So lately I've been forcing myself to use iTunes because I got an iPod around 4 months ago, naturally thinking the only thing apple wants us to use with their (rather good) piece of hardware is their horrendously awful software. Today I finally discovered winamp can sync with my iPod.

So I downloaded it.

It then proceeded to obtain my music in less than half the time iTunes did, start playing instantly without any popups, set up windows, genius sidebars or other annoying insects.. It then showed me some awesome podcasts, gave me 50 free songs (of my choosing!), gave me the choice to sign up to some rather tempting subscriptions (which I did), showed me some cool online radio stations, and gave me some TV access (even though I have a TV card, but it's nice anyway).

Did I mention it looks awesome?

If you have an iPod and were unaware of winamp, I would strongly suggest you download it.

wow phooks, welcome to 10 years ago.

I was using winamp before I got my ipod, stopped using it as my version couldn't sync.

I just wish someone told me sooner, so I'm doing a service and getting the world out to anyone in the situation i was in.

Also nice troll.

do you even understand the definition of troll?

that wasnt a troll, he was right, this is old as the hills.

iTunes works for me.

troll! troll! everyone is trolllllllllllling.

srsly get over it. also i got no problems with itunes. Some people make it sound like their mp3 program needs to be able to perform open heart surgery to be any good.

yea i'd prefer to use winamp i guess, but with an iphone/ipod i just cbf

also, genius rox

well really, compared to a plain mp3 player itunes is the one trying to perform open heart surgery

How? Its not that complicated :)

Winamp has also added in their extra features and video and s***.

really, iTunes doesnt try and do anything extra except offer differnt ways to sort your music and integration too a store from what I can see.

Has anyone tried Songbird?

I hear it syncs with ipods/iphones too and has a linux package.

Im still kickin it old school with Rhythmbox.

iTunes works for me.

And you work for Apple.

And you work for Apple.

Sigh.

LETS ALL CRY OVER ITUNES

itunes is clunky as f***.

it just feels weird when everything has a slight lag between input and effect...

Only thing I really don't like about iTunes is the enforced Mac look. Other than that, care factor none. Works fine.

I don't notice any lag between when I push a button & when itunes does something and I'm not using a mac.

iTunes works for me.

Same here, in fact I don't even use winamp anymore since installing iTunes. I like having it all in one window (previously I used WMP10/11) where winamp has windows for playlists, a window for the library, an annoying pissant window that pops up when you watch/listen to certain internet streams (or used to years ago) and another window for the main program. Winamp to iTunes is like the Gimp to Photoshop.

I use crapTunes for syncing my iphone and ipod only. Winamp to play music. I just generally hate clutter and crap. Winamp I can load all my music in, click on it without it taking up my whole freaking screen, hit f3 and time a song name or artist hit OK and go back to what I was doing.

LETS ALL CRY OVER ITUNES

ok. iTunes is s***house.

ok. iTunes is s***house.

QFT!

Okay so I only use itunes for putting mp3's on my ipod, the rest of the time I use winamp (so correct me if I'm wrong about this, if you do, well great)

But the simplest thing I love about winamp is I can go down the playlist, hitting Q to queue s*** up, takes 0.1 second per song, over and done with, gogogo.

To queue s*** up in Itunes (afaik) you have to add it to some f***in playlist, which is f***ing gay. I don't want to add anything to any playlists, I just want to play these songs in this playlist in this order. how hard is that. apparently too hard for itunes.

iTunes works for me.

HAHAHA DISREGARD THAT, I(TUNES) SUCK(S) COCKS.

F3!??! All this time I've been pressing 'J'. Sweet.

Hey does anyone use the 'Media Library' with winamp. I have always just used the playlist editor for everything.

Only thing I ever used media library for was to see the playcount of songs

lol, itunes

I use crapTunes for syncing my iphone and ipod only. Winamp to play music. I just generally hate clutter and crap. Winamp I can load all my music in, click on it without it taking up my whole freaking screen, hit f3 and time a song name or artist hit OK and go back to what I was doing.

