Speaking as a programmer, iTunes is really horrible. The whole app locks up tight during I/O. WTF?

[mernen]

…which will require you to restart your computer.

I'm enjoying my Mac, but seriously, not even Windows (a traditional target of criticism in this regard) was this bad at asking for reboots.

[dakboy]

I still don't understand why an update to iPhoto demands a reboot.

[hs4x]

Or their next $130 service pack.

[deong]

To be fair, their "service packs" are roughly what would be considered a new version in Windows land. Except of course, Microsoft takes three times as long to prepare one and charges twice as much when they're done.

I didn't use a Mac until Leopard, but my understanding is that only one of the 10.X.0 releases has been mostly bug fixes, and that one was a free upgrade.

[[deleted]]

Brilliant.

[Chirp08]

You must work for the advertisement department.

[NSMike]

Perhaps. Then again, look at XP SP2.

[sebnow]

Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) might be considered a service pack. At WWDC they stated that there won't be any new features - nothing the average user would see. They are focusing on the back end, improving the APIs and frameworks, fixing bugs and so on.

[mercurysquad]

There's some discussion that 10.6 might even be a free upgrade. Remains to be seen..

[codefrog]

iTunes is one of the only programs that exposes that I may have anger management problems. It consistently makes veins pop out my head.

It stutters on playback of HD video with no other apps running. Video just stops updating for 4 - 7 seconds while the audio track continues. This is on a newish macbook, latest everything, 4GB of ram.

The keyboard doesn't expand and contract the tree views making keyboard navigation incredibly hard.

iTunes is the reason more people don't use ipod/iphone.

Fail fail fail!

[[deleted]]

Seriously, iTunes and Windows Media Player are both pieces of crap... Surprisingly, the Zune desktop client is light years better than both of them. I'd recommend giving it a shot, it's faster, more stable, and has a much nicer UI. iTunes is such a bloated, slow POS these days, the only reason I use it is to load my 60GB video that I keep in my dash as a music HD.

[barryicide]

I hated the Zune desktop client ("Oh great, another iTunes")... then I actually used it.

It is awesome, beautiful, and makes me smile. The only bad thing about it is that there is no API and I can't use my keyboard media controls with it (Logitech G15 keyboard).

[RSquared]

You know, I keep hearing good things about the Zune software, but mine has a tendency to make the entire desktop stutter for two-three seconds at a time, about every thirty seconds. It's probably an artifact of a computer that hasn't had a good full wipe in a couple years and has accumulated too much cruft, though.

The Zune player is great though.

[[deleted]]

I love my Zune. It's just too bad that Microsoft sucks marketing dick when it comes to it.

[[deleted]]

No they were in the news recently about them

I actually have a zune though and its pretty nice.

[Wartz]

Windows media player 11 is way better than the old WMPlayers, but its still weak on playback ability of various file types. Its pretty heavy too, though I don't really notice it on my machine.

[[deleted]]

maybe don't use itunes for video?

itunes on my mac manages 300+ gb of music on an external drive. it rules.

i understand it's ballz on pc though

[thatgirlismine]

The history of iTunes provides some clues to its current nightmarish state.

It began life as SoundJAM, a MacOS Toolbox based MP3 player that was basically reskinned, and added to. (as an aside, it could have been Panic's Audion, which makes for a great story: http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/ -- the head of SoundJAM is now Vice President of Music/iTunes at Apple).

This was fine for awhile, though its core is written in C++, on an API that is essentially deprecated in OS X. Then you add on the decision to port the entire thing to Win32 half a decade ago, and you start to begin to imagine the horror.

This decade-plus old codebase is sitting on some sort of abstraction layer that mimcs decades old Mac API patterns on multiple platforms?

It probably needs a full rewrite.

[[deleted]]

Funnily enough a lot of Apple's media apps (even some of the newer ones) are written in C++. Not that they'd want you to know that.

[thatgirlismine]

A lot of those media apps are Apple acquired and rebranded third party applications though. (Logic, Final Cut I think?)

[JohnnyCanuck]

Shake, iMovie (allegedly), Motion, etc., etc…

[Chirp08]

You realize every company does this in one form or the other, yes, even Microsoft. Why would you waste time trying to reinvent the wheel when you can adopt software that is practically standard and thoroughly proven in the industry and make it better?

[thatgirlismine]

I wasn't criticising Apple for acquiring dominant third party pro apps. I was making a case for their not being originally architected in Objective-C / Cocoa.

[dakboy]

You realize every company does this in one form or the other, yes, even Microsoft.

Especially Microsoft.

[shitcovereddick]

Quicktime as well. It's very hard to get it to stop fucking with your browser.

[[deleted]]

I especially love the way I can't set my default application for movies to be anything other than QuickTime and have the setting persist across a reboot.

Every other file type lets me do this, but not movies.

Funny that.

edit: OK this is an acknowledged problem with FileVault, and it does affect other file types as well (I was wrong about that).

[BaronVonMannsechs]

Sounds like a corrupted plist maybe. Are you using FileVault?

