[Em135eye]

Recently got a Macbook Pro and a Twelve South sub (HIGHLY recommended!) but finding i-tunes to be a bit of a PITA. Very inflexible, constantly trying to get me to sign my life away and generally badly designed.

Any other music players for the Mac that won't drive me insane? I found the Windows players more flexible, free of ads and generally better.

Also signed up for Spotify Premium - the price said £4.99, I got charged £9.99 so cancelled immediately. A shame as it's pretty good. Normal Spotify is ruined by constant ads and poorer sound quality.

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by 335diesel

Recently got a Macbook Pro and a Twelve South sub (HIGHLY recommended!) but finding i-tunes to be a bit of a PITA. Very inflexible, constantly trying to get me to sign my life away and generally badly designed.

Any other music players for the Mac that won't drive me insane? I found the Windows players more flexible, free of ads and generally better.

Also signed up for Spotify Premium - the price said £4.99, I got charged £9.99 so cancelled immediately. A shame as it's pretty good. Normal Spotify is ruined by constant ads and poorer sound quality.

I've been using Macs and iTunes for 10 years and have never encountered any problems and I certainly haven't been asked to "sign my life away", you wouldn't be prone to exaggeration - would you?
As to being badly designed, how come loads of PC users download the Windows version?

[Em135eye]

Calm down Jon -I just don't like it.

For example, I copied a CD onto it - it has a few different album names despite being on one CD. Can I simply drag and drop all the fragmented bits of the album (with separate names)? No I can't.

I could do that fine on other media players. It's put one Faithless album (to all new arrivals) as FIVE different albums and it will NOT let me consolidate into one.

[M3-FAST]

If you go look at the album info, make sure the compilation box is ticked - they will all then consolidate into one album.

You must be sorting by artist name? If the artist has tracks that feature another artist, then it may split them into seperate albums.

Dead easy!

I have used itunes for years now and use it to keep my iphone, ipad and both ipods in each car up to date. It can stream via wi-fi to my Apple TV and also can be controlled via the iphone or ipad 'remote' facility. The only 'signing' to do is for your itunes account? Why would you not want to do this? I often pre-order latest albums, etc now and they download to my phone and Mac on the day of release. It's all about making life easier isn't it?

All without any complicated setup - proper plug n play (not Microsoft plug n pray!) - cant beat it IMO!

[briers]

Originally Posted by 335diesel

Also signed up for Spotify Premium - the price said £4.99, I got charged £9.99 so cancelled immediately. A shame as it's pretty good. Normal Spotify is ruined by constant ads and poorer sound quality.

Try http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/ for the odd bit of free Music.

[Dizzle]

On windows I used http://www.getsharepod.com/

[Dave_3]

Originally Posted by Jon D

As to being badly designed, how come loads of PC users download the Windows version?

If you have an iPhone, Touch or iPad when you mount your hardware it will demand you install iTunes to transfer ANY content, update your hardware, backup etc. So, for most PC users, there is no choice in the matter. Apple handcuff you to iTunes in their typical "we will do everything for you nice and easily so you don't have to worry, and it will be exactly as we want to do it" manner.

You can certainly use 3rd party software that bypasses a lot of those restrictions on a PC, but probably not so easy to setup and confugure for your typical Apple customer.

Only reason iTunes is on my PC is to use my iPad. iTunes is slightly better now, but earlier versions were bad.

D.

[pjs]

My itunes is all over the place, with changing laptops every couple of year for me and themissus, 2 iphones, ipods for the kids, and it gets messier. One Itunes has everysong duplicated twice or three times. Guess I need a teenager to sort it out.

Apple, Google and Microsoft will combine before 2020 to rule the world

[m@rk]

Originally Posted by Jon D

As to being badly designed, how come loads of PC users download the Windows version?

Because the manual for their iPhone tells them to!

[rs939]

Originally Posted by pjs

My itunes is all over the place, with changing laptops every couple of year for me and themissus, 2 iphones, ipods for the kids, and it gets messier. One Itunes has everysong duplicated twice or three times. Guess I need a teenager to sort it out.

Apple, Google and Microsoft will combine before 2020 to rule the world

I had the same thing, if you import an album that has a front and rear cover plus the x amount of tracks there is also another file I cant remember the ext it uses but if you delete that before you import it will not duplicate the songs

[MEGA]

Originally Posted by Jon D

As to being badly designed, how come loads of PC users download the Windows version?

Because they have an ipod or iphone and are given no choice if they want to use, register, update or even look at the bloody thing.

iTunes is a piece of crap with swelled usage statistics due to the popularity of portable apple products.

You used to be able to manage ipods etc via WMP, or winamp etc. But this has all been closed down by apple. Funny that.

[Em135eye]

So I'm not completely alone then!

I'm an old school non downloader of music - I buy CDs if I like an album so all I need is to be able to burn them onto the Mac so I can listen to them on the desktop and/or use playlists on the stereo.

Piece of pi55 on my Desire - just drag and drop the files onto it.

