupid issue to pick on. I think I got carried away by all the other legitimate issues, including the ones I was having from just having to put up with it.

itunes never fails to irk me. kind of like how windows 8 had me face-palming before I added a 'start is back' app. there are still other windows 8 things that bug me though

The Once-ler, Wednesday, 2 September 2015 01:04 (eight years ago) link

two months pass...

if you're in artist mode and you choose "sort albums by year, descending", and you play a specific track on an album, it'll play the album backwards (play track 5, next will be 4, then 3 ...)

cool

0 / 0 (lukas), Sunday, 29 November 2015 21:25 (eight years ago) link

fucking piece of shit ipod touch killed itself because I hadn't updated to iOS 9. Updated and it tried to install my entire app library on the fucking thing, plus turn on iMessage and News, and all the other shit. All technology is shit

El Tomboto, Monday, 30 November 2015 01:46 (eight years ago) link

Seriously every device in the modern world drives me into apoplectic rage any time I have to commit an act of maintenance - and about 10% of the time just when I'm trying to use it for its intended purpose. How did we get here?

El Tomboto, Monday, 30 November 2015 01:47 (eight years ago) link

good god iTunes is a mess if you want it to handle a library of any reasonable size.

Inexplicably, you cannot go "back" from one view to another, which is a total fucking nightmare if you are searching for anything and want to return to where you were.

If you make a change in an info file while in My Music, it will reset your place back to the beginning of the alphabet.

It's buggy as shit when syncing over wifi.

It's dog slow with tens of thousands of files.

Try deleting a song from your library while in Playlist view and watch the system drag to a crawl.

You have to use Doug's iTunes Scripts to get any meaningful batch processing.

Can't meaningfully display lyrics without a 3rd party. Finding lyrics requires a third party, too.

Still won't play FLAC.

Thomas H. Handy (dandydonweiner), Monday, 30 November 2015 03:56 (eight years ago) link

I've actually come around to iTunes, I agree the useful functionality isn't always easy to find at first but once you get to know where to get all the functionality it's incredibly powerful. It's one of the few libraries that works correctly with compilations too, and one of the very few that handles a 100.000+ library without slowing down to a crawl.

Siegbran, Monday, 30 November 2015 10:40 (eight years ago) link

Anybody know a way to always show the "track number" column by default when creating a new playlist?

Mr. Snrub, Monday, 30 November 2015 11:39 (eight years ago) link

It does with me - playlists seem to 'inherit' the columns from the general Music view.

Siegbran, Monday, 30 November 2015 11:55 (eight years ago) link

I wish you could edit Smart Playlists better.

I'll do this thing where I'll come up with some combination like "Name Must Have 'Sexy'" and get the list. However, there will be one or two songs in that Smart list that I don't want. So instead of just being able to delete them from the list - like you can in a regular list or even on Spotify - I have to actually select the other 99 songs and then "Create a Playlist from Selection".

Not that I really have 100 songs with sexy in the title. Some of them are sexxy.

pplains, Monday, 30 November 2015 14:23 (eight years ago) link

You could do that - make a playlist called "Shit Songs", move those two songs in there (and others you want to be excluded from other playlists), and add the line "does not contain songs from playlist Shit Songs" in your smart playlists.

Siegbran, Monday, 30 November 2015 16:45 (eight years ago) link

Ha, yeah that would work.

Still, creating a playlist you don't even want in order to delete songs from one that you do....

pplains, Monday, 30 November 2015 17:32 (eight years ago) link

^ that used to be called a kludge

Aimless, Monday, 30 November 2015 17:43 (eight years ago) link

Seriously every device in the modern world drives me into apoplectic rage any time I have to commit an act of maintenance - and about 10% of the time just when I'm trying to use it for its intended purpose. How did we get here?

Ditto. I seriously need to lo-fi-ify my life because everything new sucks. My iPod Classic is pretty much the only one of my varied electronic devices that doesn't require multiple hours of upkeep. Everything else is about to get dropkicked into a well.

On topic, though: my gf was trying to make a playlist in my iTunes this weekend and, after dealing with the extended freeze-ups every couple of minutes, I think she finally understands what all of the swearing is about.

The Squirrel Who Punched His Dad In The Neck (Old Lunch), Monday, 30 November 2015 17:56 (eight years ago) link

If you make a change in an info file while in My Music, it will reset your place back to the beginning of the alphabet.

the resetting/the strange, suddenly shitty memory for what you were just doing is what's really killing me on the later updates of this thing

HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Monday, 30 November 2015 17:56 (eight years ago) link

and i never really complained about itunes before!

HYPERLINK TO RAP GENIUS (BradNelson), Monday, 30 November 2015 17:57 (eight years ago) link

I've found that if I edit track tags, add new files, delete files, etc while in the main My Music view iTunes as a whole just freezes up for a couple of minutes since upgrading to the latest version. Doesn't happen if I make the changes within a playlist, or when I've searched for a specific artist/title, minimising the files on display. Frustrating if I forget. 6 years of playlists plus iDevices leave me reluctant to move away from iTunes, plus I'm happy enough with the interface in general.

michaellambert, Monday, 30 November 2015 18:03 (eight years ago) link

My >10 years worth of playlists is what keeps me shackled to this thing. Still, I had to revert to an older version that I never update in order to keep from losing my mind completely. Did they ever reinstate the users' ability to have more than one playlist open at a time? Someone should've gone to jail for that decision.

