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Posted on July 24th, 2008 by Darien Graham-Smith
Nine things I hate about iTunes
1. The fact I have to use it at all
In the normal, grown-up world, there are standards for things like MP3 players. That’s why every MP3 player I’ve owned in the past five years has worked, right out of the box, with both the manufacturer’s own library software and Windows Media Player. Every MP3 player, that is, apart from the one built into my iPhone.
2. Its high-handed approach to my system resources
iTunes is a program for managing your music files. All right, it does other things too (though I’d prefer it not to), but there’s absolutely no need for it to be running all the time. So why does it need to secretly install services and startup items?
3. The way it acts as a Trojan for other Apple crap
When I installed iTunes, it insisted on dumping QuickTime on my system too. It also tried to get me to install Safari. Why would I want either of these things? (Answer: I don’t.) Perhaps wisely, it didn’t ask me if I wanted to install the AppleSync Notifier or add a MobileMe icon to my control panel – it just went right ahead and did both.
4. Its inability to communicate
If you create a custom ringtone that doesn’t conform to Apple’s secret specifications, iTunes will refuse to upload it to the phone. No error message – it’ll just silently skip over the file and claim the sync was successful. It’s a similar situation with video: if you try to import a video file it doesn’t like, it’ll skip it with no message. Really helpful.
5. Its inability to transcode video
When you drag a WMA file into iTunes, it immediately transcodes it into AAC, presumably because Apple would sooner mess with your files than build WMA support into the iPod. When it comes to video, however, iTunes simply skips over any files it doesn’t like. Since iTunes supports approximately none of the major video codecs, this happens quite a lot.
6. Its refusal to look and function like a Windows application
Microsoft publishes Windows UI design guidelines which are intended to help users by providing consistency across applications. Apple, however, prefers to use the UI to demonstrate how non-conformist it is. So instead of a well-designed Windows application we get an ugly kludge that neither looks nor works like anything else on the system. The only people who won’t be put off are morons whose pattern-matching abilities are so limited they already have to treat every application as a special case.
7. Its wrong-headed notion of “syncing”
In the real world, synchronising two devices means making sure device A and device B both have full, current versions of selected data. What iTunes calls syncing is really mirroring – and in one direction only. You can’t make it just leave your files alone, either: untick the box that says “sync music” and you’ll see a warning that this will delete all the music that’s already on your player. Huh?
8. Its refusal to let me access my own data
Amazingly enough, I have both a computer at home and one at work. And I’d like to be able to manage my music from both locations. iTunes, however, won’t let me download a song at work and add it to the songs already on my iPhone. Nor will it let me copy a song from my iPhone onto my desktop. I realise that making this easy would also make music piracy easy, but there are plenty of devices that can be used for piracy. Only Apple is so paternalistic as to disable basic operations to ensure they can’t be abused.
9. The way it keeps deleting all my songs
All right, it hasn’t happened in a while. I don’t know if iTunes still does this. But way back in 2002 I had a first-generation iPod – back before there was such a thing as iTunes on the PC (it came with MusicMatch Jukebox and connected via FireWire). I was travelling a lot at the time, so I tended to charge it wherever I could, and one obvious way to do this was to plug it into a Mac whenever I happened to be near one. Normally this worked. But on two separate occasions iTunes automatically opened up on the Mac and silently erased all my songs.
Still, I don’t think it’s made me bitter.
26 Responses to “ Nine things I hate about iTunes ”
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July 25th, 2008 at 9:37 am
You can’t make it just leave your files alone, either:
Not sure why you think this is the case! I set my Preferences to
“Manually Manage Music” and then iTunes doesn’t touch my files unless
I tell it to. This should also prevent it from deleting all your songs
(a thing which has never happened to me)
iTunes 7 allows you to manage your iPod using more than one computer -
again, make sure you select “Manually Manage Music” and it won’t eat
all your files.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
You may not like it, but the other choices are worse… be honest.
July 25th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
I disagree with point 1, because after all you wouldn’t expect an enterprise application like SAP to work with Oracle’s front end GUI any more than you’d expect the same rich Outlook/Exchange MAPI experience to be as effective when using Thunderbird/IMAP/Exchange. System integration is why the iPod has gotten where it has gotten, because the 99% of the population that want things to just work prefer it that way. After a day working with technology of all kinds I’m quite happy that my partner’s iPod just syncs and doesn’t require extra effort.
MS Apps install stuff on start up too in order to allow them to detect devices and find updates etc, it’s just these can’t be turned off. You can shut down the services if you are that concerned but let’s face it the resource footprint is pretty small on todays mega memory systems.
FInally why would you want to support WMA/WMV when neither are published standards like MP3 or AAC are?
July 25th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
Chris – I see your point about SAP not connecting to the Oracle front-end, but we’re talking about a very different market. Pretty much every non-Apple MP3 player made in the past five years has supported open standards for media transfer. You can’t excuse Apple by saying vendor lock-in is standard practice.