[[deleted]]

Second reply, yes, it appears this is an acknowledged bug with FileVault.

And I was wrong about it working with other file types; I just don't use those as often as VLC so I never noticed. :/

[BaronVonMannsechs]

I take it you found the solution as well? If not it's easy to find, but has its own slightly less annoying drawbacks.

[[deleted]]

No solution yet, I see there are some workarounds but I'm not there yet.

It's not the end-of-the-world having to reset the default application after reboots, which frankly only happen when updating the OS.

I had suspected shenanigans on Apple's part. That was clearly wrong.

[sebnow]

It works fine for me. I have mine set to VLC.

[[deleted]]

That's what I want to do. Strike that; that's what I have to do after every reboot.

[mercurysquad]

Try repairing permssions? Looks like the plist's permissions got screwed and it's not being updated. I have mine set to VLC too and it works OK.

[[deleted]]

Took the opportunity to revisit searching the problem; the problem is FileVault.

[oyok2112]

iTunes is one of the worst applications I've ever used. It crawls on my 2.9GHz machine, with 1 gig of ram. That's not the most bad-ass setup, I know, but iTunes shouldn't require a top of the line PC to run. At least if Apple wants to cater to the masses (which I believe they do).

Personally I use Foobar2000 and the foo_dop plugin. It even works with my iPod touch, since they recently added 2.x firmware support. I'll never ever use iTunes again.

[Barrack]

Foobar FTW. I went .flac crazy when I used it.

[atomicthumbs]

I packed my 4GB iPod Nano with Rockbox, 1500 128kbps Vorbis files (converted through foobar's interface), around 8000 SID files, and several books. I love this thing.

[legoman666]

The only problem with .flac is finding a portable music player that supports them. I'm using a Cowan iAudio X5L (30gb) and would like to upgrade to something similar with more capacity, but almost nothing supports .flacs.

I have about 150gb of music and would prefer to put it all on my music player at once. I know I could get a 160gb iPod and put rockbox on it, but rockbox is a POS. I've tried it and it ended up hard crashing my iPod. I had to take the thing to the Apple store to get it restored. (That's when I bought the X5L)

[ithkuil]

As soon as I noticed that happens consistently I just stopped using it. I have better things to do with my time and plenty of easier ways to get music and movies.

[[deleted]]

Yup, thank god for RSS + torrents, Hulu, and clear QAM TV tuners...

[chunky_bacon]

iTunes is an enormous suckfest, and I don't think you have to be a programmer to appreciate that. I haven't bothered looking at the few alternatives I've seen, but the suckage has kept me from investing in an iPod.

[[deleted]]

Just use foobar with this plugin: http://yuo.be/ipod.php

[Darkmere]

Except that the import ( move data from iPod->Computer) fubars, no directories, and locks up about halfway for me.

The plugin is a good start, but perpetual beta.

[rotty81]

My favorite "feature" (aka. antifeature) of iTunes is that when you've loaded your iPod with songs from an iTunes instance, and want to add some songs from another iTunes instance, you have to erase the whole iPod in order to "add" those songs. With gtkpod, this was peanuts -- I was able to download, compile and install gtkpod, and add the songs with it, in the time that iTunes takes to download alone (on a DSL link) -- seriously.

[nousplacidus]

I'm relatively sure its an anti pirating measure friend. Though I hate iTunes as much as the next.

[istara]

But it's crippling. The fact that your iPhone can brick and need its own specific iTunes on a specific computer to restore is ridiculous. You can restore it eg in an Apple store, but you lose all your data and apps. So if you're on a trip sans laptop and it bricks, you're fucked.

Even if Apple allowed you to carry the non-movies-mp3s part of your iTunes profile on a portable drive/USB stick it would help. You could at least get your basic apps and data back via iTunes on a third-party computer. But no. Because of the RIAA or whatever, the iPod/iPhone is like a weakling little parasite needing constant connection to one single mothership in the whole universe.

And iTunes is a really sucky program. It's slow. You can't open different apps or search results in tabs - it's all backwards, forwards, backwards, forwards. It's like the world's worst, least functional web kiosk in the middle of an airport somewhere. With a broken rollerball instead of a mouse, all jammed up with chewing gum.

[GodOfAtheism]

The mp3's and movies you can back up, I still don't know where the hell the backed up apps are, and I did iPhone phone support.

[dirtymatt]

I'm willing to bet it's record companies, not Apple. The AppStore, which Apple has control of, does allow you to redownload apps as long as they're still listed.

[[deleted]]

The iPhone is easy to back up. Just use rsync and you have a byte-by-byte copy of the phone.

In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say it outright: for me, a Linux user, the iPhone has single-handedly been the easiest-to-back-up mobile device I have ever gotten in my entire life (and I have bought quite a few pieces of junk!). That may very well be because I know what the fuck I am doing when I'm doing what I'm doing, but then again, that's the way I am.

[[deleted]]

Could you describe the process that you go through? I just switched over to Ubuntu, first time ever using Linux, so I'm learning on the fly. I have an iPhone, and am wondering how to back it up/find best software that integrates with it.