Seconded. Infact I hate itunes so much that I rarely sync my ipod these days, which is getting old cause it means my ipod doesn't get all the new music I find :( Maybe I shall try to figure out how to sync winamp.

Also, I also only use media library for song playcount (I have a bad memory for which songs I like listening to...).

i have a sony walkman mp3 player doodacky, cause i wont subscribe to anything apple.....
and i just drop and drag things onto it like its a windows folder.
why would you need any of these other programs is beyond me....
if something needs converting to mp3, db powerconvertor with a simple right click.

i use winamp for listening to music on p.c and cause it has a great karaoke function for parties........

i put itunes on p.c a few years ago and it dominated evrything.....yuck !!!!

im also happy that i can hear my sony onthe bus without everyone else having to.....ipods are lame for this......turn it down....your head isnt wembley stadium !!!

Well I have an organised, fully tagged media library with album and cover art (for movies/videos as well) and iTunes handles this really well. It also organises my stuff into Artist/Album/Track.ext in my media folder.

Essentially, it handles everything I need, syncs my iPhone for me, backing it up, updating photos, videos and my songs without me needing to dive into the drive itself (not that you can on iPhones).

I run Mac OS X and only use iTunes and Quicktime (for viewing movies not in the iTunes library).

If you don't need this sort of organisation and media management then iTunes is not for you.

As well, read the damn box before getting an iPod and whinging that it needs iTunes. If you hate iTunes so much, DONT GET AN IPOD

As well, read the damn box before getting an iPod and whinging that it needs iTunes. If you hate iTunes so much, DONT GET AN IPOD

Find me a device that does everything the ipod touch does and I wouldn't need to. In the meantime, why should I have to subscribe to certain software just because I have particular hardware?

If you don't need this sort of organisation and media management then iTunes is not for you.

iTunes is not fr me because its f***ing s***.

If you hate iTunes so much, DONT GET AN IPOD

This is a cop out. Apple are c***s for making people use iTunes, no two ways about it. Backing them up on it makes you sound lame.

last edited by Hogfather at 08:21:56 19/Jun/09

Its Apple, what do you expect.

iTunes is great for me, so its not s***. Its s*** for you, but its not s*** for me.

<flamewar>
Apple discussion
</flamewar>

last edited by 3dee at 08:36:27 19/Jun/09

does it work for my iphone?

i would *love* to be able to sync my iphone to multiple locations AND the ability to grab my music files off it when I'm on someone elses computer without using Senuti

Its Apple, what do you expect.

Until I owned an iPhone, I had never owned an Apple product, so I had no idea what to expect. Being forced to use their software because I own their hardware was a surprise. Being forced to transcode media into their format (via a 3rd party f***ing utility no less) just to play it on the device was another.

I guess with their big shiny f***ing care bear stare image I didn't expect them to be a pack of c***s.

Also, iTunes is s***.

last edited by Hogfather at 08:48:46 19/Jun/09

This discussion is simple.

People with well tagged collections don't care.

People with s***ty "I got it off kazaa" collections complain.

People with s***ty "I got it off kazaa" collections complain.

My collection is well tagged, Mr Troll.

iTunes is s***.

I dunno eds, seems like it maintains some proprietary database or something and manages external devices like ipods, iphones, applications for them, backups for them, presents music in some weird way and tries to assimilate my mp3 dir or something and goodness knows what else. it often wants to reboot my computer when it updates too. the only reason it's on my computer is cos it seemed to be required to make my iphone work when I unpacked it.

seems like it's doing a heck of a lot more than just decoding an mp3 - thus my earlier comment keeping it's original context in mind, for llamas that fail at comprehension when they go to respond to this post

So you claim Hogfather.

I will say itunes is not at all intuitive.
But now that I have it going stuff like "genius" makes it easy to get randomish playlists based off a single song.

Purely for playing an mp3 it sucks ... But I use my iphone or ipod for "just playing a song/albumn"

winamp 2.78 for lyfe yo
had it for 8 years, not changing ever.

