Why iTunes Really Really Sucks, Part 2
It’s been a while since I happily flamed and subsequently ditched iTunes in favor of Floola for adding stuff to my otherwise beloved iPod Shuffle 2G. Alas, Floola — while able to add stuff to the iPod — is neither able to update it nor not crash intermittently. So I decided to try iTunes one last time. I shouldn’t have, because I was reminded how much iTunes on Windows absolutely fucking sucks.
The task seemed fairly simple at the time: add music to the Shuffle. One could argue (and I have, on numerous occasions) that adding files should be as simple as opening the iPod as a drive and dragging files to it. It’s not, so I installed iTunes, or rather, because iTunes is not available separately, I installed QuickTime as well. The suck-o-meter chirped there, but I dismissed that as being simply an inconvenience.
Installing iTunes + Quicktime, I was given the option to automatically update iTunes and Quicktime. This was checked by default, so I unchecked; I don’t need the bleeding edge versions for copying files, and I certainly don’t need another system service running all the 99% of the time when I don’t have iTunes open. Result: fiercely unchecked along with an option to take me to the iTunes Music Store every time iTunes opens.
The installer completes and asks me to reboot. Suck-o-meter is now at 1. Two if I couldn’t probably blame some of the reboot-need on Windows.
With the computer rebooted, I plug in the iPod and start iTunes. Upon program launch, iTunes kindly tells me it’s noticed my iPod is plugged in. It even sees that there are files on it that weren’t added to the Shuffle via iTunes (correct, because they were added using Floola). Unfortunately, iTunes doesn’t support adding music to the iPod from multiple computers. The (only) solution: Erase & Sync. With an insatiable urge to spew torrents of swear-words, this brings the suck-o-meter to 5. Seriously? Who the hell is iTunes to tell me what to put on my iPod, or from where?
Alright, so I erase everything that’s on my iPod in order to be able to update the firmware and add new music. Because unless I do that, the iPod doesn’t even show up in iTunes. Erase completed: okay, it shows up now. That, and a banner in the bottom called “iTunes Mini Store”. I thought I disabled that during the installer? Not so. I have to close that again. So I enter the preferences to see if I can’t disable it there, after all, I just want to update and add to my iPod. The preferences tell me dark secrets; despite my having unchecked (fiercely) the option to automatically update my software, a big checkmark remains in a box that says “Check for updates automatically”. That’s like an eighties TV-show cliché of having too many dates for the one evening; it’s bound to go wrong, hilariously so. Except when iTunes is doing it, it’s not hilarious. It’s 2 points on the suck-o-meter. We’re now at 7.
The suck-o-meter stops at 10. We still have a ways to go before everything implodes. The status is an erased and synced iPod, ready to be updated and recieve a few files. The update goes smoothly. As for the files, in this case, they are rather large audiobooks, so i simply open the folder containing the three files instead of have iTunes index my entire system to add them to my music library. Dragging them from the folder to the iPod icon in the iTunes sidebar seems logical right? Not possible. Oh right, my friend whom I had an almost heated iTunes discussion with, yesterday, told me that iTunes is all about playlists. Fine, I drag the file to the playlist area: success (albeit an unintuitive one)! Dragging that playlist to the iPod in the sidebar works. The iPod is syncing. While syncing I decide to rename the playlist “Audio Books”. Not knowing or trusting whether renaming in iTunes works like it does in Windows (select and wait or select and press F2), I right-click the playlist. No rename option. Can’t I rename? Even if the Windows standard way of renaming works, a context-menu option should be there as well to provide discoverability. Not so, but F2 works. The undiscoverable-in-the-name-of-optimizing-and-simplifying interface design still earns iTunes a total of 8 points on the suck-o-meter.
The iPod is updated and full of audiobooks now. The experience getting there has been an ugly, way-above-average 8 on the suck-o-meter. Comparing iTunes to most other media players excluding Real Player (that would just be unfair, or would it?), getting there was Adobe Photoshop CS3 Etch-a-Sketch slow, confusing and excrutiating. That’s another point on the suck-o-meter.