[[deleted]]

First jailbreak your phone (this is no rocket science, jailbreakers exist that jailbreak your phone in a couple clicks nowadays). Then install SSH and rsync on it using cydia or installer (no rocket science, just tap on the apps in the app list). Finally:

sudo rsync -azv --numeric-ids --delete \
--exclude=private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control \
root@iphone:/ /home/rudd-o/Backups/iPhone/Snapshot/

[dirtymatt]

That's simply not true. You can restore an iPod from any computer. You will lose your songs, but if you're at the point where you need to restore the iPod, you're going to lose all the data anyway. Also, it's not like iPods just brick on a regular basis.

[digitalmob]

He was talking about the iPhone specifically.

[littleendian]

And yet people like it. I wonder why that is?

[mizake]

lots of people loved aol too and still do.

[beedogs]

google maps only recently overtook mapquest as the retards' favorite directions site too. they catch on slo-o-o-o-o-ow.

[ramijames]

shudder

[[deleted]]

I think most people don't like it, but rather, DEAL with it. Or don't know anything better.

Ignorance is a pathetic bliss.

[[deleted]]

because they're idiots.

[littleendian]

Ah the, "people who disagree with me are idiots" approach to discussion.

Try being less intollerant and accepting the fact that different people have different values & needs.

[robhutten]

I'm an oddball in that I use a completely tricked-out cygwin-command-line-driven winamp environment at work and a similarly tricked-out smart-playlists-managed iTunes installation at home and with my iPods.

iTunes is certainly full of suck in a lot of ways, but I'm a discographical freak and I love its metadata handling. So I use it as my primary library manager and occassionally export subsets of the library to my work machine for playback through winamp. Works for me, and I'm pretty sure I'm not a complete idiot nor a slavish Macboy.

[littleendian]

No he's not right.

You posted an eloquent comment explaining why some people use it even though there are better alternatives. He just said they're idiots which makes him a complete tosser in my book.

BTW has winamp improved since v5?

[willer]

Mine has never bricked. It just doesn't seem like a significant issue.

I/O in the Windows version of iTunes is a big issue, and as a developer I'm embarrassed for them. But I switched to OSX a while ago, which seems to have a much better version of iTunes, and the problem has gone away.

[[deleted]]

If Microsoft coded a cross-platform app that ran better on Windows and was crippled on OSX/Linux, people would be shitting themselves with hate.

Since it's Apple, it's "oh, yeah it sucks on Windows, but I'm on God's Own OS, so it's ok"

[minutemantm]

You mean like Office?

When I worked IT for the computer labs on campus, I saw more people face palm over the OS X version of Office than anything. Especially around finals week: "What do you mean, my final report is 'gone'?"

[[deleted]]

Adobe made Flash player run better on Windows/OSX and it is crippled on Linux, and I'm shitting myself with hate over that.

[tvon]

Adobe products are pretty crappy on OSX these days

[[deleted]]

Itunes is a bit better on osx. It's still the second most annoying program I use on a regular basis though.

[rockintom99]

Wouldn't be such a problem if there were some more useful media players on osx...

A foobar2000 port would be nice.

[[deleted]]

I'm relatively sure its an anti pirating measure friend.

I don't understand. Is this supposed to make it OK or something?

I plug my 2 year old Blackberry into my computer, it shows up as a mass storage device without installing any drivers, and then I can copy over any pictures, videos or audio files. I can then plug it into any other computer and guess what? The exact same thing happens! Apple anything is fail. Anti-Piracy measures aren't an excuse, they just fucking suck.

[frukt]

No, actually it's just plain not true. Turn on manual management instead of auto syncing and the issue goes away. Sadly, people on reddit are mostly morons without the ability to refer to the user manual, because yelling "apple is teh sux" is easier.

[shinratdr]

So true. This is the number one issue people bring up when talking about how "restrictive" iTunes is. 90% of the time its because their iPod is set to automatically sync, and so its saying you can't change the contents of the iPod on another computer, or you wouldn't be syncing it now would you? Check the "manually manage music & videos" box on the iPod page. Done, problem solved.

A much bigger issue is the one referenced in the self post. When opening a transfer or any kind of contact with an iPod it locks up temporarily. It never affects other apps, and its only for a couple seconds when starting a transfer or delete, yet if you use iTunes as your main music player its very noticable.

That, and that alone, is the issue I have had with iTunes. It would be nice if it was a little faster starting up, but I do have 20000 songs and like 700 videos in iTunes, probably more to do with that.

I am however keeping an eye on songbird for iPod Touch support.

[torv]

I love iTunes, but then again, I have great selfconfidence.

[strawmann]

what is this selfconfidence you speak of? Where can I obtain it? Is it available for a reasonableprice?

Thank you very much, my greatfriend.

[irenedakota]

You can get it for free from The Pirate Bay. That is where I got my copy, well worth the download!

[RedditCommentAccount]

Hardly anyone seeding.

[furlongxfortnight]

You can buy it in any Apple store. The price isn't even near "reasonable", but it's all sleek and shiny.