Can someone please add an "Insert comment from last itunes flamewar thread" button? It'd save a lot of time.

iTunes for life because it infuriates QGL.

I will say itunes is not at all intuitive.
But now that I have it going stuff like "genius" makes it easy to get randomish playlists based off a single song.

I don't use iTunes for playing music. The only reason it is installed on my computer is to get music and media to and from my phone.

For this purpose, it is a massive pile of steaming s***.

I was putting some vids onto it for the kids the other day before we went out. My wife who isn't exactly technical asked me why it was taking so long, and I explained the process (encode media to .mov in Oxelon, add to library, add to device synchronisation, synchronise device).

Then, half way through the synchronisation my phone rang. She lolled and said iTunes was s***.

iTunes is s***.

Being forced to transcode media into their format (via a 3rd party f***ing utility no less) just to play it on the device was another.

You mean video? Yeah this actually is f***ing annoying. QuickTime can play any video file if the codecs are installed, so why can't iTunes.

That being said, the iPhone and iPod have dedicated H.264/MPEG4 hardware so restricting them to those formats kinda makes sense. But iTunes itself should have no qualms over the format.

Being forced to use their software because I own their hardware was a surprise. Being forced to transcode media into their format (via a 3rd party f***ing utility no less) just to play it on the device was another.

I'm assuming you're talking about videos? I found this extremely frustrating too, at first. But then I realised that I could encode things like Chapters, Subtitles, multiple audio-tracks, and higher quality video in smaller file sizes if I convert to iTunes compatible rather than .avi. Not sure if you can do this with .avi's, but I certainly don't know how to. So, in the end I'm glad that I have to use this format, because it's soooo much better.

It's fairly typical in these posts that specific criticisms of iTunes are vague. Even in the OP, there isn't an explanation for why Phooks calls iTunes "awful". On the other hand, the iTunes lovers seem to actually say what they like about iTunes. From different threads, the basic complaints seem to be that iTunes:

1 is slow
2 is unintuitive
3 can't queue songs easily

I think the first complaint is justified, but I totally disagree with the second complaint. I came in to iTunes having never really used a music player before (except for Sony's Jukebox... boy that puts things into perspective), and iTunes seemed extremely straight forward and intuitive. I'm guessing that it's hard to adapt to iTunes after having used something like winamp for ages - but guess what, they're different programs that do different things. Don't call iTunes "unintuitive" because it doesn't behave like a different program.

As for the third complaint, I guess that's justified, but on the flip side, if you can take the few seconds to get into playlists it's a world better than manually queuing songs.

I don't use iTunes for playing music. The only reason it is installed on my computer is to get music and media to and from my phone.

For this purpose, it is a massive pile of steaming s***.

Hoggy, of course it isn't going to be great if you don't use iTunes regularly. If you use iTunes regularly, syncing is far from a pile of steaming s***.

But I don't need to use it for anything but what I am already using it for. What about the woeful synchronisation process will improve if I start building playlists and f***ing around with Genius suggestions?

Its about choice primarily. You guys love iTunes, and I can respect that if not understand it. But I don't like it, it rubs me the wrong way, I'll always hate on it..

But I have to use it to put s*** onto my iPhone, which is the rub. If Apple weren't f***ing arseholes and opened their standards and interfaces like practicaly everyone else does I wouldn't be in this thread, because I could take iTunes or leave it.

iTunes is s***, I only ever used it for my ipod. Now that's dead I don't have to install it. I found it really clunky and god awful to use. But I gots the Android phone now so all I have to do is drag and drop.

I've been using winamp for music for 10 years now. It does a better job at managing my music and playlists than itunes ever did and being able to queue up songs with ease.

So f*** you Apple.

But I have to use it to put s*** onto my iPhone, which is the rub. If Apple weren't f***ing arseholes and opened their standards and interfaces like practicaly everyone else does I wouldn't be in this thread, because I could take iTunes or leave it.

But you don't have to use it... isn't that the point of this thread?

What about the woeful synchronisation process will improve if I start building playlists and f***ing around with Genius suggestions?

