iTunes 12.2 a word of warning

[DArtagnan]

I don't think of anyone as harmless

 

[pibbur who]

I don't think of anyone as harmless

Including yourself, no doubt.

Pibbur who is busy finding other things he likes, as well as things he only can stand.

 

[DArtagnan]

I'm pretty harmless in the grander scheme of things. I certainly do my best to avoid doing harm. Sadly, I don't do much to benefit, either.

 

[txa1265]

As I said, until 12.2, iTunes has served me well. Well organized library and music files. No problems adding music from different sources (mostly itunes store, emusic, bandcamp and CD's), no problems playing my music on whatever device I want, in whatever way I want. No locking, no jail. And no hassle. So there was no reason for me to switch.

Until 12.2.

pibbur

Pibbur - let the oh-so-cool, uber-poser, anti-Apple bandwagon trolls have their fun. It gives them some meaning and helps with self-esteem issues.

 

[DArtagnan]

Oh, the platform-neutral txa shows how little he cares again

Not even you can deny how bad iTunes is, I hope? Well, unless something changed in the past couple of years. I guess that's possible.

 

[txa1265]

Personally we have had no issues, with our Family Plan Apple Music account spread across the four of us, between iPhones, iPads, Macs and PCs.

BUT ... you will NOT see me defending Apple here - iTunes is bloated and the music experience is a freaking mess. I was writing a blog post called 'Can Apple Music 'Un-Suck' the iTunes Music Experience' but ran out of time to get it published before the launch.

My wife and I carry old iPods in our cars now rather than dealing with iTunes on the iPhone ... it is just easier to load up everything and go.

I still use iTunes, and on the Mac it is much more acceptable than on the PC, but it is still something I only load when I need to because it is a pig. I wouldn't call it a virus, just 'crappy, unfocused, bloated software'.

BTW, Spotify keeps adding stuff… and if you like Taylor Swift you won't find her anywhere anyway… and you can add your local songs to Spotify… ok I am a Spotify lover so I am not objective when I keep recommending it!

I love Spotify, but a couple of corrections:
- Apple Music immediately has 50% more content than Spotify.
- Taylor Swift *IS* on Apple Music. Beatles? Nope - still not streaming ... but if you have them in you iTunes library (I have full collection) then you can stream it from any approved device.

Right now I have the Apple Music trial going for the whole family and also have a Spotify Family Plan ... in a few months one will go. Apple has more of the avant garde jazz I like than Spotify, but Apple has some polishing to do on the user experience.

 

[DArtagnan]

Then we agree about iTunes

 

[txa1265]

Oh, the platform-neutral txa shows how little he cares again

Not even you can deny how bad iTunes is, I hope? Well, unless something changed in the past couple of years. I guess that's possible.

haha ... I separated my response about the actual content

And seriously - the Mac and PC experience for iTunes is *vastly* different ... setting it up on my Alienware laptop when I got it a couple of months ago was ... um, jarring. Both from the quality and user experience standpoint.

 

[DArtagnan]

haha … I separated my response about the actual content

And seriously - the Mac and PC experience for iTunes is *vastly* different … setting it up on my Alienware laptop when I got it a couple of months ago was … um, jarring. Both from the quality and user experience standpoint.

That's why I specifically referred to the Windows version

 

[pibbur who]

Oh, the platform-neutral txa shows how little he cares again

Not even you can deny how bad iTunes is, I hope? Well, unless something changed in the past couple of years. I guess that's possible.

Sad to say I don't think pre 12.2 iTunes is bad, bad would mean that I didn't find it usable.

Pibbur who is not very critical, but not very enthusiastic about things either.. And there are programs he thinks are bad.

 

[DArtagnan]

Sad to say I don't think pre 12.2 iTunes is bad, bad would mean that I didn't find it usable.

Pibbur who is not very critical, but not very enthusiastic about things either.. And there are programs he thinks are bad.

I'm not surprised

I guess that means all software that can be used for something is not bad, to you, and that's really where the concept of bad starts to fade.

 

[GothicGothicness]

Personally we have had no issues, with our Family Plan Apple Music account spread across the four of us, between iPhones, iPads, Macs and PCs.

BUT … you will NOT see me defending Apple here - iTunes is bloated and the music experience is a freaking mess. I was writing a blog post called 'Can Apple Music 'Un-Suck' the iTunes Music Experience' but ran out of time to get it published before the launch.

My wife and I carry old iPods in our cars now rather than dealing with iTunes on the iPhone … it is just easier to load up everything and go.

I still use iTunes, and on the Mac it is much more acceptable than on the PC, but it is still something I only load when I need to because it is a pig. I wouldn't call it a virus, just 'crappy, unfocused, bloated software'.



