iTunes needs to die. Immediately.

BiH115

Gif Guy
Joined
May 12, 2011
Messages
9,327
So apart from wanting to throw my coffee mug AND laptop out the window this morning, I don't think things could get worse. I'm not sure how many people share my unbelievable frustration with iTunes, but here goes:

Wanted to stop auto syncing of apps from new iPad to my iPhone, it's obnoxious and unnecessary. Go into apps (While it's still doing the 6 out of 6 part, and won't stop for 15+ minutes), accidentally untick one app instead of the auto-sync check box, and iTunes then lovingly proceeds to remove ALL apps on my iPad I had (a lot...). It then proceeds to try to sync the phone apps, WHICH ARE UNCHECKED, as well as some other older apps I had that are also unchecked. This process repeats twice.

/end rant

Ridiculous. Just needed to vent.
 
I've always been amazed how long iTunes has persisted with that same awful UI, quirks, and bugs.
It's about 90% the same as it was a decade ago and dealing with it on any platform is a colossal pain in the ass. I like Apple's various interfaces, but iTunes is still a train wreck.
 
Don't manage your iOS devices with iTunes. Update them to iOS 5 and then manage them with iCloud.
No More Tears™
 
Ehh, I like iTunes on OS X -- it runs smooth as butter, but I'm not much of a fan of it on Windows. I wish they'd bring the Windows version up to par with the OS X version... and same for Safari too.
 
Don't manage your iOS devices with iTunes. Update them to iOS 5 and then manage them with iCloud.
No More Tears™
Doesnt icloud offer just 5gb free?my apps and misic are 7gb atm and i refuse to pay to get more on icloud. I hate itunes also,there are other programs out there also besides itunes.
 
Doesnt icloud offer just 5gb free?my apps and misic are 7gb atm and i refuse to pay to get more on icloud. I hate itunes also,there are other programs out there also besides itunes.

Media purchased from iTunes does not count against your total. iCloud space is used for emails, personal documents and photos, etc.
 
Obviously I wouldn't do this, and have no plan to, trying to be rational here, but it almost makes me regret purchasing Apple products. Almost.
 
iTunes is just proof that Apple can't write software to save their lives, but they make up for it with pretty good hardware. :p
 
iTunes is just proof that Apple can't write Windows software to save their lives, but they make up for it with pretty good hardware. :p

Fixed. iTunes on the Mac is a fine product because it uses the native system libraries for everything. iTunes on Windows is garbage because it uses an Apple library for everything.
 
iTunes is fine. Not the fastest, but I've never had it crash or become unresponsive. It manages all my music, podcasts, and audiobooks perfectly well.
 
Don't manage your iOS devices with iTunes. Update them to iOS 5 and then manage them with iCloud.
No More Tears™

How does one do this? Is there some interface for managing I devices with iCloud?
 
So apart from wanting to throw my coffee mug AND laptop out the window this morning, I don't think things could get worse. I'm not sure how many people share my unbelievable frustration with iTunes, but here goes:

Wanted to stop auto syncing of apps from new iPad to my iPhone, it's obnoxious and unnecessary. Go into apps (While it's still doing the 6 out of 6 part, and won't stop for 15+ minutes), accidentally untick one app instead of the auto-sync check box, and iTunes then lovingly proceeds to remove ALL apps on my iPad I had (a lot...). It then proceeds to try to sync the phone apps, WHICH ARE UNCHECKED, as well as some other older apps I had that are also unchecked. This process repeats twice.

/end rant

Ridiculous. Just needed to vent.

I've hated it since 1.0.

I use copy trans manager so i don't have to screw with it.
 
2011 iMac and still have not had any issues with it. Seems like most of the people that hate/dislike it are on Windows machines which I do remember having issues with occasionally. Sucks that there is no real alternative to manage what you need on it on a Windows machine but it seemed to work for me no matter what.
 
It's really sluggish at times on my main rig.
 
