I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Discuss anything related to audio or music production.
sporkles
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I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by sporkles » Tue Jul 22, 2014 5:59 pm

... but just trying to put into words how gut-wrenchingly frustrating that shit is, completely drains me of energy.

I was just trying to help out my GF backing up, deleting, transferring and whatnot, but AAAAAAAARGH! they make something so simple into something so fucking complicated. And it doesn't help that I have to do it from my ancient Vista laptop, since her computer is fried.

Android. All. The. Fucking. Way.

beats me
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Tue Jul 22, 2014 6:31 pm

sporkles wrote:it doesn't help that I have to do it from my ancient Vista laptop

So there's that.

sporkles
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by sporkles » Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:21 pm

beats me wrote:
sporkles wrote:it doesn't help that I have to do it from my ancient Vista laptop

So there's that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The only thing about that that makes it worse, is the fact that my computer is abysmally slow. My having to delete all the music on her phone just to take control of the contents, is all Apple. On Android, I can just drag the files onto the phone in Windows Explorer. :x

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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Tue Jul 22, 2014 7:32 pm

I don’t doubt your frustration without even knowing exactly what you are doing and I found your whole second paragraph terrifying in just speculation - Helping GF…old Vista computer…her computer is fried.

Although not 100%, the use of Apple’s Time Machine, iTunes Match, and cloud backups works great in most cases. I haven’t had to plug my iPhones or iPads into my computer for a long time. But I'm 100% Apple with my tech.

Donnie
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by Donnie » Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:06 pm

For me, ditching iTunes was one of the best reasons for moving to Android. How people happily put up with that garbage is beyond me.

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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by rikhyray » Thu Jul 24, 2014 1:37 pm

Donnie wrote:Android- How people happily put up with that garbage is beyond me.
fixed

beats me
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Thu Jul 24, 2014 1:50 pm

iTunes works great for my needs. The biggest complaints seem to come from PC users or people who want to micromanage the shit out of their library on and off their computer.

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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by Donnie » Thu Jul 24, 2014 3:45 pm

iTunes isolates its users to specific file formats, requires you to manage a library that is wholly unnecessary, and doesn't work for anyone who has a really large library or goes through lots of music and/or needs extra control over their music in any way.

Personally, I listen to a lot of music and iTunes was just a plethora of roadblocks in my way. Moving to Android was extremely liberating. Any Apple fanboyism beyond that is what it is. Apple vs Android/PC is a religious debate, I only care about functionality and workflow.
Last edited by Donnie on Thu Jul 24, 2014 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

beats me
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:04 pm

Donnie wrote:Personally, I listen to a lot of music and iTunes was just a plethora of roadblocks in my way. Moving to Android was extremely liberating. Any Apple fanboyism beyond that is what it is. Mac vs PC is a religious debate, I only care about functionality and workflow.

Could you explain what you like about Android and music libraries? I don’t know so I am sincerely curious.

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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:39 pm

While I await for info on the advantages of Android I’ll give a few words of praise to iTunes, Match, and iOS.

When I render a song I was working on I drag the file to iTunes and within minutes it’s available to play or download on my iPhone, iPad, and other Macs. No wiring anything to computers.

If I buy a song on iTunes on my iPhone or iPad when I’m out and about it automatically downloads the songs to my Macs.

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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by re:dream » Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:51 pm

Itunes is kind of optimally geared to music as a retail experience. As long as you cede all your control to Apple, everything is fine.

Resistance is useless.
Last edited by re:dream on Thu Jul 24, 2014 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Donnie
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by Donnie » Thu Jul 24, 2014 4:59 pm

Advantages:

Android allows you to store your music in normal folders vs having to manage an external software driven library. You can use files out of the narrow range of what is supported by iTunes (great for that occasional FLAC). You can add/delete music on the fly without having to use external software. There is zero proprietary requirement between you and your music. Since moving music to your phone requires no syncing, and no managed library, you dont have to worry about it becoming too bloated or cumbersome. You also dont have to worry about duplicates, such as a file in you iTunes library plus another location...which is good for DJs and people who prefer to manage their files outside of iTunes. In fact you dont have to worry about any of that, you just copy the music to your phone, from any machine (not just the one your iTunes library is on), with no proprietary cables or any other nonsense required.

Disadvantages:

It is up to the user to find a music software that works for them. Also, some versions of Android still have problems with gapless playback, so mixes that have been split up into separate tracks may or may not suffer from brief studders during the transition.

beats me
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Thu Jul 24, 2014 5:57 pm

Donnie wrote:Advantages:

Android allows you to store your music in normal folders vs having to manage an external software driven library. You can use files out of the narrow range of what is supported by iTunes (great for that occasional FLAC). You can add/delete music on the fly without having to use external software. There is zero proprietary requirement between you and your music. Since moving music to your phone requires no syncing, and no managed library, you dont have to worry about it becoming too bloated or cumbersome. You also dont have to worry about duplicates, such as a file in you iTunes library plus another location...which is good for DJs and people who prefer to manage their files outside of iTunes. In fact you dont have to worry about any of that, you just copy the music to your phone, from any machine (not just the one your iTunes library is on), with no proprietary cables or any other nonsense required.

Disadvantages:

It is up to the user to find a music software that works for them. Also, some versions of Android still have problems with gapless playback, so mixes that have been split up into separate tracks may or may not suffer from brief studders during the transition.


Gotcha.

True liberation will come if/when cell phones come with drives big enough to hold large media libraries, but that probably won’t happen. Having to pick and choose what goes on your drive whether through iOS sync or folder dragging is BS no matter how you look at it IMO.

I do agree duplicates in iTunes is an issue. If I drag a playlist from an iTunes library on one computer to iTunes on another computer it copies over all the tracks whether they are already on the computer or not, creating duplicates.

I never really understood the need to micromanage tracks and in multiple locations, and certainly not now. I don’t need directories like Electro House/2008/128 BPM/Key of G. Traktor has all those tagging options available regardless of where the files is on my drive. But I don’t DJ with Live. I don’t know how people cope without proper tagging.

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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by Donnie » Thu Jul 24, 2014 6:44 pm

I use a extremely large master set for Ableton Live DJing so I do not worry about tagging in that respect. I do however add tags to my tracks and split them up into sub-directories for CDJ style DJing (during a B2B set or when im not interested in prepping Ableton and just want to play a bunch of tracks on the fly). I split into genre and year folders so I can do a quick grab without much thought. It also helps categorize based on release timeline relevance, say I want to just quickly grab house tracks from this year. I collect a lot of music across a variety of genres so having all that stuff in one location just gets cumbersome and hard to manage. For me that's the same be it an iTunes library or a file folder, too much in one place becomes cluttered over time. Especially if you are trying to stay current and are constantly listening to new music, having old stuff lying around just isn't necessary most of the time.

beats me
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Re: I was gong to complain about iTunes/iPhone ...

Post by beats me » Thu Jul 24, 2014 7:04 pm

Are you doing elaborate things within Live that makes it your preference for DJing?

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