Wife got an iPhone

[Volvohead]

I don't like iTunes either, but I am grudgingly trying to use it, at least for video. It seems very limited in its organization, and likes to "take over" your library if you let it.

We've got a fairly vast video library. Forcing it into two large boxes of "movies" and "tv shows" with limited sub groupings is just annoying. So is the fact that ATV3 still suffers from the "epoch bug" on anything tagged before 1970.

But I like that I can watch video from the library on ATV, an iPad, or even an iPhone in a pinch. And everything seems to interlink with everything else.

We've got over 37,000 audio tracks on our home server in a very-well organized file structure. iTunes is not going to see any of it. We run Squeezeboxes all over the house. Slimedevices/Logitech has a solid Perl-based server app that runs on Mac should we ever switch.

Despite all that, those are small potatoes compared to some of the PC nonsense we've had to deal with over the years.

 

[VeeDubb]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: KrisZ
Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
I also can't stand ITunes as it freezes up all the time on my work PC and the inability to do drag and drop is frustrating. Updating to iOS is also scary because I inevitable have to restore lost apps and files. So I'd say Apple has a lot of bugs but they seem to get a free pass.


It's not a free pass, it's because of those reasons I don't have an iPhone, but Android has its own problems, so it's a wash in my mind.


Ive never had any of those issues. Ive never lost an app or file/picture/item even when changing devices. iTunes works just fine as well.


I'm guessing you have a Mac. I have itunes on two work computers (both PCs) and my wife's laptop a PC. Itunes freezes every third time on all three computers. I understand that Apple products are designed to work within a single ecosystem, but even so, a 33% freeze rate on a non-Apple machine is simply unacceptable. Imagine if MS Office froze every third time on a MAC. Apple users would be up in arms. itunes also periodically eliminate non-itunes purchased songs that I put into my itunes library. Again, it just is not friendly toward non-Apple purchased products. My Androids and Android music rarely have these problems and it is also a non-windows system.

I understand why Apple does this. It induces users to adopt the Apple ecosystems. Fantastic business strategy because it creates a legal form of monopolization and lockin which also allows them to get large price margins. That is why I love Apple stock. But that is also why I am moving away from Apple as a consumer.

 

[97tbird]

Never had any problems with itunes, but i must say i don't do a lot with it. But stability-wise, it has never caused any freeze-ups or crashes.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb


I'm guessing you have a Mac. I have itunes on two work computers (both PCs) and my wife's laptop a PC. Itunes freezes every third time on all three computers. I understand that Apple products are designed to work within a single ecosystem, but even so, a 33% freeze rate on a non-Apple machine is simply unacceptable. Imagine if MS Office froze every third time on a MAC. Apple users would be up in arms. itunes also periodically eliminate non-itunes purchased songs that I put into my itunes library. Again, it just is not friendly toward non-Apple purchased products. My Androids and Android music rarely have these problems and it is also a non-windows system.

I understand why Apple does this. It induces users to adopt the Apple ecosystems. Fantastic business strategy because it creates a legal form of monopolization and lockin which also allows them to get large price margins. That is why I love Apple stock. But that is also why I am moving away from Apple as a consumer.


I do have a mac, but my FIL has PCs only and has not reported any of the issues, despite having more apple gadgets and music devices than I do.

BTW, I work with large data files and excel for mac does freeze up quite a bit. Rather disappointing.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
I'm guessing you have a Mac. I have itunes on two work computers (both PCs) and my wife's laptop a PC. Itunes freezes every third time on all three computers. I understand that Apple products are designed to work within a single ecosystem, but even so, a 33% freeze rate on a non-Apple machine is simply unacceptable. Imagine if MS Office froze every third time on a MAC. Apple users would be up in arms. itunes also periodically eliminate non-itunes purchased songs that I put into my itunes library. Again, it just is not friendly toward non-Apple purchased products.


Interesting to hear of your experience with it. If that was my experience, I'd not use it either!

As stated before, I've been using iTunes on a Windows machine (actually two Windows machines, but I rarely use the laptop) for a year or two now. And save for 13 songs from one album I just bought two weeks ago, none of my library was actually purchased through iTunes...pretty much all of my library was cut from old CDs using either iTunes or imported from Windows Media Player. The option in iTunes to "keep my library files organized" or something like that is wonderful. It racks and stacks each music file into folders based on artist and album on the hard drive. So even if you want to listen to the song outside of iTunes, it's very easy to find, and simply double-click it.

I, too, like Apple stock. I've had some for close to a year now. It's a running joke with my investing buddies at the office that I own Apple stock and don't own a single piece of Apple hardware. I can't make that joke anymore.

 

[VeeDubb]

Glad you guys are having success with itunes. I must be doing something seriously wrong but its persisted on three seperate machines which is why I thought it was an Apple thing. But maybe it doesn't like to sync across three machines, who knows. If anyone has any tips for me, I'd appreciate it.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
Glad you guys are having success with itunes. I must be doing something seriously wrong but its persisted on three seperate machines which is why I thought it was an Apple thing. But maybe it doesn't like to sync across three machines, who knows. If anyone has any tips for me, I'd appreciate it.



You're not alone, I found it to be very unstable on Windows machines also, but I quit using it 3 years ago so maybe it has improved.

 

[Hokiefyd]

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
But maybe it doesn't like to sync across three machines, who knows. If anyone has any tips for me, I'd appreciate it.


I haven't had iTunes to try and sync libraries across multiple Windows PCs before. I can drag-and-drop songs and albums from iTunes to the iPhone easily, and it'll rip and burn discs with ease as well. Are you looking for a solution to keep the music libraries on three networked PCs synchronized?

As for the stability issue, I don't know how to help on that one. I just installed it. I do keep it updated when it wants to download updates.

 

[VeeDubb]

Hi Hokiefyd. I've given up trying to syn across multiple machines. The main issues I have now are that about every third time I connect the device to the computer and iTunes pops up, it will freeze. So I have to bring up the task manager to close itunes since it is "Not Responding". The other issue is that after every major iOS update, I seem to lose my non-itune purchased songs (stuff burned from CDs or bought via the Android market). Periodically, I'll have missing apps too after an update but this has gotten better since I started syncing on only one machine. It has improved but not been eliminated.

 

[rjundi]

I have significant issues with iTunes on Windows XP. However I believe part is related to my VPN client when I googled my issue.

I really miss Google Music(25GB free for music from Android although it works in Safari well on the iPhone.

iTunes is lame as a computer application. It should become cloud based.

 

[CivicFan]

My Google Music is still there but is called Google Play now. I have a large chunk of my files uploaded on it but owning music has become pointless with a subscription to Spotify.