What's so bad about it? It auto-backs up your entire phone without you needing to tell it, it auto syncs photos, updates your apps, etc etc. Going on with Billy's idea of actually stating WHY things are bad or good...

You don't have to like it, but the sync is the way it is because most people don't want to care about needing to access the thing via Windows Explorer (yuck) or use XviD movies or worry how their phone is being backed up. For most people, its gotta be as painless as possible, and having iTunes handle everything is the only way this will happen. It forces you to use iTunes, but it does a hell of a lot more than just "put music on it".

I've used both iTunes and Winamp extensively... at the moment i much prefer iTunes.

When I listen to music, I usually listen to a particular artist or album. I find the iTunes browser much easier to navigate to exactly what I want to play. For example, if i want to play 2112, I just type 'ru' in the artist panel, then double click the album.
eg: http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/5452/itunest.jpg

The way to do this in Winamp involved more effort.

Also, party shuffle is pretty good.

The way to do this in Winamp involved more effort.

j

What's so bad about it? It auto-backs up your entire phone without you needing to tell it, it auto syncs photos, updates your apps, etc etc. Going on with Billy's idea of actually stating WHY things are bad or good...

That's all great if you want everything done for you without needing to think and you don't mind waiting 5 mins to get a trivial task completed because its doing a bunch of s*** that you didn't ask it to do.

Are Apple users generally so gumby that they need their arses wiped for them? Where's the option for people who are cappable of remembering to backup their settings as required?

Why the f*** can't I just synch music?


last edited by Hogfather at 09:44:02 19/Jun/09

so check the box that disables 'auto syncing'

wow im amazed just how inept some people are at using an interface... you're one of those guys that rips something out of a box, throws away the manual, can't make the thing work and then sues the retail store that sold you the thing because its 'broken'

Other phrases you might like to look for include 'manually manage music'

Hog, just turn off sync for the things you don't want.... And then you can just sync music. Not sure if there's an option for backup, but just click the little "x" next to where it says backing up and that cancels the backup.

wow im amazed just how inept some people are at using an interface... you're one of those guys that rips something out of a box, throws away the manual, can't make the thing work and then sues the retail store that sold you the thing because its 'broken'

f*** off Boxhead.

First of all, the iPhone doesn't come with a f***ing manual. They say its cos its so easy to use that it doesn't need one haha. I have manual synch enabled, thanks for the hot tip Einstein.

However, if you want to have photos, apps, music on the phone and use the settings backup facility you have to synchronise everything at once. I like being able to put photos onto the phone, synchronise my contacts and outlook calendar, and have the settings backed up and a local copy of apps in case I need to reset the phone.

I just don't want to do it every f***ing time I want to add one new song to the phone. Because there is no 'synch music' option the only way to synch just music is run around toggling the synchronisations on and off in each panel, which is an even bigger pain in the arse than waiting for iTunes to synchronise the same s*** over and over and f***ing over again.

Capishe Boxhead? Just nod if you understand.

First of all, the iPhone doesn't come with a f***ing manual. They say its cos its so easy to use that it doesn't need one haha. I have manual synch enabled, thanks for the hot tip Einstein.

Its an online PDF.

Then, half way through the synchronisation my phone rang. She lolled and said iTunes was s***.

iTunes is s***.

She was wrong, it's not itunes that's s***.

I set my missus up with an iphone and itunes. I think she'd kill me if I tried to take either off her.

She was wrong, it's not itunes that's s***.

You don't get to say what's right or wrong Troll.

Its an online PDF.

I was referring to Boxhead's 'threw away the manual' rant.

last edited by Hogfather at 12:35:06 19/Jun/09

You don't get to say what's right or wrong Troll.

Quite obviously I do ?

Oh so the troll is down to semantics now?

Look at it run and play!

I don't think anyone here is trying to say that iTunes isn't stupid - because quite clearly, it is.

Because aside from frothing at the mouth I am actually looking for solutions:

But you don't have to use it... isn't that the point of this thread?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but winamp synch only works on iPods - not Touch or iPhone because they don't grant access to the filesystem yeh?

