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Do you use iTunes as your primary music management program/music player


  • Total voters
    213

Yamcha

macrumors 68000
Mar 6, 2008
1,825
158
Apple should really remove the "Copying music to folder" option off by default. I've always found that feature incredibly annoying because it automatically makes duplicates putting it in the iTunes folder. It's a waste of space and frankly new users probably won't even know how to turn off the feature.

I don't see it as useful at all and in the days of SSD's it's just not practical. Most people will run out of storage and may have no clue what's taking up the space.
 

LinusR

macrumors 6502
Jan 3, 2011
332
515
Apple should really remove the "Copying music to folder" option off by default. I've always found that feature incredibly annoying because it automatically makes duplicates putting it in the iTunes folder. It's a waste of space and frankly new users probably won't even know how to turn off the feature.

I don't see it as useful at all and in the days of SSD's it's just not practical. Most people will run out of storage and may have no clue what's taking up the space.

Explaining what iTunes does when it does copy files to its own directory might really be an advantage, I agree. Personally, though, I very much like the fact that all files are in the same directory, and nicely sorted by artists and albums.

EDIT: Typo
 

pika2000

Suspended
Jun 22, 2007
5,587
4,902
Apple should really remove the "Copying music to folder" option off by default. I've always found that feature incredibly annoying because it automatically makes duplicates putting it in the iTunes folder. It's a waste of space and frankly new users probably won't even know how to turn off the feature.

I don't see it as useful at all and in the days of SSD's it's just not practical. Most people will run out of storage and may have no clue what's taking up the space.
I used to prefer arranging my music by myself with my own folders. That gets old quick once I have a ton of music. Plus, I have a freaking computer. Why should I be the one micro managing files? iTunes copy music to folder feature is great as I keep my archival music on a different drive. Let iTunes do the dirty work. It doesn't matter from my end anyway, as everything is sorted by the ID3 tags.

So that feature IS useful. Most people won't run out of storage because most people have opted for streaming music, be it spotify, Apple music, etc. Lay people that have offline music generally won't have huge library of music. For those that do still manage a private offline library, I'm sure we know a thing or two about storage and simple file management. Just get all the original files to a separate drive.
 

slasce20

macrumors newbie
Aug 20, 2018
1
1
Been using iTunes since maybe 2006 and have grown to detest it more and more as time passes. I don't care if the program isn't intuitive or too large, but iTunes has bugs written into it that don't get fixed, and if you go to apple support for help they ignore you. That honestly leaves me really gassed sometimes. For example, there is a bug where if you rate an album, it will rate all the songs in that album that album rating. In the current version of iTunes, the ability to rate albums has been removed altogether, however the album ratings and auto assigned song ratings are still there and unchangeable. This ruins my smart playlists that rely on star ratings. This bug has been around for over 2 years and its hard coming to terms that apple has no plans of fixing this issue.(google "iTunes grey stars" and you'll find threads from 2015 complaining about this issue, all without any official solution) It feels like apple doesn't care at all about its users who actually use some of its more advanced features. It just seems unacceptable to have known, feature breaking, faults in a program for years without any attempt and addressing them. I'm no software developer so what do I know though. I would end my apple music subscription but I don't wanna deal with switching my library over to another service
 
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Lioness~

macrumors 68030
Apr 26, 2017
2,964
3,692
Mars
I use iTunes for listening to music, it have always worked fine. No problem with that.
Love all playlists. Love the remote control app on the device.
But I try not to use it to a lot of other things.

I do back up phone and iPad once in a while with it though.
But devices backups to iCloud on schedule.
Like to hade different kinds of backups. So iMaze backups automatically everyday.
Sometimes I have to reset or whatever in iTunes with the devices too.
Not sure it is the best app to the devices in general.

