they whine that it's bloated or slow or whatever—basically the same complaints as in OS X.
Valid complaints, but at the time I wasn't able to find any alternatives that were better in that regard that still provided the ease-of-use and convenience features of iTunes. I remember pulling my hair out trying to find a media player that would let me quickly find a track in a library of thousands, then play that track and STOP rather than immediately playing another track.
I get the gripes about it though. As much as you want a way to improve the handling of cover art, I want a way to just turn it OFF!
Which they provide in all versions, including current.
...but how to do it is a well-guarded secret that you're not willing to share?
A Google search led to several discussions all concluding with "You can't." One can, as I have, delete the embedded artwork from all files, hide the display window and set iTunes to not automatically embed new art, but iTunes still spends time (and a lot of it) maintaining an artwork database -- it's just full of descriptors saying "this file doesn't have any" -- and looking for artwork in every file it opens. My iOS device is so obsessed with artwork that it makes the playback controls teeny-weeny-tiny to leave room for the coverflow display of blank music icons.
Obviously it's not a big deal, it's just one more operation using up time and resources, in this case on something I don't need or want. If you know of a way to tell iTunes to ignore artwork completely and are inclined to share it with me I'd be very grateful.
Like everyone else, I welcome an improvement. However, what is so awful about the current version of iTunes? If you want to go through your music, you click "Music" on the sidebar. If you want to go through your movies, you click "Movies" etc. iTunes always seemed very straightforward, plus the search function always seemed to work well. Not sure what all of the complaints are about it being too bloated etc. It seems very easy to use. If the new version is even easier, I welcome it, but it is not exactly difficult now.
Hopefully both. 10.7 still doesn't cache thumbnails right… And iTunes itself uses more RAM than I think it should.
I put the 'iTunes Media' folder on a HDD and the rest on SSD and now those thumbnails load lightning fast. The DB itself still is slow (renaming tracks etc) but I haven't installed 10.7 yet.
not sure if anyone has mentioned or noticed this yet, but the cloud syncing is already working for watching movies or video content. i noticed it when i bought my ipad in May that when i was watching a movie on my ipad, it wirelessly synced up with the same movie on my iphone and imac.
Err exactly. Like he said it supports much older pc's than macs. A 7 year old machine isn't uncommon with people that aren't obsessed with having the latest stuff. My parents have a G5 and no reason to replace it. The issue for them though is they can't connect their iPads to it, they have to use there older windows laptops instead.
This is why I bought my folks a refurbed Windows box for under $150. Mom got herself an iPad for Christmas, and it wouldn't talk to their PowerPC-era Mini. It also couldn't run modern web browsers or recent builds of Flash. Now iTunes talks to her iPad just fine, and she has it backed up for the first time in eight months.
Complaints about iTunes (Windows) that I have seen over the years boil down to three main points:
Slowness. OS X mainly uses threads, and Windows mainly uses processes. iTunes launching threads takes more overhead in Windows.
File management. Winamp/WMP evangelists expect every media player to be a thin frontend for Windows Explorer. They are very confused at the iTunes method of managing media in-app. I have to tell every new user: "Don't touch the files."
Appearance. "It looks ugly on Windows." Well, I think Aero and Fisher-Price XP look ugly. Caveat empetor.
I use iTunes on OS X, and it has always been speedy managing my 12,000 items and three dozen playlists. YMMV.
Err exactly. Like he said it supports much older pc's than macs. A 7 year old machine isn't uncommon with people that aren't obsessed with having the latest stuff. My parents have a G5 and no reason to replace it. The issue for them though is they can't connect their iPads to it, they have to use there older windows laptops instead.
So by that logic, they have a copy of iTunes 5 or 6 or whatever, and should see no reason to replace it, not being obsessed with having the latest stuff etc...No wait, they want to run iPads on it. Well, I suppose you can't have your cake and eat it.
I dunno, they whine that it's bloated or slow or whatever—basically the same complaints as in OS X.
Here's my gripes, not necessarily issues related to windows or OSX, but just iTunes in general. However I have used iTunes on a Windows PC for about 8 years now. Well, at least until they release the 13" MBP+r
It's really painfully slow
Takes forever and a day to load.
Loading the iTunes store is just as slow
Locks up frequently when syncing devices
Thumbnails/album art disappear when updating to lates build
Wifi sync has never worked consistently
Syncing podcasts reverts back to iTunes info and doesn't sync with most recent info
Task bar icon opens separate icon when opening program (windows 7 issue)
Renaming compilation songs to show up in artist column fails
Shuffle feature works well but I think it defaults to more popular songs or higher rated ones and repeats occur frequently
Coverflow could use some improvement. Like not showing a separate cover for each song if they are arranged by album
Recently played songs has never synced properly with my iPhone and/or iPod classic
Need ability to modify properties of multiple songs from the list and not having to go the extra step of clicking "get info". Or at least be able to select multiple songs in the list view to adjust equalizer setting.