I read they are working on it but there's a lot of reverse engineering required which takes agesand is delicate to changes to firmware.

I like itunes for its library and cataloging.. when ya have over 15k of songs you need something that can handle it... i find its alittle laggy on my laptop but on 64bit operating system works a charm.
i havent found a program that can do all what itunes can do
The things i look for are

when changing the tag be able to rename the song automatically and put them in the right folders etc

Show when added to the library

give them ratings

Seriously if you have issues with itunes it is probably because your ID3 tags are crap. Clean them up and come back.

Use something like picard to convert them to ID v2.3 (pre 2.3 suck, post 2.3 they are non standard ie. lots of different implementations) remove the "leet" comments, put them in a single language set, remove the lyrics, insert the cover art and name them consistently move them so they are not all in 1 huge directory.

I find it handles my collection far better then windows media player or winamp.

3dee: Internet Protector of itunes

Haha. No just a user of iTunes who has no problem in using it and doesn't see why people bag it out.

no really, you sound like an absolute knob rebutting every single negative comment about it. vested interest or something?

i'm going to get an iphone, probably next year when the contract for this phone is up or if i decide to pay it out earlier. the thought of having to use itunes scares me.

Seriously if you have issues with itunes it is probably because your ID3 tags are crap. Clean them up and come back.

Obes ... is anyone in this thread actually bitching about the library? I've played around with cataloguing in iTunes and quite like it, I think its the part of the app they got right. I even used it to organise my original awful MP3 collection back in the day.

vested interest or something

3dee works in an Apple store of some sort I think.

To be fair, he does acknowledge some of the stupider things that Apple do (like not re-encoding video for iTunes) if you press him on it hard enough. But yeh, dude really loves his Apple s***.

last edited by Hogfather at 15:14:17 19/Jun/09

Apple vs Whatever arguments are f***ing annoying. Dunno how i keep posting lol...

Its completely subjective. Many people like iTunes, many hate it. I just happen to think it works well (because I use it the way its intended to be used).

And that's cool 3dee. There's nothing wrong with liking iTunes, no matter how freaky and weird and strange it makes you look, no matter that it makes you have to agree with people like Obes.. there's nothing wrong with that.

I just wish it was a choice rather than a dictation from Lord Jobs to anyone who wants an iPhone.

Seriously if you have issues with itunes it is probably because your ID3 tags are crap. Clean them up and come back.

hows about, no:

no really, you sound like an absolute knob rebutting every single negative comment about it. vested interest or something?

Like I said earlier, people don't really make negative comments as much as bag it out without much of a reason. Regardless of the topic, I think it makes sense to rebut baseless arguments. Hogfather is pretty much the only one who has listed a specific complaint, everyone else has just said that it's crap.

I bought a Toshiba gigabeat and I use winamp or media player to sync. I think apple products are well over rated and when there is a cheaper option which is so much easier to use why not. I have had 1 Toshiba in the same time my sister has had 5 ipods which have broken for various reasons.

Hated iTunes, bought an iPhone, coverted ID3 tags, cleaned up library, love iTunes.

However somethings gone wrong with my cover art since OS 3.0 :(

"Copy to Local Media" is the best part of using a iPod with Winamp.

I've had about all I can take of the ridiculous bulls*** that is iTunes.

Last night in order to get a movie file onto the iPhone to watch in bed (insert fap fap fap joke here) I had to delete the f***ing music off the device, because music is synched to my laptop which was at work, and I hadn't yet set up an iTunes library on wifey's laptop.

Yep that's right - despite Music and Video being seperate f***ing options with their own tickboxes you can't synch them seperately.

Then it took 40 minutes 'backing up' the phone which I couldn't stop it doing before it transferred the movie file ... This morning I realised I had no music on the drive to work because of this, and had to put up with f***ing annoying inane radio people.

Get f***ed iTunes

So I want to jailbreak this bitch before I give up and sell it and get a new phone. Anyone have the skinny on breaking a 3.0 phone? Can I still synch my calendar with outlook once I break it?

last edited by Hogfather at 14:14:03 22/Jun/09

Yeh my iPhone took ~40 mins to backup the other day - but I've always been able to cancel the backup without cancelling the sink.