But for music, iTunes is great. It even sync the music on the devices, relatively pain free over WiFi ;)
 
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Capeto

macrumors 6502
Jul 9, 2015
475
1,054
I use iTunes on my Windows desktop, since my MacBook Pro has a smaller SSD and my music library is about 100GB. I only use it for my local library, and all Apple Music/iTunes Sync features are disabled.

iTunes is a bloated mess. It wasn’t always like that, but that’s what it is now. Some of my grievances with it include:

* Using the search bar is a pain in the butt, because iTunes lags by several seconds after inputting a letter. So any search that should take no more than 3 seconds ends up taking 30.
* I’ll sync my library to my iPhone and what do you know, several albums end up missing on my phone.
* I use album view. Sometimes, iTunes will split my albums into two listings for no particular reason, and I have to mess with tags, whisper compliments to my computer, and sacrifice a lamb on a full moon to get the album listed as a single entity again.
* WiFi Sync is useless.
* It’s 2018, let me add and sync FLAC files already. iTunes has the ability to encode MP3s into AAC files when syncing, do the same for FLAC files to ALAC if you so badly want me to use ALAC.

Previous versions were just fine, but I think it was around the time iTunes 12 came out that I noticed the overall decline in quality. Also, if someone has any recommendations for a music player/library manager that can sync my library to my iPhone and transcode FLAC to ALAC when syncing, that would be highly appreciated.
 

Avenged110

macrumors 6502a
I use album view. Sometimes, iTunes will split my albums into two listings for no particular reason, and I have to mess with tags, whisper compliments to my computer, and sacrifice a lamb on a full moon to get the album listed as a single entity again.
While I've only ever used iTunes on OS X, I do experience this all the time. Simultaneously edit the metadata for both, remove a letter or so from the album title, and it should put them back together, leaving you to do the same thing again, but this time fixing the title. That works every time for me and while it sounds like a pita, it's at least quick and consistent.

WiFi Sync is useless.
Always has been.
 

CosCom Inc

macrumors newbie
Aug 30, 2018
11
2
I see a lot of people saying that iTunes is a terrible application and needs seriously revamped. I don't really understand why people feel this way. Yes iTunes on Windows is terrible but on the Mac it works pretty well, the interface is easy to use, it sorts and keeps track of music well and has all the features you could need from a music management program. So what are your reasons for disliking it?
Choices and tastes diffee
 

uinerd

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2019
3
1
[I used itunes for many years and finally gave up on it. I've hated it every time I've used it, but I realized that sharing my past experiences here is not going to fix anything. Since I no longer know the current product I am removing my comments.]
 
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tkermit

macrumors 68040
Feb 20, 2004
3,582
2,909
bizarre iTunes interface and you accept the idea that Apple is going to manage everything for you, and you don't find the sync model onerous, the browsing miserable, searching unfathomably weak,
If you're going to trash the iTunes UI, I think it's only fair that you list some competing interface and way of managing music that you consider superior. Just so we see where you're coming from...
 
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uinerd

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2019
3
1
[I used itunes for many years and finally gave up on it. I've hated it every time I've used it, but I realized that sharing my past experiences here is not going to fix anything. Since I no longer know the current product I am removing my comments.]
 
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brofkand

macrumors 65816
Jun 11, 2006
1,299
3,236
Used iTunes on the Mac, it worked well. Never fell in love with the redesign with 11.

On Windows, iTunes is frankly not great. It doesn't run well, and in my experience never really has.

It has also never adhered to Apple's user interface guidelines, so even though it runs well on the Mac it's not a good Mac citizen if you care about UI continuity.

Much like iPhoto was ruined when they rewrote it as Photos, iTunes was ruined with v.11 in my opinion.

Now that I no longer use a Mac or iPhone, I was so glad to uninstall iTunes from my PC.
 

decafjava

macrumors 603
Feb 7, 2011
5,164
7,255
Geneva
That's fair. My daughter said I sound like an internet troll.

Two models come to mind:

1. Offline:

a. Purchase mp3 files via Amazon. Since I own them and they are on my own hardware, I can play them at any time without any account weirdness or strange library policies occurring when I switch machines.

b. Copy them onto an Android phone by dragging the files into a directory. (Note: I own an iPhone and a MacBook Pro.)
c. Organize and play on Google Play.

