Dear Apple Computer
Dear Apple Computer...
OK, I made my first Apple purchase, as you might guess, an iPod. Yes, I'm running Windows/Intel desktop. So first iTunes screwed up my music folders. I spent days sorting it all out within your software, but then I couldn't back it up without losing all the extras your software added (like playlists, and play count).
Then came the problems synchronizing with the desktop. I thought maybe your new version of iTunes might fix that, but what did it do? It lost half of my album art, and didn't fix the sync problem.
I'm sure you want to blame all this on Microsoft, but what kind of bastards did you hire to write this software? Maybe they were Microsoft minions hellbent on destroying your most popular product. Whoever wrote the software, they've convinced me that both Apple and Microsoft are now both greedy inhuman corporations whose goal is to enslave and drain the pocketbooks of their users. Sorry, I prefer companies whose goal is to create quality products that serve the customer.
The iPod is nice, but the software sucks, and the entire experience of my first Apple product has convinced me not to buy any more.
posted by James Lamb @ 1:06 PM
12 comments
12 Comments:
Oh, that's rich... If you "prefer companies whose goal is to create quality products that serve the customer" then why on earth are you running Microsoft Windows? So, because iTunes runs imperfectly on the world's worst operating system, you're vowing never to buy from Apple again? Hilarious... enjoy that world you're choosing to live in.
(By the way, when iTunes creates and organizes a new library, it makes duplicates of all the music you have on your drive. It doesn't delete the originals, so you must have really screwed something up to be in the predicament that you claim to be in.)
This person totally misses the point. Rather than improving the product so that it will work better on various operating systems (including LINUX), his answer, Microsoft's answer, and Apple's answer is that the customer needs to ditch everything they own and switch to THEIR brand. Great marketing strategy, but those of us who have learned to hate Microsoft are not ready to open our wallets to Apple for the same treatment.
This is why I bought an ASUS EeePC instead of a MacBook Air, and am already wondering if I should ditch the iPod before it's worthless and get something that's not tied to a giant music marketing machine with encrypted files that can't be used unless you're feeding their wallet (Three cheers to Amazon for providing DRM-free music!).
iTunes only allows you to copy to CDs, not to a hard drive, as a concession to their music contracts. So if you want iTunes to organize your music, you're forced to keep an unadulterated version (which you can back up), and the iTunes version, which you can only back up to CDs, or you lose lots of embedded information when you want to clean house.
Gee, just like Microsoft, the Apple way might imply, "oh, just run out and buy more disk space!" or "hey, get a new APPLE computer!" Sorry. Pity the unhealthy slobs in America who think freedom means the choice between Coke or Pepsi.
note to music industry: I've bought more CDs and music files (PAID FOR) since mp3's arrived on the scene than I had in the past 20 years. I haven't bought anything from iTunes because I don't want to be locked into their system for playback.
I've had numerous versions of Palm through numerous versions of Windows, and it still syncs fine, in spite of the fact that Microsoft has a competing version. So why can't a brand new iPod, and several versions of iTunes do the same? Because we're dealing with a clash of egos who don't want to see it work.
Well, it doesn't always duplicate everything and leave the originals as they were, depending on how you have the preferences set up.
But the point remains: iTunes is fine, easily backed up with all metadata intact, under OS X. So clearly if there's a flaw with the Windows version in this regard, it has to do with the facts that it's running on Windows.
And that's only IF there's a problem, which I suspect there really isn't. On OS X, there are two files that contain all that metadata (I think it's 'iTunes Library' and 'iTunes Library.xml'); they tell iTunes information about the raw music files nested in the music folder. Information like playlists, play counts, the size and position of the main iTunes window, etc. Just back up those two files along with your music, and it's easy to restore everything perfectly. I don't know for sure that similar such files exist under Windows, but I suspect they do.
So if you backed up the music but iTunes wasn't properly restored when you restored your data, it's probably because you didn't back up everything you should have. Not saying you're to blame, if you didn't know... but it's not the fault of the software either.
As to the second comment: again, I think you don't know the software well, and you are ascribing problems to it that reallky odn't exist.
"wondering if I should ditch the iPod before it's worthless and get something that's not tied to a giant music marketing machine with encrypted files"
Um, the iPod isn't tied to anything - except by the name on the box. You can, and should, buy all your music through Amazon or eMusic or some other site with no DRM, and it will all play fine on your iPod. It's other companies that tied you to their service: e.g. Microsoft's original subscription service (before Zune, I forget what it's called). They shut it down, and everyone on it lost all their music. When Apple shuts down, you'll always still have your music.