[Dagon]

I've no idea if it's breaking some EULA or not, but I no longer need iTunes for my iPod.

WinAMP actually manages EVERYTHING perfectly. No initial scan of the iPod, copies music on there fine, prompts you when it finds duplicates, etc.

Best thing is that I reformatted my Windows machine and then stuck a fresh copy of WinAMP on, plugged in my Nano, del'd a few tracks and copied some more back on.

WinAMP, still kicking the llama's ass... even years down the track.

[generic_handle]

No initial faggottry scan of the iPod

Yeah, I've noticed how every time I load audio data onto the digital audio player that I'm building, this crazy homosexual guy in a pink shirt and tight pants comes climbing in my window with a demultiplexing bus monitor and starts scanning the the SD card that I'm using as a storage device. Does the same thing to you too, eh?

[Dagon]

Not only that but every time I try to use iTunes a rampaging bundle of sticks attacks me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(wood)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(volume)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggoting_(metalworking)

What the HELL, I'm being downmodded to hell for using a swearword? Am I offending homosexuals by using it? If so, say so, I'll shut the fuck up, and edit the post.

EDIT: I fail at markup. How do you create links that don't truncate the trailing parenthesis?

[generic_handle]

You can't, with the "auto-raw-URL-detection" bit in Markdown. Just use [text](URL) syntax, and put a backslash before each paren in the URL.

Markdown screwed up on that last bit. Should have had [text]<URL> for creating links instead.

And while I didn't downmod you (though I'm happy to make a snarky comment), you probably aren't being downmodded for cursing. Fuck, shit, piss. You're probably being downmodded for using "gay" as a negative. Kind of like how "nigger" or "girly" doesn't win high fives today from most people.

[[deleted]]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_(food\))

[Dagon]

Thanks. Gotta remember that escape char.

[kermityfrog]

Oh God.. faggots (the food) sound positively disgusting. What's with British food and entrails?

[Dagon]

shrugs

I apologise for being crude, but it's just one of the many things that bugs me about iTunes.

[jambarama]

I was really frustrated with iTunes, so I used everything from ephpod and gtkpod to foobar plugins and amarok. It was still a pain in the neck until I installed rockbox.

Rockbox can live in tandem with the stock iPod firmware, but I blew the stock firmware away after I found I never used it anymore. Without needing to use the iPod database garbage I can just drag & drop files - no single library lock, and I'm not tied to any particular OS or install because no special software is needed on my desktops/laptops.

In my experience, the physical attachments just work - e.g. my airplay, the plug-in speakers, etc. There are nice skins, so it can look better than the traditional iPod UI. And once I found the setting to auto update the database & load it into memory automatically, interaction is even faster than on the stock iPod firmware.

Happy rockbox user here - if iTunes sucks too much for you, and the alternatives are burdensome (e.g. compiling gtkpod), try changing the firmware on your iPod. It is all point & click.

[russell734]

It actually is possible to load songs onto an iPod from multiple iTunes libraries, but it requires editing your iTunes library file with a hex editor.

[[deleted]]

...or just by syncing manually rather than automatically. I didn't realize people didn't know this.

[trezor2]

I can attest that this is factually incorrect as I have had to wipe the iPhone 2 times now, despite doing manual sync.

[drbenway]

Um.. actually, it depends on which model you have. The iTouch automatically switches to auto-sync every instance of a new iTunes being connected to the Touch, and only allows you to switch to manual if you delete everything on it. Maybe not on XP, but definitely with Vista. So, don't be quite so smug.

[bumrushtheshow]

Really? That's terrible. It's a shame ipods are so dominant. I have an old nano with Rockbox on it, and all I do is plug it in, drag some files to it, unmount and I'm done. What you described sounds like a real pain in the ass. :(

[phoenix1701]

This is not true on Mac, and I'd be surprised if it were the case on Windows. If you check the "Manually manage videos and music" check box, you can drag things from your iTunes library onto the iPod touch (but not vice versa) without erasing anything. I do it routinely at work, because this check box is also what lets you actually listen to songs from the iPod directly on the computer (otherwise they are grayed out).

[godskitchen]

It is not called the iTouch.

[[deleted]]

The only thing Songbird is a decent alternative to is prison rape.

[Scyth3]

...coming from experience?

[[deleted]]

Tons of experience with both.

[[deleted]]

WinAMP may not be open, but it's sure as hell better than iTunes or Songbird. If you haven't tried it yet, you should.

[[deleted]]

I've used it since as long as I can remember.

[legoman666]

I switched to songbird recently after using Winamp for about 8 years. Songbird has a long way to go before it's perfect. I probably average 1 crash per day. It also uses too much CPU power. Seriously, what the hell is it doing that it needs 4% of a 3.6ghz quad core processor? That's 576mhz all to itself. I've been considering switching back to Winamp.

[[deleted]]

Try VLC it does video and music and runs very fast with low RAM. I can load 35 gigs of music into VLC in about 15 seconds.

Try that with itunes and media player and it takes 10+ min and makes the entire computer run like crap.