What gets me, and maybe I just don't know how, is I have a MBP where I've been converting all my FLAC to ALAC on network drive and loading in iTunes building the library. I have yet to find a way to load that same library in iTunes on my Win7 machine without it having to write it's own library file. I'm planning on adding an iMac to the mix soon and would just like for my iTunes library files to be synced without having to wait hours for it to scan the network drive and build the library file. This way if I add a new album on one machine, the library file syncs to the others and voila, they know about the new album. It would be great if I could just have a single library file on the music network share that all iTunes could use. I know I can share my library from one to the other, but not 1 machine is always on or logged in to my main account. It seems like it would be simple, but it has defeated me.
 
What gets me, and maybe I just don't know how, is I have a MBP where I've been converting all my FLAC to ALAC on network drive and loading in iTunes building the library. I have yet to find a way to load that same library in iTunes on my Win7 machine without it having to write it's own library file. I'm planning on adding an iMac to the mix soon and would just like for my iTunes library files to be synced without having to wait hours for it to scan the network drive and build the library file. This way if I add a new album on one machine, the library file syncs to the others and voila, they know about the new album. It would be great if I could just have a single library file on the music network share that all iTunes could use. I know I can share my library from one to the other, but not 1 machine is always on or logged in to my main account. It seems like it would be simple, but it has defeated me.

Home Sharing


I'm a huge apple fan, but iTunes on windows blows. It's a million times better on a mac. No freezing or unresponsiveness like I get on windows.
 
I think some quirks and oddities about iTunes definitely feel very outdated.

However, if you start from scratch (a clean library) and go from there, it's okay.

On the other hand, if you have to deal with a library that's 3+ years old which went through multiple iTunes version updates, transfers from various computers, syncs with multiple iOS devices, etc. etc. then you get a whole bunch of problems that are almost impossible to fix short of deleting everything and starting over.
 
On the other hand, if you have to deal with a library that's 3+ years old which went through multiple iTunes version updates, transfers from various computers, syncs with multiple iOS devices, etc. etc. then you get a whole bunch of problems that are almost impossible to fix short of deleting everything and starting over.

I'd disagree. I've had the same library for who knows how long. YEARS. I've had dozens of iPhones, iPads, iPods, it's been transferred between different NAS devices, systems, etc. I'm currently managing almost 1100 movies, almost 2000 TV shows, ~20 Gb of music (that's my small part anymore :D), various podcasts, apps, etc and I don't have a single problem with it. I am (and always have been) running it on a Mac though (actually my Library sits on my Ubuntu server in my basement).

I agree about managing your device through iCloud. What I do is pay $25 a year for iTunes match...now music no longer takes up space anywhere, I can have my entire library on my devices all the time, setting up a new computer or devices take seconds, and I got all my old crappy versions of my songs upgraded. I then let it backup to iCloud (I have two iPhones and two iPads all backing up to my iCloud and I'm only using <3gb. Music doesn't backup there, nor do apps. The apps data does (my soccer game is hogging about 1.2Gb of my space :D). Also photos can if you let them. The free 5Gb should be plenty for most people.

The big thing with iTunes is knowing how to use it. Almost every time someone tells me it can't do something (convert a song to a different format, create a ring tone for free, etc) I prove them wrong. It's not the end-all be-all app but it manages my media and feeds that media to my 4-5 apple tvs just fine :D
 
Fixed. iTunes on the Mac is a fine product because it uses the native system libraries for everything. iTunes on Windows is garbage because it uses an Apple library for everything.

It sucks ass on every platform, which is I why I said what I said.
 
People still use iTunes to manage their i-devices? All kidding aside, use ios5. It's definitely not a requirement to use iTunes any longer, and the implementation is pulled off really well.

I have literally never connected my iPad to a PC, and have never needed to.
 
iTunes works fine, it is designed to lock you into the ecosystem. You are using it wrong.
 
