is it just me, or does iTunes 4 suck?

Posted:
in iPod + iTunes + AppleTV edited January 2014
besides the Music store, which is kind of a separate thing all together, whats so great about itunes 4? i mean, for those of us who cant/wont use the music store.



Arguments:



1. It can play AAC files



....great. but really, so what? how many AAC song do you have sitting around? and besides, the ability to play these AAC files really come from Quicktime 6.2, and not itunes itself.



2. It works with the now ipod.



well i sure as hell hope so. thats really a given. the older itunes' worked with the older ipods, so this should have to work with the new ones, wouldnt it?



3. Rendezvous streaming.



cool, i guess, if you have a family of other macs lying around, all with OSX and iTunes 4. The usefulness of this is, in reality, quite limited and selective.



what else?



oh yeah, that TERRIBLE new small blockly annoying font. thats always good.







and you thought itunes 3 was a strech.

-ST



PS anyone looking for a good deal on a 20GB ipod?
«13

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 51
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    It's not just Rendezvous streaming... you can do IP streaming as well. Yep, you can let friends listen to your albums from across the world, provided your connections can handle it. So that's a big thing.



    The "blocky font" has already been discussed. Go into System Preferences > Displays > Turn off text smoothing for size 8 and smaller. It'll look normal after that.



    EDIT: I think iTunes 3 and 4 are really only worth of about one major version number... I mean, smart playlists aren't much, the only real advantage of 3 was the automatic music organization, meaning you never have to go into your music folder. Actually that was HUGE. But iTunes 3 still seemed like a temporary holdover until they could get Rendezvous/IP streaming to work.
  • Reply 2 of 51
    ibrowseibrowse Posts: 1,749member
    There are only advances in my eyes, and it's great, free software. So I'm not complaining one bit.
  • Reply 3 of 51
    buonrottobuonrotto Posts: 6,368member
    There is definitely a display problem but it's not the font thing, which is just a function of your system preferences and using the 8-point type instead of 9. Rather, when I'm switching over frm the Music Store to any other playlist, the window goes all squirrely on me, with columns haf-displayed in the title bar and stuff. It fixes itself if I choose something else in the source list, but it's got some redraw problems. Also, the ghosted search phrase (e.g., "Artist" or "Song") also goes batty, and I either it has something to do with the sub-pixel rendering of the font, else the LCD sub-pixel rendering just shows up more when it happens.



    It could certainly use a 4.1, or more likely they'll call it a 4.0.1 update, but otherwise it's fine.
  • Reply 4 of 51
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    Yikes. The icon is green!!!!
  • Reply 5 of 51
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Green is my favorite color so I love it
  • Reply 6 of 51
    ibrowseibrowse Posts: 1,749member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by stunned

    Yikes. The icon is green!!!!



    I got used to the last one, but Blue looked the best.
  • Reply 7 of 51
    mcqmcq Posts: 1,543member
    ST, what did you want in iTunes 4?
  • Reply 8 of 51
    ast3r3xast3r3x Posts: 5,012member
    perhaps i missed u saying it...perhaps u missed it







    YOU CAN BUY MUSIC WITH IT!





    that is what makes it 4
  • Reply 9 of 51
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    What is up with the new buttons for play/pause Forward Back?



    Even the Volume button is ugly. What was wrong with the Aqua look with the drop of water look? Why in the world is apple going to the ugly Windows XP look for buttons? WOW it is ugly! Reminds me of the same ugly buttons on Safari. I had the same first thought about the buttons on Safari. Apple should have stuck with the aqua look. Now apple feels like a PC.



    I always liked the difference between the two. Now things almost look the same.... Yuck...



    In other news the new ipod goes from a 10 hour battery to an 8 hour battery... That's real progress



    Fellowship
  • Reply 10 of 51
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Well what do you expect from the iPod, it's so much smaller they had to save some weight SOMEwhere! I suppose it would be better with a 10 hour battery instead of an 8 hour one, but on the other hand you can now get auxiliary batteries so even when your iPod's battery dies, it's not useless.



    As far as the new buttons... I don't really care. And I think if you tinker around a bit you can change them back to normal. There was something called "iFix" that changed QuickTime and iTunes to the new button style a couple months back, and I'm sure it could be done in the reverse direction.
  • Reply 11 of 51
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Luca Rescigno

    Well what do you expect from the iPod, it's so much smaller they had to save some weight SOMEwhere! I suppose it would be better with a 10 hour battery instead of an 8 hour one, but on the other hand you can now get auxiliary batteries so even when your iPod's battery dies, it's not useless.



    As far as the new buttons... I don't really care. And I think if you tinker around a bit you can change them back to normal. There was something called "iFix" that changed QuickTime and iTunes to the new button style a couple months back, and I'm sure it could be done in the reverse direction.