2. Streaming: Spotify.

Neither solution is perfect, but at least I don't experience the assortment of barriers that seem to be built into the iTunes design.
Purchased songs from the iTunes store are exactly the same - you can play them anywhere and on any device as they are also your files and don't have copy protection. You can upload them to Google play or whatever.
 

uinerd

macrumors newbie
Jan 6, 2019
3
1
Regarding the play anywhere feature, that's not what happened the last time I built up a music library on iTunes. Their account recovery feature was defective, and I lost all access to the music. Making things worse, it would not play on other devices due to DRM issues. But this was... 2013?

Since I no longer know the current product I am removing my earlier comments.
 
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retta283

Suspended
Jun 8, 2018
3,180
3,480
Everything after iTunes 9 is garbage IMO. iTunes 9 even wasn't that great but still usable. 8 was the last great version. Only ever used iTunes 11 on Windows, so can't speak for older versions on Windows. I cannot stand the current iTunes UI, and it's bloated with Apple music among other things. Also, minor nitpick, but the iTunes 10+ icons are stupid.

One thing I cannot figure out about iTunes 12, but I know is there, is how to make the player show how many seconds are left in the song instead of the total length, as in older versions.
 
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LinusR

macrumors 6502
Jan 3, 2011
332
515
One thing I cannot figure out about iTunes 12, but I know is there, is how to make the player show how many seconds are left in the song instead of the total length, as in older versions.

Just click on the number in the status bar (to the right of the progress indicator), it will cycle through the two options.
 

Apples555

macrumors regular
Mar 4, 2012
188
24
Are there alternatives?

I use iTunes for music every day on Windows. It plays music and keeps my library organized, which is what I need from it. In 10+ years, I've never had a database problem, which is commendable. I turned off Apple Music and all the extra stuff.
 
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brofkand

macrumors 65816
Jun 11, 2006
1,299
3,236
Are there alternatives?

I use iTunes for music every day on Windows. It plays music and keeps my library organized, which is what I need from it. In 10+ years, I've never had a database problem, which is commendable. I turned off Apple Music and all the extra stuff.

Do you need to sync with iOS devices? If so, then no there are no alternatives.

If you don't need to sync, look at MusicBee. It's a much better Windows app than iTunes in my opinion.
 

pmore

macrumors regular
Jul 4, 2018
135
300
Do you need to sync with iOS devices? If so, then no there are no alternatives.

If you don't need to sync, look at MusicBee. It's a much better Windows app than iTunes in my opinion.
I know there's alternatives but iTunes still looks better than most music players on Windows.

Are there alternatives?

I use iTunes for music every day on Windows. It plays music and keeps my library organized, which is what I need from it. In 10+ years, I've never had a database problem, which is commendable. I turned off Apple Music and all the extra stuff.
I enjoy iTunes on Windows as well. I love the album view since I started to use iTunes 11. Never had a problem keeping my music organized or syncing my iPhone. Then again I don't use any of Apple Music or Store features. I rip my CDs and manage the local files.
 

brofkand

macrumors 65816
Jun 11, 2006
1,299
3,236
I know there's alternatives but iTunes still looks better than most music players on Windows.

It looks nothing like other Windows apps. It is subjectively a nice looking app but it's not a good Windows citizen.
 
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MBAir2010

macrumors 603
May 30, 2018
6,433
5,920
there
itunes needs to go back to 2011(snow leopard) formatting were that version recognizes one composer maned Jean Sibelius instead of the 5 on 2015 itunes. itunes sounds horrible and flat. compared to Foobar and Quod Libet which can run in el cap and foobar in any iosx, even my ipod touch. These music platforms are far more superior and catalogue albums much better!
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[I used itunes for many years and finally gave up on it. I've hated it every time I've used it, but I realized that sharing my past experiences here is not going to fix anything. Since I no longer know the current product I am removing my comments.]
what alternatives for music do we use? im happy there are other better sources available!
 
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