I've removed dependency on iTunes now for synching my iPad/iPhone.

For getting photos between devices and Aperture on my macbook pro I use Photosync. iCloud works for everything else.
 
I feel you OP. I also lost all my iPad data this way including songs I recorded in GarageBand. Really sad. iCloud backup didn't seem to have my GB data either.
 
Its a piece of shit because of its horrible design, UI, unintuitive choices and very primitive way of doing things. It just sucks a lot more on Windows.
 
Years ago I stopped using iTunes and started buying all my music via Amazon MP3's and switched to Foobar2000 and Jriver. This doesn't help with syncing issues I know but it makes it so you use iTunes as little as possible.

iTunes is trash. I've owned a mac and used on Mac quite a bit and even there it annoys the shit out of me. Plus Amazon beats the pants off Apple in MP3 pricing.

If you don't have a massive iTunes collection I recommend switching to Amazon MP3's.
 
I just want iTunes to stop F'ing up my music. i've never bought a single track from Apple, and a lot of my music is DRM-free from podcasts or free 'fan music'. Because I use windows I organize it all by folder. This works beautifully on my Android device. If I have to use my iPod though, I get like 70% of my music as "Unknown album/unknown artist" and it all gets mixed together and is hell to find anything, even with search... (I have ~10gb of music, much of it <128kbps) doesnt help that I have like 10 songs from 1 artist, from 10 albums... (we all know how CDs worked, 1 good song, 9 crappy ones) so it clogs up my album list and itunes throws a fit if I try to falsify them all to 1 album...

I suppose if you *only* use the itunes store, or you start from the beginning with itunes, it works, but...

(and dont get me started on using programs like 'iFile Explorer' to add folders, it KILLS the battery life that's the biggest seller for me)
 
I just want iTunes to stop F'ing up my music. i've never bought a single track from Apple, and a lot of my music is DRM-free from podcasts or free 'fan music'. Because I use windows I organize it all by folder. This works beautifully on my Android device. If I have to use my iPod though, I get like 70% of my music as "Unknown album/unknown artist" and it all gets mixed together and is hell to find anything, even with search... (I have ~10gb of music, much of it <128kbps) doesnt help that I have like 10 songs from 1 artist, from 10 albums... (we all know how CDs worked, 1 good song, 9 crappy ones) so it clogs up my album list and itunes throws a fit if I try to falsify them all to 1 album...

I suppose if you *only* use the itunes store, or you start from the beginning with itunes, it works, but...

(and dont get me started on using programs like 'iFile Explorer' to add folders, it KILLS the battery life that's the biggest seller for me)
Like I said above, you simply don't know how to use the program. That does't make it a crappy program. You can have your songs organized how ever you want, as long as you setup you library correctly (to your preference) it doesn't care where your music is. You can have a whole album and each song be in a different location and iTunes doesn't care. Also, usually tagging issues tie back to poor naming or crappy copies of the song.
 
Like I said above, you simply don't know how to use the program. That does't make it a crappy program. You can have your songs organized how ever you want, as long as you setup you library correctly (to your preference) it doesn't care where your music is. You can have a whole album and each song be in a different location and iTunes doesn't care. Also, usually tagging issues tie back to poor naming or crappy copies of the song.

Tagging issues. I have something like 4K tracks and almost none are properly tagged and I dont feel like spending months re-tagging them all one-by-one... that and I like not having to jump around when I want to play a specific 'folder' of music (such as right now I have Music > Theme songs > TV Themes > Series name > Artist (or sometimes "genre" in there if there are a mix of instrumental and vocal tracks I'll dump the instrumentals into a seperate folder and put vocals by artist/season/etc) Part of it is I just dont like the "Master list of all music on this PC" setup which goes double for when I'm on my Touch and only have a couple minutes for choosing music between leaving a store and starting it playing (yes I could set up a ton of playlists but again, I've used folders for that purpose, so...)
 
i use itunes only to put movies and music on my ipad. but i hate how it seems to lack the ability to save multiple app configurations for multiple devices.


maybe it had something to do with restoring my ipad from an iphone back up in order to get angry birds saves copied onto the new device.
 