"iTunes only allows you to copy to CDs, not to a hard drive, as a concession to their music contracts"
Again, simply not true. A lot of my music has been ripped from CDs to my hard drive - ripped by iTunes. iTunes will rip CDs into various formats, including mp3, aac, and Apple Lossless... and none of those formats contain any encryption or DRM.
Oops, I see you were really talking about backing up the music, not ripping it. Still, as stated above, you CAN back up your iTunes library to another hard drive. I think you just didn't do it the right way.
Thanks for additional comments. Yes, it has involved much effort to find out about how the software works to get around what might work perfectly under OSX but doesn't work well with Windows. I found it rather disturbing to go to an Apple "Genius Bar," where the guy was friendly enough, but had lived all his life drinking the KoolAid, and could only be rather vague about how things work in Windows. Fortunately, there seems to be more online now than when I first started encountering problems... thanks to those who aren't ready to live behind the fortress walls of their specific brand loyalties.
After all that, I've located the root of one problem, which is that through various back-ups, I have about 40 copies (and unknown versions) of "iTunes Library." The new download created a new one from a wrong old one. Now a rather tedious process of finding the best one (new one is missing album art, and who knows what else; older versions are missing more up-to-date playlist/podcast revisions and maybe play counts).
And it's true, if you're not going to be loyal to a corporation, you have to know a little more about how the stuff works to make it work right, but I'll repeat, Palm seems to have pulled it off over the years, but Apple is being dragged by its heels.
Of course, Palm is going to have to deal with Google's new phone apps to sync online if it doesn't want to lose what Microsoft wasn't able to snatch away with CE.
I have all my album art embedded into my music files, so I don't have the same problem as you. I have iTunes 8 running in BootCamp with Windows XP on my MacBook Pro and it works just fine for me. I use something called MacDrive 6 which allows me to access my Music Library on my E Drive on which the OSX system is located. I do my backups when I'm booted into OSX so that solves my backup problems. I use a program called Synchronize Pro X to backup my music files to a harddrive and my other computers over WiFi.
I've been using iTunes for years even though I briefly tried using WinAmp to organize my files. It's OK, but not good enough for me to switch over.
update: after a day of futzing, removing, reinstalling, jiggering files... Sync is still wacko.
However, I discovered an interesting trick. If you have the iPod connected when the computer starts up, no, it won't sync, but if you start up iTunes, disconnect the iPod, and re-connect it, then it will. (at least it worked a couple of times).
Other Apple support suggestions didn't really work.
Dudes, itunes 8 is totally cheesing out. I have a fairly new mac os 10.4.11 that had NO problems till I installed itunes 8. Shitty issues include:
Getting asked for computer authorization every couple of seconds,
being unable to establish a connection to the store,
when I go to check my network preferences, having the little drop menu tell me that another application has changed my settings, over and over, regardless of how often I hit okay.
Meaning, I can't close system preferences or restart the computer. Not even with cntl. open apple, delete. This literally all started just since the new itunes;
Things I've tried:
restarting Itunes
restarting computer
deleting itunes from my hard drive and reinstalling.
twice.
Reinstalling itunes 7.7, but that rejects my new my library because it was "created" with a newer version. 8.
using my admin thing to change authorization profiles or something
downoading the free itunes songs (suggested by a tech guy at apple care, yeah I found that forum on google too, thanks apple guy)
I've spoken to 7 different tech dudes and have spent 3 hours on hold. LITERALLY. 3 HOURS. Granted its in 25 minute intervals, but still total hold time 3 hours. I've slowly climbed my way up the tech support ladder and found even those at the highest levels to be useless.
Dude... Apple is so the new microsoft. Its poop. Like total poop. Also I'm on hold right now. Been on hold for 30 minutes spoken to an idiot tech guy for probably 12 minutes.
well I seem to be doing better via Windows XP than this user on a Mac.
I repeat one of my questions... if Palm has been able to deal with Windows for all these years though several system changes, why can't Apple make their sync work right with Windows? Why does Apple force the Windows user through all kinds of problems trying to get it to work?
Still not working after many convolutions. Maybe it's conflicting with Palm? However, when there's an issue like this, everyone will point the finger at the other program. The industry as a whole really doesn't handle customer service well.
Ongoing problems. Is it possible to have a class action suit against two companies as co-conspirators?
Apple for saying their product works on Windows, and Microsoft for tweaking their product to make it not work? Both of them will point their finger at the other as the reason for the problem. Or, better yet, both will point their finger at the consumer for not using all their products and trying to mix Apples and Oranges (or Orangutans?)
Three cheers for Apple being able to renegotiate their music industry contracts for DRM-free music and tiered pricing !!!
Maybe now they can fix iTunes to allow backup of non-DRM files.
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