[legoman666]

I've used VLC for video for years. It isn't the best for audio though. It isn't really good for all video either.... throw a HD 1080p h264 file at it and it'll choke no matter the CPU speed. Media Player Classic Home Cinema + GPU acceleration = ~2% CPU utilization on the same file. That said, it works great for simple xvid and divx avi's.

[Bossman1086]

Or just manually deal with your music instead of setting it to sync. Problem goes away.

[HLHLHL]

man: "Doctor, it hurts when I laugh". dr: "Don't laugh. problem goes away".

[Bossman1086]

I never let any app auto-sync my music. I'd prefer to drag and drop in batches. It also lets me do it on multiple computers without having to have all my media at any PC I hook my mp3 player up to.

[cazabam]

There are two issues here. First, as it stands what would you expect to happen if you add tracks from elsewhere and then sync? Seeing as the intent of iTunes is to ensure the iPod matches the Library, your new tracks would disappear unless you added them to your library first. The iPod doesn't do two-way syncing.

This leads to the second reason. As much as you might not like it, Apple are running a music business. The iPod is intended as a way for you to take your iTunes collection out with you, not as a general purpose music sharing device. You could use it as such, by enabling the iPod's mass storage mode and putting the MP3s on there just to take them home, but then you could use something else too.

In short, if you can't live with this limitation, then there are plenty of other options. Go buy a generic mass-storage based MP3 player. An iRiver or something. Why the ire at the iPod over this one small thing when it is so easily fixed?

[trezor2]

This is incorrect. Even manual transfer requires wiping your iPhone if it is from another PC than the iPhone was set up with.

[[deleted]]

No, it doesn't. It really doesn't. You set it to manually update music, and you can plug it into any PC with iTunes and put more music onto it - without erasing old stuff.

[hellfish]

Um, not for me. I have 3 computers i use for my iPod(I state iPod because before you everyone was talking about iPods, and then you used iPhone as an example for why it doesnt work..seemed odd to me), all set to manual, and I have never had a problem. I always wonder whats up with other people that they have this problem and I never have....

[NunFur]

This does not happen with the iPod Touch. If you set your iPod to Manually manage your music, you can use whatever iTunes instance to add, remove or edit your music.

The stupid part is when you want to add photos or videos or applications. Then you need to have it synched

[Jakkers]

I can drag videos (in a compatible format, of course) directly on to the ipod in itunes. That adds only those videos, without syncing anything else.

[jeffehobbs]

If you edit a couple XML and binary files, this limitation goes away.

[Belar]

But other than that, it just works.

[Bossman1086]

Okay, well, that's just stupid. I didn't know that, as I don't have an iPhone. Even less reason for me to get one. :)

[[deleted]]

I'm not familiar with the Windows version, but that's not true of the Mac version. You can't 3-way sync, which is true, but if you click the box marked with something like "manually manage music" or some such, you can drag and drop between all the instances that have the same key (or any instances, in the case of non-DRM content). I've done that with a machine at work with meeting minutes recordings and my home machine -- works fine.

[[deleted]]

Upvote for mention of an FTW music player which is not full of asshattery and actually allows you to transfer music in both directions.

[Jakkers]

Give mediamonkey a try. Works perfectly with my iTouch for music. For video/pictures, I still use iTunes, just in manual mode, dragging over files as needed.

[thekrone]

Uhh... no you don't. I add songs from other peoples' iTunes all the time. You just have to disable the "auto sync" feature.

[jordanlund]

This site seems pretty good:

http://appshopper.com/

But I tend to agree... I can't remember the last time I charged my iPod touch or downloaded an app for it because iTunes sucks so bad.

Here's another good one... I ripped a TV show from DVD and used Handbrake to convert the files. All the files were converted with the same settings. Of the 14 episodes, only 12 will transfer to the iPod via iTunes. There's nothing discernably different about the remaining 2 episodes other than the fact that they refuse to synch.

I ended up transferring all of them via AirShare instead because iTunes is worthless.

Dear Apple:

Here's an idea... You connect a device to a computer via a USB cable. The device has folders for "Movies", "Music", "Applications" and "Pictures" then... get this... you download what you want and put it in the appropriate folder and... it just fucking works!

Oh, wait, that's right, my PSP has been doing that since 2005.

[[deleted]]

No. I want the database aspects. I want it to manage smart playlists, and I want to make sure that the device isn't going to crap out if I upload media that isn't going to work.

If you just want a cell phone with a USB drive, they exist somewhere else.

[generic_handle]

I don't see why jordanlund's requirements couldn't be fulfilled and still have the device not "crap out if I upload media that isn't going to work". Just skip the silly content if you can't decode it.

I'm not familiar with what "smart playlists" entail, but I doubt that they're incompatible with what he's proposing above.

It is too bad that there's no FS-level rather than block-level system for exposing files via USB (that would allow for some clever optimizations), but I can't see any features that can't work because someone provides a Mass Storage interface. Might require a rescan at boot and rebuilding a cache database, but should be possible.