Is the sync with 1 PC at a time thing to do with copyright? I'm not defending it - that seems like a legitimate gripe, but I wonder if there's any rational behind it. I'd be interested to see how many people would actually like to sync with more than 1 PC - I certainly have never wanted to.

I'm not sure that jailbreaking will allow you to do those things differently though.

Weird, I clicked stop and it stopped the whole synch..

Jailbreaking should allow me to use an unathorised media player and transfer files directly to the file system I think, or possibly use an unauthorised library editor. There should certainly be more options anyway...

I have no idea about the reason why they don't allow you to synch the library with more than one computer - I was OK with it when I thought it meant I could just synch songs with my laptop, I don't update the songs library much.

I'd be interested to see how many people would actually like to sync with more than 1 PC - I certainly have never wanted to.

Can you imagine being on holiday and being unable to add a home video to your phone from a relos house because it would wipe your music library for the rest of the trip? Just one example of how lame the restriction is.

3dee has brought htis up before - that Apple cater to the 90% solution. That's great and all - but if you are in the 10% who don't like their solution, and they cockblock you from alternatives its super annoying!

last edited by Hogfather at 14:30:36 22/Jun/09

Does "Manually manage" not allow you do dump files from any computer onto it? (never used manual so don't know).

Does "Manually manage" not allow you do dump files from any computer onto it? (never used manual so don't know).

That may actually work - I just dragged a file from the library to the device. No idea what that means though when I plug the thing into another computer. Will have to f*** around with it some more.

I tried it at home but when I dragged the movie onto the phone it came up with a big red symbol which looked like a f*** off sign (my eyes aren't too crash hot these days). Turns out that a big red symbol on a drag and drop operation can mean "this will work" in Apple land ... go figure.

last edited by Hogfather at 15:15:34 22/Jun/09

Does "Manually manage" not allow you do dump files from any computer onto it? (never used manual so don't know).

some apple store employee you are

do you just mop the floors or something?

Wtf maxe. I'm asking whether you can or not?! I don't know. I thought you can.

Hog was the big red symbol a sort of star? I think it tells you how many files you're dragging (I *think*).

Yeh Its a big red circl3e with a number in it, says how many files are ivolved in the drag (say if you drag an artist its good to know there are 300 songs!).

Its just the red that threw me I think. Lots of other software I use has a red "stop sign" or a red no smoking symbol for an operation that is barred, seeing red == good just threw me :)

iTunes is s***.

Yeah its a remnant of Mac OS X. Mail and whatnot use big red stars to alert amount of unread email.

As for other computer, I don't believe it should affect it, as long as it stays "Manually manage"d across the board. As I said, I only sync to one computer so not too sure about manual drap-drop syncing.

Note to self: Only EVER discuss Apple topics on Apple-based forums. Too easy to light a flamewar.

You won't keep that promise 3dee.

Even just helping people out gets you flamed.

Ignore the flames. Pretend you're a pyro... ... that's not on fire.

Even just helping people out gets you flamed.

You have 3,700 posts dude ... how is it that your skin isn't tough enough to cope with maxe's little jab? It was hardly a fatality.

I'm mortally wounded Hog. Mortally wounded.

In all seriousness though, having any sort of bias towards Apple seems to immediately cause flame wars.

Pretty sure having bias and passion towards anything the least bit controversial counts dude, is all good. Get drunk or laid or see CHUB for a hit!

In all seriousness though, having any sort of bias towards Apple seems to immediately cause flame wars.

that is because apples products are so s***

They are n.... Oh right

Note to self: Only EVER discuss Apple topics on Apple-based forums. Too easy to light a flamewar.

dude, its f***ing amazing threads even go this long - remember even a few years ago that posting on a gaming forum about Apple or Mac s*** would have gotten you laughed out within about 10 nanoseconds

the field has changed, being a mac lover is the new black

(but it doesn't stop the iphone from sucking because apple are nazis)