Now that everything is updated and added, I don’t expect to add files in a while; it takes time to listen through three audiobooks, after all, so simply closing iTunes should settle my woes and remind me that while the iTunes experience can be excrutiating, it is only brief.
I would like to tell you that story of the happy little elf who could simply close iTunes and be done with it. I really would. But this is not a happy story.
What does “closing an application” mean to you? To me it means that the entirety of that application is unloaded. Apparently Apple chose a more beatnik approach to this question, adding services that continue running long after the red X has been pressed. In fact, iTunes secretly installed three permanently memory resident programs: iPodHelper, AppleMobileDeviceService and iTunesHelper. For the computer un-initiated those might be all you’d discover running. But there’s more. Installed in the hidden service layer of Windows, we find Apples Bonjour network service. If we look for it, we even find installed a separate Apple Software Update application (despite us twice having told iTunes we don’t want to update anything, ever). Poor suck-o-meter that only goes to 10. This one goes to 11.
Let’s summarize. Wanting to update my iPod and add three audio book files, required me to reboot, uncheck update services I thought I had already unchecked and erase all my non-iTunes-added-music, all the while having to suffer through arrogantly unintuitive slow interfaces and Music Store ads until finally having to deal with unwanted memory resident applications. Be honest now: is that even remotely defensible coming from a company that’s supposed to be “big” on intuitive interfaces and easy to use hardware and software? I mean, think about it, and really get it in there. If you were not allowed to use the arguments “Get a mac”, or “App X also sucks”, could you even begin to explain why iTunes on Windows must reek like this? Because that’s what it does, reek!
I want you to imagine, for a second, a world wherein Apple did not require you to use iTunes with your iPod. I know it’s unrealistic, but for the sake of it, explore the what if. Do you see more iPods sold? I do. I see more iPods sold, and I see myself having an iPhone. And then I wake up and smell the coffee.
Update: Welcome Reddit’ers. Let’s hope the server can handle the traffic and please feel free to vent in the comments.
You’re having, like, an impedance mismatch.
Macs are becoming, pretty much as far as possible, dissociated from the concept of files. So, iTunes holds your music - that it does it with files is an implementation issue. iPhoto holds your pictures - same thing applies. Macs are also all about things just working for with the reason why they are just working also being an implementation issue. Hence the bonjour service - needed to discover other iTunes instances. The iPod helper - needed to start iTunes when you plug the iPod in.
The problem is you have to buy into it. If you keep thinking in terms of files and (shudder) actually being in control of the box in front of you, you’re going to hate it. But if you realise that the whole of Apple is based around a ‘consumer device, that does this thing’ then it all starts to make sense.
It’s not for everybody, sure, but it’s how it is. You might have been better served by a more file centric MP3 player. There’s certainly no shortage of suppliers :)
Ugh, I thoroughly share your distaste for iTune’s arrogance. I find it horrendous on any operating system, even its native OS X. I used to use vPod to move files onto my iPod, but then Apple updated their firmware, added a checksum to iTunesDB and the maintainer of vPod hasn’t kept up.
I use Amarok on Linux these days, but seeing as how my iPod’s battery has died and iPod’s don’t support DIY battery replacement (although it is possible), it’s now nothing more than a glorified USB hard-drive.
Come on, you didn’t know how iTunes and iPods worked before you bought yours? I have no patience for people who complain about features they knew perfectly well they were buying into.
I bought a Zune because i disliked iTunes so much… imagine my “glee” when i discovered that the Zune software was almost as awful.
(from now on it’ll be Creatives and their drag-n-drop awesomeness for me.)
Have you thought about synching your ipod using mediamonkey.
this might seem like spam but i promise i hav no affiliation with mediamonkey (except that i absolutely love it).
Not only is mediamonkey a stellar, feature-rich media player and organiser, its fully skinnable (it looks good) (very good) and syncs to ipods!
I used it for a while while i was forced into using an ipod nano (3rd gen) which wasn’t the most pleasant experience admittedly but using mediamoney made it sooo much better.
what you need to do with shuffles is make space for data. so that you can copy files into the data space to add when you get home
Fuck iTunes.