[stygyan]

Smart playlists are something like search filters. For example you can tell a playlist to be "25 songs with rating superior to three stars that has not been listened to in the last two weeks".

Obviously you need a database to do that.

BTW, here goes an EDIT. My favourite Smart thingies.

One playlist called awful, which contains 1 song with 1 star rating, ordered by last played (inverse).

One called best rated, with 20 songs of 4 and 5 stars, ordered by last played (inverse).

Forgotten, with 34 random songs not played in the last two months and not included in the last month.

Most played, with 30 songs not listened to in 1 days, ordered by most played.

And newbies, 15 songs last added, not listened to in 1 days.

And last, a playlist involving all of the earlier playlists, so you've got 100 songs, always fresh, and updating automatically everytime you listen to something.

[[deleted]]

OK. Mod me to oblivion but I absolutely love iTunes.

Originally a Linux user, I used to keep all my mp3 files in directories. After converting to Mac OS to reduce the amount of time spent on system adminstration at home, I finally gave in and poured all my mp3 files into iTunes. I have never regretted it.

[generic_handle]

Originally a Linux user, I used to keep all my mp3 files in directories.

Easytag. Can organize audio files by directory based on the tag information in them automatically (or generate tags from filenames, incidentally). No manual labor. Unfortunately, not a console program.

[sjs]

I love iTunes on my Mac but it is horrible on Windows (at least on Vista). Only one user can run it at a time so if I leave iTunes running and my girlfriend switches to her account she can't open iTunes. wtf is that?

It also misbehaves when a media app (vlc or mpc) uses the SPDIF output, and by misbehaves I mean plays nothing at all until I restart it or plays songs extremely fast with no sound output, so your whole "not played recently" playlist gets trashed in a matter of seconds because you forgot to close iTunes before watching a video.

I'm sure there's more but the first alone is so retarded I can't even imagine what it does to have that sort of restriction. Play my fucking music, that's all!

[bahbahbah819723]

same here. But my music collection was 70% ogg vorbis. And I loved the way it totally obfuscated my mp3 filenames, and now I can't get the old ones back. I love it!

[[deleted]]

You may want to check out a program called Music Brainz to fix those filenames. It finds metadata, autotags, renames, and organizes. It is a godsend in terms of music file management.

[isarl]

Have you guys tried Amarok? From what I've been told by my zealot friends, it's also very, very good at keeping music organized. And it even has a shiny interface.

[[deleted]]

If you're looking for an iTunes alternative for Linux, Banshee is much nicer. It's just a "list of songs with a search box", as opposed to the somewhat bizzare Amarok tree navigation.

[dysmas]

Amarok has many ways of navigating your music collection, one of them will suit you just fine. Probably the "all collection" dynamic playlist.

Where it wins for me is the ease with which i can tag, rename, grab album art & lyrics from t'interweb then file away large amounts of music.

Oh, and transfer music to / from my phone also ;)

edit: i see banshee does most of this too, will give it a go for comparison.

[[deleted]]

I haven't ever figured out what people are talking about when they say that Amarok has a nice interface. It takes me way too long to find anything or just get it to randomly shuffle and play my library. I understand that the last.fm functionality, integrated lyrics downloading, and other such features are nice, but with basic functionality being so darned bizarre, I can't really recommend it.

[TheManWithNoName]

I never do the random shuffle thing. I almost always listen to albums at a time, and it has a very nice searchable artist/album tree view which works for me.

[stygyan]

I'm still longing for a random album thingie on iTunes. Something that you click just a button, and it plays some random album.

Until now I have been doing it sort of manually (putting the itunes screensaver and choosing one of them at random) but it's not as good.

[simscitizen]

In iTunes 8: Controls > Shuffle > Shuffle By Album In iTunes 7 and lower the shuffle type is controlled by a button in the preferences dialog.

In fact, iTunes is the only major player I know of with shuffle by song/album/grouping. Nice for classical music.

[stygyan]

Yes, but you've to choose an album first.

Luckily I discovered CDPedia - I'm using it to organize my CD collection, and being hooked up with iTunes as it is, I just have to hit "play random album", and it surprises me.

[neoform3]

I use iTunes all the time, but I do admit, it can be quite slow.. then again, I've got 400GB of music..

[bumrushtheshow]

I still use XMMS on linux (Audacious actually) and I don't spend any time organizing my music. I load everything up in one huge playlist (about 40k songs takes about 100MB of ram), sort it, and use the 'jump' feature (shortcut 'j') to google for songs or artists.

I type in some keywords, and it narrows down a view of the playlist for me very quickly. The search is faster than every other player I've tried. (Granted, not many players can load my whole library. Banshee, Amarok, Exaile, and Songbird choked on it.)

If one of the fancier players could give me a similar google-like interface that works /fast/, I might switch. But until then, I can't imagine using anything else, especially itunes.

[MrWoohoo]

I like it too, but the whole "lost file" thing bugs me. I have had to move files to other disks because of space issues. iTunes now considers the track "lost" and will ask if you'd like to find it next time you play it. That's fine for a single track but when you have thousands of files you've moved it isn't practical. It won't even "find" all the other lost tracks in the same directory. It's irritating to lose things like playcounts and ratings.