Just been blasting Pinch via Spotify but plugged into the stereo (have a fairly decent system) - if any of you like deeeep bass Dubstep then check it out!

[- Paul -]

I can't stand iTunes - the only thing I like on it is Genius - that's it!

Re free streaming of music - mflow - http://beta.mflow.com/signup?invitecode=TN5SSU

Join on my link and you'll get a £1 credit if you want to download anything - some good albums around for a pound!

[smokinHawk]

Originally Posted by Dizzle

On windows I used http://www.getsharepod.com/

i used this two on my ipod classic. love it
though i couldnt get it to work on my iphone, so i ditched my iphone and got a droid. i hate itunes.

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by m@rk

Because the manual for their iPhone tells them to!

Hmmm, just guessing, but I think that might have something to do with the iPhone being an Apple product .

[Jon D]

Originally Posted by MEGA

Because they have an ipod or iphone and are given no choice if they want to use, register, update or even look at the bloody thing.

iTunes is a piece of crap with swelled usage statistics due to the popularity of portable apple products.

You used to be able to manage ipods etc via WMP, or winamp etc. But this has all been closed down by apple. Funny that.

Similarly as I said to 'm@rk', seeing as both the iPod and iPhone are made by Apple, their own software is specifically designed to work best with their hardware. Funny that .
It's not mandatory to buy Apple, if anyone doesn't like their products they can look elsewhere.

[RockIt]

Originally Posted by 335diesel

So I'm not completely alone then!

I'm an old school non downloader of music - I buy CDs if I like an album so all I need is to be able to burn them onto the Mac so I can listen to them on the desktop and/or use playlists on the stereo.

Piece of pi55 on my Desire - just drag and drop the files onto it.

Just been blasting Pinch via Spotify but plugged into the stereo (have a fairly decent system) - if any of you like deeeep bass Dubstep then check it out!

I always buy a physical representaion of music. CD now and vinyl in the good old days. As a musician it just sems right! Having said that I love my ipod, but not itunes! Restrictive and annoying in some respects, but learn to use it and it's an easy system. Apple fanboys are the worst arses though! Seem to be one or two around...

[RockIt]

Originally Posted by Jon D

Similarly as I said to 'm@rk', seeing as both the iPod and iPhone are made by Apple, their own software is specifically designed to work best with their hardware. Funny that .
It's not mandatory to buy Apple, if anyone doesn't like their products they can look elsewhere.

Are you employed by Apple?

[chris330D]

I find media monkey works better than iTunes, www.mediamonkey.com. Gave up on iTunes as it is only fully compatible with Apple products. It does not treat playlists or album art the same as everyone else and caused no end of grief streaming on my home network.

[MEGA]

Originally Posted by Jon D

Similarly as I said to 'm@rk', seeing as both the iPod and iPhone are made by Apple, their own software is specifically designed to work best with their hardware. Funny that .
It's not mandatory to buy Apple, if anyone doesn't like their products they can look elsewhere.

.......which has exactly what with shutting down the management API that used to mean any piece of software could interact with it and completely encrypting the interface (with the hash stored serialized so you can only get at it by hex editing itunes.exe once the phone is connected) so ONLY iTunes can connect?



"Work best with their hardware" and "Anti competition laws" are two different things. Did they not learn from Microsoft?

Apple's way of doing business is devious in the extreme. Unfortunately they do make a couple of good products though. Which make it almost worth having to use their poor products as well.

[gIzzE]

I used to hate iTunes as I just liked the drag and drop style with mp3s etc.
But have to say I have come to like it, a lot.


However, make sure you set the following up properly...



Tell it where you want it to store your files, which can be in your music folder, or MyMusic or even on a hard drive on your network, it doesn't matter where, just make sure you know.

Then click on the Keep Itunes Organised, and this will sort it by artist and then have sub folders by album name, that will change as you adjust them in iTunes.

Also choose copy to iTunes folder, then if you even need to back up you just save the whole iTunes folder and everything will be saved, including artwork etc. Make moving to a new pc or copying the whole thing to a new pc very easy.

One other thing, under File and Library in iTunes you will see this...



You want to consolidate the files before backing up and again when you drag to a new computer.




When it comes to dragging files, simply drag direct from iTunes to a cd or usb stick etc.

You can also highlight a whole album and right click GET INFO and change attributes for all of the tracks and choose part of a compilation or gapless album etc.


You can also choose FILE and Display Duplicates to show tracks you have listed twice if you want to tidy things up.


I think iTunes is now a pretty impressive music library.

[DavS1]

Itunes fuckes me off big time.

I can add full albums that i've downloaded from bittorrent or the likes, but if I download a single mp3, it won't let me add it....well it appears in itunes but not on my iphone4......so I get pissed off and end up just buying it from itunes...

all I'm doing is dragging it from my music folder on windows to the itunes list, and as I say works fine for albums but not a folder full of single songs or one single mp3.

I have a feeling if I let it put all the music off my laptop onto itunes (you know the sync all music or something like that button) it'll then play the single mp3s but then I dont want ALL my music on my mob.

anyone any idea??