Don’t get me wrong: I do see the appeal of tight integration between the iPod / iPhone and iTunes. But that could all be achieved within open standards. I don’t see any benefit to Apple’s choice of a closed, proprietary system, at least from the user’s perspective.
July 27th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I thought your comments were quite reasoned until you put ‘well-designed’ and windows in the same sentence.
July 28th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Only nine?
I quite like the new iPhone that Apple has lent me, but iTunes is a horrible weak link. I could list loads more than nine points, but the two biggies for me are a) that I have to transcode any DivX stuff I, ahem, ‘obtian via perfectly legal channels’. And that via USB it only exposes the camera files in mass-storage mode. If it was possible to simply dump MP£ files onto it you wouldn’t need iTunes at all (which, I guess, is why they don’t allow it).
Having said that, ActiveSync is extremely turdy, and BlackBerry Desktop is hardly the world’s most brilliant software.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:21 am
Paul,
If you can “list loads more than nine points” I’m waiting… It’d be interesting to read I’m sure. Personally, having such a vast music library, I find iTunes perfectly adequate. I can make use of search and playlists. And out of the content I rate, smart playlists are generated too. In terms of RAM, my MBP hardly notices iTunes…
July 30th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
“Personally, having such a vast music library, I find iTunes perfectly adequate”
I have such a vast music library that it takes iTunes 3-4 minutes to start because of its retarded database format. (Yes, I have compressed my itunes folder and got it _down_ to 3-4 minutes).
Viable alternative is MediaMonkey. Not only can it load my library in seconds, it can sync with the iphone/ipod without itunes.
Now if only I could skip itunes when doing software upgrades, I would not have to deal with having my music deleted all the time. I have to say, I agree with point 9: When I carry a portable device that needs to be charged and can be charged by USB, I should be able to plug it in to an available computer (I use 4-5 regularly) without fear that all my music will be deleted yet again. What kind of retarded “sync” deletes the entire library?
As I write this I can’t believe how passionately I hate iTunes (and I only thought I was annoyed).
August 18th, 2008 at 11:30 pm
I am a simple soul who has not yet succumbed to all things MyPod. I just like it to manage my library, which fits on a 40G portable drive that I plug into various PCs I work at at various clients, all using Windows XP. (That’s another story.) I often live behind net nannys that prevent access to ‘music/radio’ sites. So when I ‘MAKE THE MISTAKE’ of upgrading iTunes, the only location I can play my tunes now is THAT location. All the others come up with ‘Library created with newer version of iTunes.’ netnanny prevents access to upgrade, and I sit alone, in the quiet…unless I want to rebuild library. Which, without net access, creates alot of ‘Track 01′, ‘Track 02′ entries…
Don’t get me started on why I don’t buy at iTunes. WTF is m4u and why won’t it play anywhere unless I run through three converters and a ‘virtual CD burner’ to make it mp3 ??
My Mac buddy keeps telling me to ‘come over to the Mac side, Luke’ but I like making money writing software, and the only money I see over there is writing ‘AppStore’ showpieces that display a giant Ruby for $8000.
Thanks. I’ll pass…
October 14th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Virtual Cd 9.0…
An interesting post by a bloger made me……
December 30th, 2008 at 7:26 am
My favorite thing about itunes is that it will not run without installing quicktime. How shitty is a program that requires you to install another program to get it to work? Could the engineers not figure out how to make itunes operate by itself?
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
I never wanted to go the ipod route but I got it as a gift and I decided to give it a try. Recently after updating itunes it started telling me songs were missing (they had just been moved by itunes) but in a few instances music was DELETED from MY COMPUTER altogether. What??? I’ve learned that has been happening to people for years.
Any Itunes fan I mention this to insists that I must be doing something wrong. I was guilty of plugging in my ipod to charge and sync. I’m over it.
January 9th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
9. The way it keeps deleting all my songs
This just happened to me. I plugged my shuffle in to charge it and now I have no music.
dwr50 Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
You may not like it, but the other choices are worse… be honest.
So NOT true. I used this program called Anapod, and it does exactly what I wanted; transfer music between my hd and my ipod with ease. Not everyone wants podcasts and browsing other people’s music on a LAN and all those other features.
Features should be exactly what the word means; extra stuff if you want it. It shouldn’t make the simple processes that are the basis of the program any more annoying to use.
Itunes is the dumbest POS I have ever seen…
January 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
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January 18th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Regarding all the ugly things that were said about iTunes . . . I just want to say this:
iTunes is MUCH WORSE than that! iTunes sucks ass in ways yet untold . . .
January 24th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
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January 28th, 2009 at 4:18 am
I have a folder on my desktop called “I hate itunes” it consists of all the MP3s i had to create the long way by burning, ripping, standing on one foot, holding my tounge out, and all the other insane things to have to do to get an MP3.