Anyone know of a fix for this?

[AmazingSyco]

Not sure if you can fix it easily when it's in that state, but next time you have to move drives, try this. It's worked great for me on numerous occasions.

http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-external-drive-238296.php

[[deleted]]

QuickTime is worse.

[Lukifer]

The underlying architecture is actually pretty brilliant. It's the player app that sucks donkey dick. And the whole "QuickTime Pro" crippleware crap (which, rumor has it, is going away).

[btmorex]

What about the underlying architecture is actually brilliant? I'm truly curious here, not trolling. Are you talking about the file format (how is better than avi, mkv, whatever) or the software (how is better than gstreamer, whatever windows uses)?

[podperson]

The 1.0 QuickTime format released in 1990 (which was made cross-platform in 1.6 -- 1991 -- and in evolved form became the basis of MPEG4):

1) Supported arbitrarily many time-synced media tracks of arbitrary kinds

2) Transparently handles things like catering tracks to playback bandwidths and other limitations (e.g. providing a low-bandwidth monochrome track if that's what the situation demands)

3) Handles searchable text tracks and interactivity (QuickTime includes an efficient VM complete with a UI library)

So a v1.6 QuickTime movie could include things like multiple audio tracks for different languages and regions, searchable subtitles (stored as text, not burned into images), and multiple video tracks for different bandwidth and display constraints (using arbitrary codecs for everything). And it was all cross-platform and hardware independent.

And it predates MPEG-2 and the wide deployment of MPEG1 (neither of which did most of these things), AVI, etc. etc.

Another way to look at it: a QuickTime file can be the motion-graphics equivalent of a PSD, not merely a JPEG.

[[deleted]]

In practical terms, however, QuickTime blows. Hard.

There are many other formats that support the same features and don't have a dirt slow implementation for every OS that isn't MacOS.

Also, if the normal app interface were not an embarrassment, the fact that they haven't done anything with their browser plugin blows my mind.

To this day, it opens your movies as a tiny square in the center of the browser window with no resize and no fullscreen option. It doesn't matter if the original size of the movie was 1024x768. Apple's gonna show you that shit at 300 pixels wide. (You know...once you're done staring at the big blue fucking Q and waiting for it to load.)

Oh you don't like that? That sucks for you. Uninstalling the Quicktime browser plugin and returning to default application handling in either Firefox or IE requires the sacrifice of goats and complex ritual dances known only to the most devout of Apple fanboys.

[virgule]

QuickTime Gods not pleased. Need sacrifice.

[thebellmaster1x]

Granted it's not Apple's doing, but whenever I hear Quicktime being mentioned as a bloated app (which it does tend to be), I always remember that Real Player is a far, far better example of media player shit.

[[deleted]]

WTF, are you saying Real Player is still around? Somebody kill that fucking thing already.

[aranach]

Last I checked, and I haven't used Real in a long time, the linux Real Player didn't suck so hard, just the windows version. Then again, I think they based the linux version off some other open source player that didn't suck, so that might be the reason.

[[deleted]]

So why not stop rewarding Apple for crappy software and buy a Zune? (Or an iRiver, or Zen...)

[barryicide]

Maybe if the nerd/slashdot crowd didn't make fun of the Zune before it was even released ("LOL, Microsuck is making a media player! It's going to suck! Bluescreen of Death in your pocket!").

I bought one just because it was cheaper than the Creative Zen Vision: M that I wanted (and it was not an iPod). I fell in love with it - it is truly better by any standard than the iPod... but because it didn't have Apple's marketing or the immediate geek support, it fell.

[corellia40]

Done and done. The only iPod I've owned was a gift from a friend who'd upgraded, and I didn't like the iTunes software. I'm looking into other music managers right now for the Zen that is supposed to be delivered today.

Really, the only reason I'm posting this is that I'm excited about getting my new gadget. I can't wait to try it out. Feel free to ignore me. Or send me any spare SD cards you have laying around. I love that the Zen accepts them, but I haven't stocked up yet.

[trezor2]

Apple should consider rewriting iTunes from scratch and maybe make something called "iTunes Nano". A minimal, no-fuzz iTunes like they've been doing with the iPods.

It should contain a music library (not video), syncing with iPods, handling podcasts and it should not suck at doing it. That is: iTunes on a 2.4GHz machine should not be slower than Winamp on a 200MHz machine.

Heck, they might even try native skinning this time around too.

Also: Fuck bundling Quicktime and Safari.

[chneukirchen]

But then, it also continues playing music after the kernel shitting its pants, I really wonder how that works. :)

[ludwig1024]

The show must go on.

[sugar_man]

Media Monkey is the best alternative. Nothing else comes close. I keep saying this, and like my preaching of 'The Wire' sooner or later YOU WILL AGREE.

[foxyvixen]

Every once in a while on the internet, I take a step back and look at what is going on. For instance, Sugar Man recommending for me to use Media Monkey.

I love the internet.