I used to use ephPod to add/remove files from my 1G iPod (still have it), but when I got a Nano, suddenly I was forced to use iBufoons.
To me the worst part is the whole “syncing” crap…. who the fuck needs fucking “sync” for fuck’s sake?!?!?
If I drag a motherfucking file onto the player, it should add the motherfucking file to the player. Also I should be able to drag motherfucking files the fuck off of the player onto my computer.
Fuck sync. Fuck playlists. Fuck Safari, fuck QuickTime, fuck this Apple backchannel phone-home bullshit. Those fucking black turtleneck-wearing shitbags force you to install iTunes for an iPhone, or just to browse the cocksucking “App Store”, the holy grail of shit.
People rag on Gates/MSoft about being a monopoly. Fucking Jobs wants to own your soul.
Fuck Apple and the gurgling babbling zealots who worship at the altar of Jobs.
(Other than that — yay Apple!!!)
I dumped iTunes and iPod’s sometime back. Apple anything makes my skin crawl.
Sansa Clip + Winamp appears to work for me on Win.
Admit it, this was a ploy to stir up some business for your poster shop. Although I can’t blame you. Pointing out the obvious flaws with anything Apple is always good for a sudden spike in traffic thanks to all of the fanboys - not to mention the humor in reading their responses.
While I haven’t tried out the iPod connectivity, I’d definitely suggest giving Songbird a try as they’ve been working heavily on that lately (of course remember that the software is still only v0.6). Personally I’m still searching for the best solution for a music player on Ubuntu now that I’ve grown so accustomed to foobar2000 on Windows.
Why are pro-Apple people derisively called ‘fanboys’ and vehemently anti-Apple ‘…’ not held in the same contempt? I thought about my hardware/software and chose appropriately.
I didnt go with what I think could fairly be called the plain-vanilla or default route of Windows just because “I used it at school”, “we use it at work”, or whatever.
Reading through these comments I do find some people’s strong and extremely bizzare aversion to Apple and hatred of Apple products and their customers very very strange. Even in the darkest depths of Apple’s black days when most of these people (if they were even born) wouldnt have even heard of Apple and when Apple users disliked Microsoft with an almost pseudo-religion zeal I heard nothing like that coming these days against Apple from people whose only experience is maybe the iPod or maybe even a really balance site like anythingbutipod.com (sarcasm).
Strange, strange, strange. My advise (for what its worth) find something more constructive to do with your time.
Thom,
If you think a controversial Apple rant will gather me any new poster customers, you’re as bad (or even worse) at marketing as me! So that would be a clean and honest no. In fact, I believe I might have scared away a few.
I’ll do that.
Foobar is fantastic. I wish more software was coded on those foundations.
There’s a pretty good reason why I’ve never started my own company. :P
Out of curiosity, how is your foobar themed? I love the very popular FOOAvA, but thought you might have spent the time to give it your own personal touch. Laziness has claimed my desires to be my own designer…
Actually, one of the features I like the most about Foobar is the fact that it’s not skinned by default. It simply looks like a Windows app (for better or worse).
My other favourite features about Foobar are the speed, the global hotkeys and the playlist tabs.
Are you serious? You are obviously as you put it “computer initiated” enough to find the files on the hidden services in windows. But are not tech savy enough to realize that by buying an iPod you are going to have to, for better or worse, use iTunes. If you are not willing to use iTunes then buy a Creative. You can drag and drop files in Explorer to your heart’s content.
You are wonderful writer! You took a process that takes minutes and made it sound like you spend two days to get these three audiobooks on your Shuffle. Such drama!
I have six computers in my house(4 windows & 2 Macs) and have no trouble with iTunes on any of them. But I enjoy iPods and use iTunes as my media library so everything works. You can not try to use windows mindset with Apple products. You are bitching about the software because it doesn’t work like Windows. Duh, it is Apple software. That’s like buying a Playstation and bitching cause it doesn’t play XBOX games.
If you want open players then buy an open player. There are plenty of them out there. If you don’t like iTunes then why did you buy an iPod? I do believe it say right on the box that iTunes is required.