There’s a lot of room for criticism of iTunes, God knows, but when driving the car of criticism, be careful not to swerve out of control on the Information Highway, crash through the guardrails of sanity, and explode spectacularly in mid-air before falling into the Ravine of Baloney.
Like this guy.
Yes, Business Insider’s Jim Edwards is too legit to quit the anti-Apple screed-of-the-week biz. Wonder if he’d take a buyout? (Note to self: Fund via Kickstarter.)
“I’ve Abandoned iTunes Because Google Music Is So Much Better” (indirect link)
Omagerd, it’s like sooo much butter.
(In Business Insider: The Movie the part of Jim Edwards will be played by Lumpy Space Princess.)
It is true that iTunes is what the kids of two years ago would have called “a hot mess.” Kids today probably have another phrase like “a stinking earbud” or “a soggy merkin” or “a dotted-line reporting relationship.”
I was an early adopter of iTunes…
Cool story. Mad street cred, bro.
The Macalope used it back when it was SoundJam. So… we’re old? Death’s sweet embrace comes sooner for us? Yay?
Actually, after reading this piece maybe that isn’t such a bad thing.
iTunes now is better than it used to be, back when it launched.
Is it? The Macalope would argue it isn’t. It used to be simple. It does more now, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.
But even so, iTunes today still looks and feels like a product that would have sprung naturally from Microsoft’s Office/Windows environment.
This is one of the few true criticisms Edwards makes in this piece. An island of veracity in a raging sea of 100-foot high waves of knee-jerk Apple negativism.
The recent US antitrust trial, in which lawyers are arguing that Apple hurt consumers by forcing them to only listen to iTunes songs on their iPods (and not songs from competing companies that might have offered them cheaper), has reminded me of just how bad an experience using iTunes has been.
Wait, who forced them to do that? Apple or the recording industry? Apple dropped DRM not so much like a hot potato as a maggot-infested human heart the minute it was able to.
You might remember the first time you ever used iTunes. Wasn’t it strange, the way you had to hook up your iPod to your computer, then open iTunes, and you could only change the songs on the iPod via iTunes?
Uh, no. That was how you did things back then. Almost all devices required you to connect to a computer to load music. Are we just rewriting history now to make Apple look out of touch when in our actual timeline the iPod and iTunes were wildly successful?
The setup is basically the same to this day, except that you can at last drag songs from other non-Apple sources into iTunes.
At last. As of like five years ago. And why can you do that now? Because, thanks in part to Apple, the recording industry allowed stores to sell music without DRM. The problem was never iTunes, which could always play MP3s, it was the various competing DRM standards.
But Edwards and Business Insider are not here to discuss these so-called “facts” and “causes” that precipitated events. Nooo. They’re here to offer up yet another pointless gripe about Apple.
If you have a large music collection… then you’ll be familiar with the ritual of carefully editing playlists and deleting songs that can’t fit onto your iPhone or iPod, ahead of your commute or flight.
Later Edwards will complain about Google’s process, but right now we’re still laying down the framework of “Apple bad, Google awesome.” Remember, Google Music is so much butter.
I reached the end of my patience with iTunes last week—after 14 years as a loyal customer—when I wanted to watch the 1998 sci-fi movie Dark City.
Now we’re talking about movies, apparently. Movies, of course, come from Google Play not Google Music, but OK, let’s follow the bouncing ball of Edwards’ stream of consciousness. Another well-thought-out Business Insider piece.
Edwards: “I want to write another ‘APPLE SMASH!’ piece. Right now I just have some loose thoughts, so…”
Editor: “Just start writing. Why are you even talking to me? Don’t ever come in here.”
It was cheaper on Google Music. So I felt ripped off.
Well, whose fault is that? If they were priced the same Edwards would probably claim Apple was price fixing.
You can use Google Music on any device, any computer, any tablet or any phone, on any platform. It’s easier to use, visually more pleasing, and there’s no confusion as to where your songs are…
Right! If they’re not on your device, they’re in the cloud! Aaand if you’re someplace you can’t access the cloud, well, sucks to be you.
Also, as we know, Apple devices can’t download songs from the cloud, you always have to go through iTunes. The End.
One great thing about it is that Google Music works with iTunes. …I actually use iTunes on my Mac to store “my” songs that I buy from iTunes, but I use Google Music to play them.
So, you no longer use iTunes other than the instances in which you’re still using iTunes. Got it.
Google Music is also beautiful to look at.
Uh, oookay. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.
It does NOT look like a spreadsheet.
Neither does iTunes the way it ships now. Again, the horny one is not really trying to defend iTunes because… yeesh. But at least be right in your criticisms.
Oh, sorry. This is Business Insider. Never mind.
iTunes is way less than perfect and has gotten out of control. Kind of like this piece by Edwards.