    I am not going to tinker with the interface. I just can NOT believe Apple the mother of cool would lower themselves to Windows looking buttons when they had the coolest styled buttons on the planet in my humble opinion.



    Fellowship
  • Reply 12 of 51
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Okay... so you're complaining that the buttons look bad, but you refuse to do anything about it? I can understand if you're upset, of course... but I don't think it would take too much tinkering. If I may explain myself further, iFix merely gave you a couple new pictures that you put in various places in the iTunes package contents. All you'd have to do is find the correct locations and replace the files. No mucking about in the terminal is necessary.



    Anyway, I don't know why, but Apple does seem to be moving to cheesier looking stuff. The opaque iBooks, the silly looking flat buttons... what's next, snap-on fake wood trimmings for the PowerBook?
  • Reply 13 of 51
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Luca Rescigno

    Okay... so you're complaining that the buttons look bad, but you refuse to do anything about it? I can understand if you're upset, of course... but I don't think it would take too much tinkering. If I may explain myself further, iFix merely gave you a couple new pictures that you put in various places in the iTunes package contents. All you'd have to do is find the correct locations and replace the files. No mucking about in the terminal is necessary.



    Anyway, I don't know why, but Apple does seem to be moving to cheesier looking stuff. The opaque iBooks, the silly looking flat buttons... what's next, snap-on fake wood trimmings for the PowerBook?




    When I was a victom of windows 98 I used skins to enhance the windows interface and I am familiar with changing looks etc. I just have to wonder who Apple is listening to by going to these UGLY buttons. I will email apple with my thought over the buttons. Won't do any good but it is the least I can do. If apple continues to backpeddle I would not think for a moment that Microsoft is not capable of blowing them away with a new interface. Stranger things have happened. The MS Media Center interface is very beautiful for example on some new XP machines.



    If Microsoft gets better it will cause apple to have to respond so I see it as a win win situation.



    Microsoft Media Center Link



    Media Center works with PVR technology and in effect turns your Living Room Television into another terminal of your PC it is really cool. Apple? Are you in paying attention?



    Fellowship
  • Reply 14 of 51
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Haha, that link was SO unhelpful... I think MS is so afraid of giving away their little pretty icon and desktop pictures that they don't want to show you what XP Media Center looks like. I couldn't find a single screenshot except for the crappy little 200x200 ones or whatever.



    Anyway, I think Apple has caught on that people generally like really dumb, gawdy looking stuff. I mean, look how popular PCs are! So they could just make all their stuff look really dumb and ugly, and maybe people will start buying them
  • Reply 15 of 51
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Luca Rescigno

    So they could just make all their stuff look really dumb and ugly, and maybe people will start buying them



    I would not bet on that.



    Here is a Demo of Media Center



    Windows Media Center Demo



    Fellowship
  • Reply 16 of 51
    murbotmurbot Posts: 5,262member
    Fellowship, trolling Apple Outsider getting boring? Expanding your horizons?
  • Reply 17 of 51
    fellowshipfellowship Posts: 5,038member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by murbot

    Fellowship, trolling Apple Outsider getting boring? Expanding your horizons?



    trolling LOL



    I am listening to your shared music and I like! How do I share my songs?



    OOPS MAKE THAT dogcows music silly me

    Fellows
  • Reply 18 of 51
    iApp discussion? Smells like Digital Hub territory.



    MOVING!
  • Reply 19 of 51
    wotanwotan Posts: 106member
    Its just you.
  • Reply 20 of 51
    Quote:

    Originally posted by FellowshipChurch iBook

    Why in the world is apple going to the ugly Windows XP look for buttons? WOW it is ugly! Reminds me of the same ugly buttons on Safari. I had the same first thought about the buttons on Safari. Apple should have stuck with the aqua look. Now apple feels like a PC.



    I always liked the difference between the two. Now things almost look the same.... Yuck...



    In other news the new ipod goes from a 10 hour battery to an 8 hour battery... That's real progress



    Fellowship




    no, I'm a switcher and OS X/iTunes/Safari feels NOTHING like Windows, any version (be it 3.1, 95, 98, 2000 or XP). My biggest surprise was to see what QuickTime is REALLY like. The Windows version feels almost as if it was an early beta-prototype of its Mac counterpart. It's real bad.



    On the iPod, it does suck that the battery lasts 8 hours now, tho. But looks sleek! I want one.



    About iTunes... since I can't use the store service, it doesn't really mean much of an advantage to me (and for everyone outside the US). Take out the music store and you basically have iTunes 3 with a green icon instead of purple (and slightly different buttons).
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