I figured this would happen sooner or later…
Somewhat absent-mindedly I accepted a prompt for an auto-install of iTunes 8.0.1 last week, which immediately turned my decade-old collection of digital music into an unstable mess. And I put the blame for it solely on iPhone!
The problems began when I tried to stream music to my stereo via AirTunes, and got this surprising error message:
Um, no it won't...
I say “surprising” because streaming was working exactly as advertised!
Shortly thereafter iTunes started crashing — an inexcusable thing for the one critical piece of software that users need to interface with their music collections, and to connect to other Apple devices.
If you can’t see the problem here I’ll happily spell it out for you: iTunes is going so far beyond its original mission as a music app that its nomenclature no longer makes sense. And I’d venture to guess that for the vast majority of users it has become bloatware.
I’ll never say never, but I currently have zero interest in an iPhone or Apple TV. I could foresee playing with an iPod touch at some point, but when that day comes I’d much rather sync my PIM data to it using iSync, the sync utility made for this express purpose, than endure the marathon syncing sessions that some iPhone users have reported with iTunes.
Granted, iTunes has strong foothold as a media delivery system on both Mac and Windows computers, but such a monolithic feature set doesn’t really jibe with the rest of Apple’s desktop software. Consider that Final Cut Studio splits up editing, graphics and DVD authoring into separate apps; likewise, iWork has Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Would it be so hard to spin off video, PIM and iPhone/touch software into leaner, dedicated apps that are easier and more intuitive for the user?
I mean, this is supposed to be Apple’s core strength, ain’t it?
I’m sure Apple will send a fix for the latest iTunes/iVideos/AppStore/iPhoneSync down the pipes soon enough. But me? I’m downgrading to an earlier version without so much bloat, and hoping that Apple will soon remember that sometimes less equals more…
9 Comments
AC:
I had no problems with the new version of iTunes, but the only external connection I have is with my trusty first-gen 500MB iPod shuffle, and everything synced after the upgrade.
I find iTunes 8 slower on my G5 (1.6 GHz with Tiger) than 7 was (6 and 7 were both great). Syncing the shuffle is slower, as is searching for and downloading podcast updates. but the annoying thing is the amount of time it takes for a video to open up and play. Bloatware indeed. If they allowed users to use the QuickTime player for videos, I’d be happy. I quickly disabled the Genius function–something about allowing Apple see the contents of my music library rubs me the wrong way, as does the new-to-version-8 inability to get rid of the iTunes Store hotlink arrows.
I do like the new Grid View, though–it makes it much easier to search the entire library at once or that long list of podcast subscriptions I have.
I like the idea of breaking up the app into separate components–that makes sense. If they can at least speed up iTunes 8, I’ll be happy.
Ed
I think you protest too much. What really happened here (I think) is that apple turned on the firewall by default with the last OS update and this version of iTunes is simply warning you that a firewall can cause problems with streaming.
For me personally stability is still fine and iTunes is a reasonable place to control my iPhone, iPod and appleTV. But that is just me.
You think Apple still sync contacts to iPods with iSync? Sorry, iTunes or nothing…
I’d rather have a swife army knife than the 12-20 tools i’d otherwise have to carry around! Get it? Welcome to the world of convergence – iTunes has clearly developed into the swiss army knife of digital media jukeboxes. Personally I would’nt have it any other way.
Individual applications with separate media libraries, preferences, ect. littering the hard drive seems a little backwards to me. The suggestion seems akin to splitting Photoshop or AutoCAD into pieces because it would make the individual parts faster and more intuitive. Bottom line: Some stuff you use – a lot of stuff you don’t use – but its all there when you need it.
“marathon syncing sessions” are all a thing of the past with iPhone version 2.1 firmware. The article you linked to with those problems was circa v2.02, eons ago in internet time.
Frankly, I think I prefer to have it all in the one app when you actually have an iPhone and need all the features of iTunes. Having to run multiple apps to do all you need can be a real pain at times as well.
Adam, I think perhaps you need to give in and get an iPhone to appreciate just how useful all the extra “bloat” really is.
-Mart
Who’s Adam?
If the large app is misbehaving due to some quality control issue, why would 5 seperate apps behave better coming from the same company? A light-weight player would be fun though. Something that just plays your music library and nothing else. They would still have to interact with eachother though so little would be gained other than perhaps a smaller memory footprint.
“it’s nomenclature no longer makes sense” should be
“its nomenclature no longer makes sense”.
Missed that one… Thanks!