I love Spotify, but a couple of corrections:
- Apple Music immediately has 50% more content than Spotify.
- Taylor Swift *IS* on Apple Music. Beatles? Nope - still not streaming … but if you have them in you iTunes library (I have full collection) then you can stream it from any approved device.

Right now I have the Apple Music trial going for the whole family and also have a Spotify Family Plan … in a few months one will go. Apple has more of the avant garde jazz I like than Spotify, but Apple has some polishing to do on the user experience.

Well, I did not say Spotify had more stuff than apple music, I just said they keep adding stuff. As for Swift.. I found that she changed her mind because she sent a mail to apple about paying people during the free period.. and after they changed their mind so did she… an interesting read. Finally something good can be said about apple for changing their mind, it is ridicules not to pay the artists, it is not even peanut money for apple.

 

[joxer]

Pibbur - let the oh-so-cool, uber-poser, anti-Apple bandwagon trolls have their fun. It gives them some meaning and helps with self-esteem issues.

You mean anti-phonegame trolls who still use iPhone like me?
Yea… IMO Apple is not guilty for current state of phonegames, but also doesn't do anything effective to stop the scandalous business, all they did was replacing the word "free" with "get". Neither does google, but what's google compared to apple, cmon.

This iTunes vs music behavior is probably some glitch that will be fixed soon.
The problem I have with iTunes is that it's so "userfriendly" I cannot (without sweating and bleeding) put my own audiofile as a ringtone on iPhone in a mere click or two.

 

[txa1265]

Joxer - in terms of the state of phonegames, I definitely think that the stuff that hit big on the App Store in 2008 really dictated the pace in many ways ... though it was really just an expansion of crap-games on earlier java phones and Palm Pilots / Windows CE. For me the two worst things were:
- Race to the bottom on pricing
- The 'We Pay For Nothing' attitude of the Napster crowd that then became the Android crowd ... piracy and general non-support for developers continue to hurt that platform.

GG - I read an interesting article about wwhy Taylor Swift was NOT the savior of music, in spite of it being good that Apple pays everyone during the trial. The article noted that (1) her points were essentially nonsense - her career was built on terrestrial radio play ... which in the US pays artists $0.00. Second, the impact is almost entirely symbolic - and the majority of artists earning <$10 annually on Spotify agree ... and those making decent money on streaming are making BIG money elsewhere. And third, it emboldens a 'hero mentality' that is nonsense ... it is nonsense that some say Apple 'saved the music industry with iTunes and the $0.99 song', or that 'Spotify saved teh music industry', and also that Taylor Swift just saved artists from starvation or whatever.

 

[sakichop]

I use iTunes all the time, what's wrong with it? I buy music, then I listen to it.

It's just music, what's the big deal?

 

[Arkadia7]

Postscript to my earlier post: iTunes 12.2 is very messed up, a news search showed that it is ruining peoples music libraries, along with other problems. I basically fixed the situation by reinstalling an older version of iTunes, you can find them here:
http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.php

I used the version from February, and it's working fine now that I have restored all my music back to the iTunes library. It turned out I was missing a ton of my music when the 12.2 update failed and aborted. It wiped out half of my library basically, but I was able to get it all back by the method I referred to in my first post by the software program iDevice2PC, thankfully.

I also turned off automatic checking for updates, until Apple fixes this mess by a new version later on. I did this on iTunes by edit - preferences - advanced - and unchecked the box, "check for updates automatically".

 

[Thrasher]

Which platform?

EDIT: Apparently PC. Yeah updates for PC are always disabled. Learned the hard way ages ago on that count.

 

[pibbur who]

I'm not surprised

I guess that means all software that can be used for something is not bad, to you, and that's really where the concept of bad starts to fade.

Hmmm. Seems like It would be wise to reconsider my badness criteria. Thanks.

Pibbur who realizes his badness criteria may be bad. Too bad.

 

[figment]

Well thanks for the words of warning. I'm still on 11.1 and didn't even want that but had to when I bought a new machine. I learned my lesson a long time about upgrading software but I think it was the "wrong" lesson which is never upgrade. I frequently am in meetings that berate me for my poor patch/upgrade policies on my servers but it keeps happening that things break too much when I let them self patch. I tend to prefer my software with known bugs rather than unknown surprises that I don't have time to deal with.

I'm still on iOS 3.1.2 on my iPod touch and it works great several years later except that I cannot install apps for several years but I think that was going to happen anyway. I use iTunes now mostly for buying music about once per year but i got it to a point where I can move music to my Nexus 5 without DRM and without issue and I like it like that.

 

[Asdraguuhl]

That's proper music geekery.

It always feels nice to receive a well deserved compliment .