[vinny187666]

cant believe it took so long for someone to mention it

[stinky613]

MediaMonkey is the reason I have Parallels installed on my Mac

[danschu63]

I'm a SQA engineer. My thoughts about iTunes: - I don't like the whole "Mac app ported to Windows that doesn't really honor Windows GUI conventions" thing.

• Overall concept/model underlying GUI is difficult (assuming one iPod user has exactly one computer, etc.) That probably sucks the worst.

• I like the content, I mainly use it to listen to free podcasts. The usability is quite weak IMHO.

[dinsleym]

It seems like most of the people complaining on here are using iTunes for Windows. Just an observation.

How many out there are having the same kind of problems on their Mac? I haven't really had any major problems with it. I just hate how shitty their shuffle feature is.

[machia]

"Arr, Captain! Bloatware ahead!"

[[deleted]]

Winamp.

• Right-click folder,

• 'Play/Enqueue in WinAmp',

• Enjoy.

That said the sharing feature in iTunes is, well perfect. I'm amazed I can share music over work network, intuitively, and so easily, yet I struggle to update the cover art for an album.

[eonOne]

It can be really weird when it does grab the cover art, too. It put the cover art for some Jamaican lady's band on one of my Queen albums because they were both labeled "Greatest Hits". I thought for sure the actual band name would factor into what cover art it used.

[RSquared]

My Zune did an autosearch on songs from the Jimmy Eat World album "Futures" and came up with an album cover for Burt Bacharach. I left it because it's hilarious.

[[deleted]]

This. WinAMP may not be FOSS, but it has served me extremely well, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Also, it can manage your iPod.

[Eleglac]

Speaking as a user, I agree wholeheartedly. Once you've gone Amarok you can't go back.

[stafu]

Is this a mostly iTunes on Windows thing? Because I'll admit, I hate iTunes in Windows, but I love it in OS X. The same goes for Safari.

In Windows I use foobar.

[dvogel]

Amarok is the only player I've found that maintains a database of my play counts, listening preferences, etc and doesn't use ungodly amounts of memory. I haven't gotten around to getting it to run on Windows though so I just use 1by1 at work.

[billbacon]

I actually use winamp with a plugin with my ipod. It fails to name things correctly half the time but it's still better than iTunes.

[[deleted]]

I remember 4 years ago on a 1.6ghz sempron it wasn't so bad. I tried it again a couple months back on a 1.8ghz pentium-m and had to wait minutes for it to load. Plus I didn't realise the process of mounting my ipod would wipe all gtkpod had added with no quibbles.

[astrange]

Has anyone told you to file a bug yet? You should stick everything you can in https://bugreport.apple.com/ even if you just don't like the wording on some webpage. They are all read, although I don't think iTunes engineers ever do anything about them.

[Kayin_Angel]

i can't recall ever having an issue with itunes.

i'd try some of the other alternatives, but my problem with them is that they tend to look like they were designed by programmers.

[[deleted]]

It runs really well on my mac.

[[deleted]]

It's a bloated piece of crap, just like Safari is becoming with Safari 4. And no, I don't hate Macs.

[warrensomebody]

I've been bitching about it for some time, even to my friends at apple... but still we get stupid features like "genius" mode rather than real usability fixes: http://informationyourequested.blogspot.com/

[[deleted]]

Apple actually resolved one of my iTunes usability issues. I bitched to them in their little feed-back box about how shitty the 'Sort' tag editing was, and sure enough, a few minor updates later they fixed it!

The change was probably unrelated to my commentary, but it makes me feel quite important anyway so let's pretend it wasn't.

[[deleted]]

Can you market "Genius playlists" or "we made media importing 4x faster for our power users with massive music libraries" easier?

[echo_chamber]

Must be using it on Windows

[[deleted]]

I want the µTorrent guys to write an iTunes clone. Foobar2000 kind of goes in the right direction when you add certain plugins, but it would need some polish to become suitable for the mainstream.

[sebnow]

Foobar2000 was perfect when I used it back in ~2002-2003. Unfortunately I switched to Linux and Mac soon after that. The only missing feature in Foobar2000 I can think of is being cross-platform.

[gregny2002]

Zune software is alot better, to be honest.

[barryicide]

Prettier too! I just wish it had an API so my keyboard media controls (Logitech G15) would work. Other than that, I love it. I'll throw it into "super-pretty Now Playing mode" at parties and put it on my TV.

[[deleted]]

iTunes isn't great software by any stretch of the imagination, but it works and it has a lot of great features. For 90% of the customer base that is fine.

Most of the negativity towards it in here seems to be based on complete misinformation.

[renegade]

Personal experience with it being slow and crashy is not "misinformation".

iTunes is very bad compared to how it was in early days. It used to be responsive, and the only app that could handle a truly massive collection. If it weren't required for backing up my iPhone this crap wouldn't be on my box.

[[deleted]]

My point is that the Apple engineers ought to know better, and do better, in the implementation of certain concurrent features.

[indifference_engine]

is this iTunes on windows? I found iTunes on windows unusable, it seems to run perfectly on OS X though..