Tagging issues. I have something like 4K tracks and almost none are properly tagged and I dont feel like spending months re-tagging them all one-by-one... that and I like not having to jump around when I want to play a specific 'folder' of music (such as right now I have Music > Theme songs > TV Themes > Series name > Artist (or sometimes "genre" in there if there are a mix of instrumental and vocal tracks I'll dump the instrumentals into a seperate folder and put vocals by artist/season/etc) Part of it is I just dont like the "Master list of all music on this PC" setup which goes double for when I'm on my Touch and only have a couple minutes for choosing music between leaving a store and starting it playing (yes I could set up a ton of playlists but again, I've used folders for that purpose, so...)

So your complaining about it not working the way you want it to because you can't be assed to MAKE it work the way you want it to?


Computers aren't intelligent, they only take instruction. Tag your music, find a service that will do it for you or w/e, and iTunes and your iPod will recognize every track regardless of what folder it is in. Tell iTunes not to manage your music in its own folders, and it will leave all your music right where it is. Once all your music files are tagged with proper id3 tags and iTunes is told not to move/copy imported songs, then you can drag any particular folder to the bottom part of the playlist/library panel, and it will automatically create a playlist with the folder name, which contains all the songs from that folder, and adds them to the library as well.

I'm only 90% sure on the folder>playlist part, but you're complaining that you don't want to use the program correctly, not that it doesn't work. When iTunes is working with your music, it assumes it was imported properly with id3 tags which are VERY important if you ever want ANY music program to work with your files. Hell, you could setup smart playlists in iTunes and never have to manually add songs to playlists, but only if your id3 tags are set.
 
So your complaining about it not working the way you want it to because you can't be assed to MAKE it work the way you want it to?

-snip-

When iTunes is working with your music, it assumes it was imported properly with id3 tags which are VERY important if you ever want ANY music program to work with your files. Hell, you could setup smart playlists in iTunes and never have to manually add songs to playlists, but only if your id3 tags are set.

In short, yep. lol. It was a ranting post, though to be fair there *should* be some easy 'wizard' to get music in from a windows box that never used proper tags.

I do have 1 legit complaint - you cant create or edit playlists ON THE iPOD using itunes (yes there are 3rd party alternatives, but this *should* be included)

Also just for the sake of argument, I am going to agree that *stability* of itunes is far better on a Mac. I ran it on my MBP while I had it and it never crashed or froze up once (more than I can say for my windows version...)
 
add quicktime to that list as well... i use all 3rd party apps on my macbook air
 
iTunes Match as a service is an abysmal failure. Especially with a mobile device, as only a desktop/laptop will stream, all other devices download the song first then play it. Also upgrading your songs is a long, painful process because somehow apple decided not to include a "download all" button in iTunes....derp derp @ 5000 clicks to redownload all your music.

Maybe iTunes 11 will take care of the issue, but as a whole, iCloud is very annoying to use if you have used any other cloud service before it.
 
iTunes Match as a service is an abysmal failure. Especially with a mobile device, as only a desktop/laptop will stream, all other devices download the song first then play it. Also upgrading your songs is a long, painful process because somehow apple decided not to include a "download all" button in iTunes....derp derp @ 5000 clicks to redownload all your music.

Maybe iTunes 11 will take care of the issue, but as a whole, iCloud is very annoying to use if you have used any other cloud service before it.
Have you thought about "select all, right-click, download"??? Easy way to download all your songs.
 
Try MediaMonkey I use it for my Sandisk Fuze and love it.


**edit... nevermind. I thought it could do apps as well, but its just handles audio/video items.
 
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Get in the back of the line. No one hates iTunes more than I.
 
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