Hatred of Itunes

*away

"the iTunes interface for phone is so terrible" how so? I mean, you can sort by artist/album and play a song. what more do you need?

I don't love how deleting songs can be a chore: when you're in your downloaded music library trying to get rid of music you've downloaded without deleting it from your full library, and simply "remove download" it (often?) sends you back to your full library, rather than staying in your downloaded music library.

xp

when I try to sort by "Songs" in iTunes I see one Arthur Russell track and that goddamn U2 album, and that's it. When I sort by 'Albums", it lists everything as an individual track starting with the album title and tagged "unknown artist". Same with a Genre sort once you click through to the album list. Totally useless. Haven't bothered to troubleshoot because I do literally no listening via phone. CDs in the car, stereo at home, laptop for DJ gigs. I think I threw those tracks on the phone for a plane flight home like two years ago.

Pretty sure these aren't tagging issues because this shit worked just fine on my iPod Classic (RIP).

I don't love how deleting songs can be a chore: when you're in your downloaded music library trying to get rid of music you've downloaded without deleting it from your full library, and simply "remove download" it (often?) sends you back to your full library, rather than staying in your downloaded music library.

― L'assie (Euler), Tuesday, June 4, 2019 7:21 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel like apple thinks of the "downloaded music" tab as a necessary evil that distracts from what they're selling which is apple music

they just moved backups, video and podcasts out to new apps.

― Siegbran, Monday, June 3, 2019 11:45 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is the first thing that they've done in a minute that i fully support. admittedly i panicked with y'all at first

yeah I have apple music! but I want downloaded music so that I can listen whenever, not just when I have a good connection w/ lots of data. bumping me back to the full library seems like a bug but I I dunno.

"the iTunes interface for phone is so terrible" how so? I mean, you can sort by artist/album and play a song. what more do you need?

Smart playlists would be great. A "Loved" playlist where anything I click 'love' on gets added to. Ability to rate 1-5 stars, not just 'loved' vs 'disliked'. A complete "recently played" history. Count of how many times a song has been played, and ability to sort by that. Ability to store non-Apple bought/streamed tracks, like could on laptop. An EQ would be nice.

Errr... the star rating is still there.

on mobile?? I don't see it.

You have to go in to Settings>Music and enable the "Show Star Ratings" option. Then on the screen that shows the full album art in iTunes you can tap on the three dots in the bottom right corner of the screen and you'll see a "Rate Song" option. You can then change the star rating of the song.

Yeah they tried to kill it but brought it back after people complained. It’s still not as easy and straightforward as it used to be but better than nothing (probably the one feature that still binds me to Apple Music/iTunes given how much I rely on ratings for my synced smart playlists)

hmm there is no "show star ratings" option on that menu. I have iphone6 w most recent IOS version.

it's there for me on iphone6 with latest iOS.

Supposedly it's known to not show that option for some users, but it can be forced to show if you go into itunes and check option to "sync only checked songs and videos". Except uh only ever use my phone so I don't have itunes now. Super.

they're not even killing itunes on windows, apparently. i don't know why i use itunes on windows. yes i know, it's because i owned an ipod in 2007 and haven't cared enough to try and export everything into something else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IpYkNZRdi8

Thanks for that j
So they really are moving the sync to the finder - in the same manner that Craig satirized during the announcement. How dumb

maybe they have been using all that telemetry junk that's been the fad to learn how much people sync without itunesing first. personally i rarely sync my ipod without also fiddling with the list of what will be put on it, so it will seem kind of dumb to have to do that in the music app then sync in the finder.

the finder is for files!!

Long time iTunes hater here.

Used to have to use it to get music on my iPhone but ditched it once I switched to Android phones.

Wife still has iPhones though. Is there a way to get music onto her phone without using iTunes? Because I'm loathe to install the bloated piece of software on my new (non Apple) laptop.

You can initiate a WiFi sync from the phone (Settings/General/iTunes WiFi Sync), and whenever I connect by cable it automatically starts syncing, so I guess you don't have to go into the Finder so often?

