iTunes hatred thread

horse

I still use itunes for syncing my old ipod, but don't let it 'organise' my library, and I use EAC to rip and tag then drag them in

TimmyO

ICBM said:

but if you're not using iTunes any more you won't need to know how .

Indeed. Going to a paid Spotify account has been a revelation - I can tell it to pull down a copy of anything I want to listen to without streaming (eg for on the tube, or that I listen to regularly) and pretty much anything else I want is always available. 

I don't have anything I listen to that can't be found on Spotify (I get that many folk might) 

I actually went with Apple Music initially but the UI was terrible when it first came out (I understand it is improved now) so tried Spotify and am now a firm believer that everyone else should too :-) 

bingefeller

horse said:

I still use itunes for syncing my old ipod, but don't let it 'organise' my library, and I use EAC to rip and tag then drag them in

There is a folder on your Mac called "Automatically Add to iTunes".  Stick your files there and iTunes will import them for you when you start it up.

dindude

TimmyO said:

ICBM said:

but if you're not using iTunes any more you won't need to know how .

Indeed. Going to a paid Spotify account has been a revelation - I can tell it to pull down a copy of anything I want to listen to without streaming (eg for on the tube, or that I listen to regularly) and pretty much anything else I want is always available. 

I don't have anything I listen to that can't be found on Spotify (I get that many folk might) 

I actually went with Apple Music initially but the UI was terrible when it first came out (I understand it is improved now) so tried Spotify and am now a firm believer that everyone else should too :-) 

I'm with you here. I moved to Spotify a couple of weeks ago and it's so clean and simple to use, and crucially for me, as well as being able to explore music so easily, set it up and it still feels like you've got your own library of familiar albums to pull upon.

I tried Apple Music first but it was terrible. It kept putting back in my library things I'd deleted, and between two macs my iPad and an iPhone, downloaded music from iTunes and ripped files on iTunes, it (and just maybe possibly me!) just got massively confused, but either way the integration wasn't good enough.

I also got bored with managing and maintaining a massive load of ripped files, especially when iTunes would occasional crap out after an update.

I got over myself with regard to the less-than-cd-quality issue just because it's still very good through a good hi fi and I'm listening to more music than ever.

TimmyO

dindude said:

and I'm listening to more music than ever.

Ding! Me too - the Discover Weekly, Release Radar, and 5 Daily Mix playlists it generates for you based on listening habits are very very well done too. 

ICBM

axisus said:

As soon as you have to fix stuff it has failed. 

Any music software that can't organise itself is utter shite. In this day and age iTunes is pathetic.

I can pretty much guarantee that any other music app will organise *something* in a way I (and probably you) don't want. It might even be true if you wrote one yourself since there are occasionally things that don't fit the 'rules'.

bluechargeboy

digitalscream said:

Clementine doesn't have a problem with this, but then...it was written by people who actually use it. I'd bet that at least half of the developers who've worked on iTunes don't

Cheers for that @digitalscream, gonna give it a whirl! Rhythmbox on OSX is what I really want but Clementine looks like it might be quite sane.

iTunes needs smashing apart into tiny UNIX shards that each do one thing properly, rather than trying to do everything, and doing it badly.

Jalapeno

I simply no longer trust iTunes, and ALWAYS copy the entire library before allowing updates.  Updates has been where I've had most grief (files & artwork lost, worse is moving things to the cloud without permission).

(On PC)

bingefeller

I honestly have no idea what you guys are doing that's causing iTunes to mess up so bad.  I've been using it for years and never had a problem, either with OS updates or iTunes updates.  

Fretwired

I'm on a PC and have no problems - I have plenty of backups. I tend to avoid upgrading to the latest version until I know any issues are fixed ..

ThePrettyDamned

bingefeller said:

I honestly have no idea what you guys are doing that's causing iTunes to mess up so bad.  I've been using it for years and never had a problem, either with OS updates or iTunes updates. 

I had an issue where I sync'd a library to my new computer and iTunes took it upon itself to replace some of my milder albums with newer remasters.

Didn't bother after that. The various artists album cockups are annoying too - itmoften just splits each song into a bunch of different albums rather than the compilation it was from.

Yes,fixable - but annoying. 

RandallFlagg

I like iTunes on Mac, I do run a tight and very well organised library though and I control what goes into the library and set my own tags and covers. I have turned off the dire My Music shite.