A few weeks ago iTunes 9.2 recently came out to mark the release of iOS4 and prepare itself for the updates all over the world. Although I love my iPod Touch, I don't like iTunes - not one bit, in fact I believe it is so user-unfriendly it makes me cringe at times. My decision to post on this issue has been sparked from my recent frustration over attempting to use it when to sync it and back up my iPod, so I could update to iOS4 if I wanted to, in the end I spent the better half of two days getting angry, uninstalling, reinstalling, removing all traces and then reinstalling again, only to get 4 different error messages and no good results, which just annoyed me more. Ironically, it almost seemed like a blessing in disguise with some iPod Touch users not enjoying iOS4 as much as 'expected'.
If it wasn't for my iPod Touch, I would probably boycott iTunes altogether. That might sound pretty extreme but my experiences with iTunes have been rarely positive, it has caused me more grief than anything else, and it made me think about a few things. Now before I continue, I will admit that I am a Windows user - so people who read this and are Apple fanatics might disagree with me on several levels. And to my defence I will say this, I love Apple - their paid product's work (yes I said paid) but iTunes doesn't, even on a Mac, I just don't like it. Since most of my experiences are from Windows, I can only really talk about it this way - its not completely biased as I am sure most problems come from Windows users. You could debate that it is an Apple product and therefore, is meant to be used on an Apple device - and that might be so, but realistically if they had to make a compatible product, it should really well just that, compatible.
What I find really interesting with my like for Apple products is this: the Apple products that cost (for some people almost an arm and a leg) works well, they're as amazing as they claim, they do almost everything. And then there's iTunes - its free and oddly enough for an Apple product not so great, it seems that only the good stuff is put into the things which they're willing to charge consumers for. Sure when iTunes first came out, Apple only had one product, which used it and so it could be pretty average, after all there weren't alot of consumers to complain about it. 9 years since iPod's first release (back in 2001) there has also been 9 different versions of iTunes, back then there was only one type of iPod to now several generations and currently 6 different products, which use it. Yes, I will admit there have been some improvements - but as a fairly late adopter of iTunes I haven't really seen anything really amazing, which have made me go 'wow'.
Isn't it ironic that a program like iTunes which is required to run several products be so averaged ? Is it that to make it a little more user-friendly? You would think that with the increased use of iTunes would mean a need to improve, but it doesn't seem to be the case. And why is it when you update iTunes, it is like downloading a completely new program (possibly only applicable Windows users) - it almost gets my hopes up thinking, it going to be 'new' and then it looks exactly the same as before, it just took an hour to download and install. It also happens to be one of the programs which also asks to install the most amount of 'optional' applications like Safari and MobileMe possible - let me not forget the fact that it requires Quicktime to run apparently for the video codecs that I never use outside of iTunes.
If I know one thing is that, if it wasn't for my iPod Touch I probably wouldn't be using it - not, unless it was the only media program out there.
Do you love or hate iTunes? Why or why not? I'd like to know.
source : http://socialmedianz.posterous.com/itunes-sometimes-free-isnt-always-good
If it wasn't for my iPod Touch, I would probably boycott iTunes altogether. That might sound pretty extreme but my experiences with iTunes have been rarely positive, it has caused me more grief than anything else, and it made me think about a few things. Now before I continue, I will admit that I am a Windows user - so people who read this and are Apple fanatics might disagree with me on several levels. And to my defence I will say this, I love Apple - their paid product's work (yes I said paid) but iTunes doesn't, even on a Mac, I just don't like it. Since most of my experiences are from Windows, I can only really talk about it this way - its not completely biased as I am sure most problems come from Windows users. You could debate that it is an Apple product and therefore, is meant to be used on an Apple device - and that might be so, but realistically if they had to make a compatible product, it should really well just that, compatible.
What I find really interesting with my like for Apple products is this: the Apple products that cost (for some people almost an arm and a leg) works well, they're as amazing as they claim, they do almost everything. And then there's iTunes - its free and oddly enough for an Apple product not so great, it seems that only the good stuff is put into the things which they're willing to charge consumers for. Sure when iTunes first came out, Apple only had one product, which used it and so it could be pretty average, after all there weren't alot of consumers to complain about it. 9 years since iPod's first release (back in 2001) there has also been 9 different versions of iTunes, back then there was only one type of iPod to now several generations and currently 6 different products, which use it. Yes, I will admit there have been some improvements - but as a fairly late adopter of iTunes I haven't really seen anything really amazing, which have made me go 'wow'.
Isn't it ironic that a program like iTunes which is required to run several products be so averaged ? Is it that to make it a little more user-friendly? You would think that with the increased use of iTunes would mean a need to improve, but it doesn't seem to be the case. And why is it when you update iTunes, it is like downloading a completely new program (possibly only applicable Windows users) - it almost gets my hopes up thinking, it going to be 'new' and then it looks exactly the same as before, it just took an hour to download and install. It also happens to be one of the programs which also asks to install the most amount of 'optional' applications like Safari and MobileMe possible - let me not forget the fact that it requires Quicktime to run apparently for the video codecs that I never use outside of iTunes.
If I know one thing is that, if it wasn't for my iPod Touch I probably wouldn't be using it - not, unless it was the only media program out there.
Do you love or hate iTunes? Why or why not? I'd like to know.
source : http://socialmedianz.posterous.com/itunes-sometimes-free-isnt-always-good