"Still, the smart-playlists feature isn’t explicitly mentioned in Apple’s PR, and the company hasn’t said anything about whether users will be able to transfer their lists from the old program to the new one."

https://www.theringer.com/music/2019/6/5/18653818/itunes-smart-playlists-feature-apple-spotify-streaming-services

The beta of Catalina with the new Music app is already out, it has smart playlists functionality if I’m not mistaken?

yeah now that I look it appears that article is from a week ago, sorry

I don't think I've ever once used what has "secretly been the best feature of iTunes—and a harbinger of the streaming age—for more than a decade"

neither have I!

i like smart playlists, just to catalog curiosities like my most played from a certain year or "how many songs are in my library longer than 10 minutes" or "songs with the word 'kill' in the title." I used to use smart playlists to organize music by albums and artists before they developed an album view--now i have dozens of old smart playlists for a single album clogging up my playlist bar that i'm too lazy to delete.

If anything, the smart playlist/filtering features of iTunes are too limited. You cannot quickly/easily drill down multiple criteria without tediously building these rules in the smart playlist editor.

so I'm sure this isn't specific to iTunes but I haven't downloaded an app or application for ages on my Windows 10 laptop. I can either download iTunes as an 'app' from the Microsoft store - which doesn't give me an install file that I can find, or by looking for different versions, as a 'normal' .exe install.

basically what the hell is an 'app' on Windows pc if it's not an application?

I think the Apps on Windows 10 are more lightweight versions of the software that are designed to run on the Universal Windows Platform and so look (and work) the same on various devices - tablets, laptops, phones etc.

Don't use the iTunes one but do have apps for Netflix and BT Sport installed on mine

ah thanks. I don't trust them!

Suddenly IA at iTunes turning every album cover into a RoundRect.

does anyone else still use an iPod? i kind of collect them, tbh, because for many moons i travelled a lot through areas with no connectivity and hated having my phone drained of battery (i will not buy an iPhone, ever).

my 30GB iPod collection (i have four lol) works just fine. don't really understand why anyone would need anything else.

Yes, I have a 128 and it sounds better than my iPhone but convenience won that battle long ago

because of my hatred of iPhones it's never been a problem, i just keep one iPod in the car and a few in the house and swap them around lol.

I use my 80 gb iPod only in the car, I wish I had a spare

i do! but i don't have a phone. i use an 8 gb nano every single day, and i have an old second or third gen 80 gb model, still with a hard drive in it and everything, that i use as a home stereo, attached to a dock. i wish they didn't stop making nanos, it's a perfect device but someday it's going to up and die on me.

tbh, i do a call on social media for them every so often, and friends often just give them to me because they're viewed as garbage. that's how i've accumulated so many.

jesus wept

I use a 160gb ipod for music and will cry when it dies

i am considering finally joining the streaming age, except it turns out what i'm considering streaming is media from my NAS at home. we'll see if i wind up going that route.

Plex is probably your best solution for that, although it’s not perfect.

10 yr old 160gb user here, very alarmed by the thought of it dying.

Left my 10 y/o 160gb behind in a hotel room recently, heartbroken to lose it and also that i'll never know exactly how long it would have lasted under good care.

Siegbran otm about Plex, it's fairly easy to configure and works well for in-house streaming even with my antique iMac as a server (I don't use it to stream outside my LAN).

My 2009 VW has a slot under the center console armrest specifically designed for a classic iPod ... I might have to sell the car when my iPod dies.

My 2013 Honda killed my 160gb iPod. I should've used the audio input, but instead used the USB (in the glove box, for some annoying reason). At random moments, the iPod would freeze when I started the car, and I'd have to power cycle it. It only happened a few times, but that combined with whatever syncing shenanigans were going on (the dash screen displayed artist/title/cover art) apparently damaged the hard drive. When I tried to restore it from my computer, only a random handful of items would sync to it.

I've got a 160 GB which I use all the time. Would really like to get a spare but they're still kind of expensive.

wouldn't mind taking the plunge for the 256GB iPhone one day but it's that damn headphone jack that's stopping me. I know you can get adapters and what not but I just think its dumb, the Bluetooth in the phone I've got goes on and off all the time

battery on my 160gb dies after 20 minutes :(

there’s a whole cottage industry around repairing/upgrading old iPods, so a dead drive or battery isnt necessarily the end:

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2018/2/22/17039896/ipod-diy-upgrade-battery-memory-hack

I use a 160gb ipod for music and will cry when it dies

― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Sunday, June 16, 2019 10:03 AM (five days ago)

jinx :( :(