Equalizer setting is independent between iTunes and the device, this should sync
Purchased list in the browser should show songs not in your computer as grey'd out or have the little iCloud icon next to it. The only current way to do this is by searching in th iTunes store.
Podcast section does not update properly. Just in general the podcast section needs a total overhaul
Allow us to download DVDs we already own just like CDs
Allow us to read iBooks from iTunes.
Audio books show either in the music section and/or the books section, pick one please?
Home videos or non-professionally produces movie files should be in a new section called "Videos" separate from the Movies section
That's all I got for now...sure I'll think of more
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
they whine that it's bloated or slow or whatever—basically the same complaints as in OS X.
Valid complaints, but at the time I wasn't able to find any alternatives that were better in that regard that still provided the ease-of-use and convenience features of iTunes. I remember pulling my hair out trying to find a media player that would let me quickly find a track in a library of thousands, then play that track and STOP rather than immediately playing another track.
I get the gripes about it though. As much as you want a way to improve the handling of cover art, I want a way to just turn it OFF!
Originally Posted by v5v
As much as you want a way to improve the handling of cover art, I want a way to just turn it OFF!
Which they provide in all versions, including current.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Which they provide in all versions, including current.
...but how to do it is a well-guarded secret that you're not willing to share?
A Google search led to several discussions all concluding with "You can't." One can, as I have, delete the embedded artwork from all files, hide the display window and set iTunes to not automatically embed new art, but iTunes still spends time (and a lot of it) maintaining an artwork database -- it's just full of descriptors saying "this file doesn't have any" -- and looking for artwork in every file it opens. My iOS device is so obsessed with artwork that it makes the playback controls teeny-weeny-tiny to leave room for the coverflow display of blank music icons.
Obviously it's not a big deal, it's just one more operation using up time and resources, in this case on something I don't need or want. If you know of a way to tell iTunes to ignore artwork completely and are inclined to share it with me I'd be very grateful.
Originally Posted by v5v
...but how to do it is a well-guarded secret that you're not willing to share?
… Um…
Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean.
If you know of a way to tell iTunes to ignore artwork completely and are inclined to share it with me I'd be very grateful.
Just ignore it.
Like everyone else, I welcome an improvement. However, what is so awful about the current version of iTunes? If you want to go through your music, you click "Music" on the sidebar. If you want to go through your movies, you click "Movies" etc. iTunes always seemed very straightforward, plus the search function always seemed to work well. Not sure what all of the complaints are about it being too bloated etc. It seems very easy to use. If the new version is even easier, I welcome it, but it is not exactly difficult now.
I put the 'iTunes Media' folder on a HDD and the rest on SSD and now those thumbnails load lightning fast. The DB itself still is slow (renaming tracks etc) but I haven't installed 10.7 yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timgriff84
Err exactly. Like he said it supports much older pc's than macs. A 7 year old machine isn't uncommon with people that aren't obsessed with having the latest stuff. My parents have a G5 and no reason to replace it. The issue for them though is they can't connect their iPads to it, they have to use there older windows laptops instead.
This is why I bought my folks a refurbed Windows box for under $150. Mom got herself an iPad for Christmas, and it wouldn't talk to their PowerPC-era Mini. It also couldn't run modern web browsers or recent builds of Flash. Now iTunes talks to her iPad just fine, and she has it backed up for the first time in eight months.
Complaints about iTunes (Windows) that I have seen over the years boil down to three main points:
Slowness. OS X mainly uses threads, and Windows mainly uses processes. iTunes launching threads takes more overhead in Windows.
File management. Winamp/WMP evangelists expect every media player to be a thin frontend for Windows Explorer. They are very confused at the iTunes method of managing media in-app. I have to tell every new user: "Don't touch the files."
Appearance. "It looks ugly on Windows." Well, I think Aero and Fisher-Price XP look ugly. Caveat empetor.
I use iTunes on OS X, and it has always been speedy managing my 12,000 items and three dozen playlists. YMMV.
I wonder when the first beta will be out on the dev site.
Originally Posted by MacVertigo
I wonder when the first beta will be out on the dev site.
Never. It's iTunes. There's no reason for a beta.
Quote:
Originally Posted by timgriff84
Err exactly. Like he said it supports much older pc's than macs. A 7 year old machine isn't uncommon with people that aren't obsessed with having the latest stuff. My parents have a G5 and no reason to replace it. The issue for them though is they can't connect their iPads to it, they have to use there older windows laptops instead.
So by that logic, they have a copy of iTunes 5 or 6 or whatever, and should see no reason to replace it, not being obsessed with having the latest stuff etc...No wait, they want to run iPads on it. Well, I suppose you can't have your cake and eat it.
That's all I got for now...sure I'll think of more