February 26th, 2009 at 9:20 am
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April 13th, 2009 at 5:03 am
I completely agree. As yet agin, I sit here having to rebuild my Freakin library. With over two days worth of music on my computer, and just spending the better part of Easter weekend going through my library deleting duplicates and building FINALLY a favorites playlist, the damn thing is gone again!!! This has happened more times than I can count and I’ve only owned my damn ITouch for a little more than a month. Not only is the damn program deleting my library, it’s deleting my applications (over 6 pages (60 apps)). I HATE THIS FREAKING PROGRAM! And if I didn’t love my iTouch so much, i never would have installed this damn program. Sorry for the rant, I’m just completely sick of iTunes!!!
April 13th, 2009 at 5:07 am
Oh as for the person that said that you can do a manual sync, well that only works for your videos and music. This will not prevent the STUPID program from deleting your apps. As was the case just now when I plugged it in and it automatically started syncing and I noticed that it was deleting my apps before I could click File, move apps to library manually. Luckily I noticed before it removed too many from my iTouch. STUPID iTunes. There, I feel slightly better. Thanks for listening everyone.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
I agree with your comments.
I once again had all my music deleted from my
iPod this morning while trying to simply “sync” a video I downloaded from TED.com.
iTunes said it “synced” it, but the truth was much more evil – it not only NOT copied
the video to iPod but also cleaned out the music collection from the device.
I guess I haven’t mastered all those sync-control check boxes scattered all over
multiple tabs. Heck, what do I know; I only write software for a living.
June 27th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I have really disliked having to live with Itunes because…
Its 80mb to download being an hour on my connection
Updates keep trying to force software I don’t want upon me and they are huge
It runs in the background even when I kill it
It sorts my music via id3 tags where my music has file names as titles
It converts lots of my music into itune files so I end up with duplicates eating space
It does funny things when you try to use the same ipod on different PC’s
It hogs system resources and crashes when uploading tracks to the ipod
It requires SP2 or 3 on XP which makes my PC hang
So much so, I am selling the ipod to get a usb car stereo after two years of putting up with its frustration. It was a (quite pricey) gift to my girlfriend but it has caused so much inconvenience it has to go.
I hope someone who drives the iTunes project would steer it into a more efficient and future proof product. A power adapter and an installation CD would be a good start!
I used Apple macs back in the 90’s, but after this experience I have lost all faith in the brand.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:56 pm
I have to agree, this software is a useless bloated piece of steaming dung, and those are the good things I have to say about it. Seems Apple programmers don’t get feedback from anyone except Mac fanboys who have nothing better to do than lie about how “intuitive” everything Apple is, when in fact it isn’t at all, hence “The Missing Manual”. The only thing living large at Apple is Gross Incompetence. They have almost cornered the market on it.
March 4th, 2010 at 8:21 am
media monkey and winamp both work great, i like and use both for different reasons, with a combo of tag editing software (still looking for a integrated version of shazam) anyway i could list loads more about itunes but just say it craps out if given more than 50 gigs, i have over 100 in music alone, it dosent support the format of some of my pics, movies. and worst of all its like virus. we put it on a brand new PC and suddenly YOU CANT RUN A SINGLE PROGRAM, all the shortcuts have the itunes image, and open itunes (while saying the name of the normal application) this happens when you try to launch anything from anywhere… grrrr i could keep venting on that 1 thing alone for a long time. also it messes up how it organizes music compared to the rest of the world, and now i cant consolidate my library. never had problems with media monkey, and a slight one with winamp after a patch, but that was a 3 min fix. rant rant rant
January 26th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
Why can’t i just drop my own files( MP3 foto’s etc) on the device.
May 1st, 2011 at 1:25 pm
“You may not like it, but the other choices are worse… be honest.”
Hilarious. The “other choices” being – your MP3 player appears as an external hard drive, and you simply drag and drop your files onto it… and can ’sync’ your music using any of the many free file sync programs available (which you should already have for backing up and checking your non-music files on your PC…)
iTunes is a joke, it’s bloatware, it’s for idiots who can’t even work out how to copy an MP3 file, it’s for idiots who don’t even like music, but PRETEND to, “because everybody else does”. Guess what – MOST other people don’t like music either! They can’t sing any of the songs they CLAIM to ‘like’, they just PRETEND because they see other people ‘having a good time’ while listening to music, and think they’ll look like idiots if they don’t get on the bandwagon. Which is why every time you go to a concert, more than half of the people there talk, whoop and holler all the way through songs. What are they there for? To PRETEND that they ‘like’ music, that’s what they’re there for.
I have an Archos XS200, 20GB, cost next to nothing second hand, no iTunes needed, just plug it into my USB cable, and I can drag and drop ANY files onto it – so I can use it to back up documents too. No need for iTunes to ’sort’ my music folders into a bloody mess by ‘genre’, etc. Who the hell listens to music like that? Who thinks “I know – I fancy a bit of ‘Rock’ today, where’s my iPod?” – I’ll tell you who – the douchebags who PRETEND to like music, that’s who. The idiots who put Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus at the top of the charts – THOSE idiots…