The Squirrel Who Punched His Dad In The Neck (Old Lunch), Monday, 30 November 2015 18:29 (eight years ago) link

you can save playlists as files and import them with whatever new mp3 player you use

brimstead, Monday, 30 November 2015 18:32 (eight years ago) link

sorta offtopic and i mentioned elsewhere, but seriously, get Cesium for your iDevice. You can end the pain on iOS at least.

0 / 0 (lukas), Monday, 30 November 2015 18:37 (eight years ago) link

I've found that if I edit track tags, add new files, delete files, etc while in the main My Music view iTunes as a whole just freezes up for a couple of minutes since upgrading to the latest version. Doesn't happen if I make the changes within a playlist, or when I've searched for a specific artist/title, minimising the files on display. Frustrating if I forget. 6 years of playlists plus iDevices leave me reluctant to move away from iTunes, plus I'm happy enough with the interface in general.

I'd love to leave iTunes and would in a second if there was a great alternative but there's not. And yes, iTunes is ultimately pretty powerful and great but like Word it is now dragged down by uselessness (the whole multimedia and device management functionality) which adds to the complexity and creates nasty legacy issues.

In certain views, iTunes scrolls tens of thousands of files well but in other views it sputters along. But given Apple's drive to streaming, I do not think these issues will improve until I can roll my own streaming service.

Thomas H. Handy (dandydonweiner), Tuesday, 1 December 2015 00:20 (eight years ago) link

I've actually been OK with iTunes lately. It's the airplay feature that drives me nuts. So temperamental, constantly dropping the signal.

Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 1 December 2015 01:59 (eight years ago) link

thx lukas

alo lin (alomar lines), Wednesday, 2 December 2015 05:03 (eight years ago) link

I've been running into some really irritating shit- I have a large library, so of course I want to manage the stuff on my iphone manually, just dragging and dropping what I want (or, now that they've dropped the sidebar by default and I would have to keep turning it on every time I started itunes because it doesn't remember that setting, RGH, doing a group-select->right click->add to playlist->my iphone). Now they've added this fucking stupid thing where purchased music on my phone has both "delete" and "remove download" options if I'm managing it directly from the phone's Music app, and as far as I can tell, the difference is "remove download" takes it off the device (but still leaves a library entry for it on the phone's Music app because haha fuck you) and "delete" apparently deletes it FROM YOUR ITUNES LIBRARY. Like, all synced devices, and hides it in your itunes store account. Who wants that? Who thought that was a good idea?

I'm also finding that if I browse my iphone's library while it's connected via USB to itunes on my PC and delete stuff to make room for new music, about half the time it will delete it from that view- meaning I can't see it on my PC's itunes while the phone is connected- but the files will still be on the phone.

JESUS CHRIST APPLE GET YOUR/MY SHIT TOGETHER

You guys are caterpillar (Telephone thing), Wednesday, 2 December 2015 12:43 (eight years ago) link

Maybe the reason I'm not running into problems is that I don't have an iPhone and I'm never syncing stuff? Hmm ...

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 14:09 (eight years ago) link

intelligently syncing media across multiple devices with vastly different storage capacities and use cases is admittedly difficult but apple has been hopeless at it (just try disentangling the photo sync options available for instance)

illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 2 December 2015 14:11 (eight years ago) link

Syncing generally isn't a problem for me since I'm only syncing an iPod Classic via USB. I create On The Go playlists during the day as necessary and update stuff when I get home.

The Featureless Mash That Was Once My Face (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 2 December 2015 14:18 (eight years ago) link

i get that it's difficult to create software that will sync media across multiple platforms/devices. i don't get why it keeps getting worse with every new version of itunes. or why itunes' most basic function (sorting/playing media) keeps getting more cumbersome and terrible to look at.

dynamicinterface, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 14:58 (eight years ago) link

All of Apple's software has been steadily getting uglier, more bloated, more cumbersome and less useful, especially iTunes, iPhoto and iMovie. Waiting for them to introduce a talking paperclip that walks you through everything.

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 15:20 (eight years ago) link

Photos is an improvement over iPhoto, for sure.

Jeff, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 15:23 (eight years ago) link

Scotch-taping a polaroid picture to your computer monitor would've been an improvement over iPhoto.

pplains, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 15:28 (eight years ago) link

I'm getting a new computer today, looking forward to leaping up several generations of tech and software immediately, after the hassle of transferring everything over.

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 15:31 (eight years ago) link

I love that feeling. Also the feeling of having a clean install

The Once-ler, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 16:03 (eight years ago) link

Pp, true true

Jeff, Wednesday, 2 December 2015 19:27 (eight years ago) link


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