iTunes - the worst bit of software ever written!

[Mr Bo Jangles]

For us iPhone owners and lovers, who are non-mac owners, the worst part of the iPhone experience (the only bad one for me), is that we have to interface with, and use, what is undoubtedly the most atrocious program that I have EVER had to use - iTunes.
The user interface, and so the user experience, is just god awful.

I am a software web-application designer, and I really have trouble finding my way around iTunes to try and accomplish what I want to do.

I find it astonishing that a company like Apple with some $500Billion in cash, or something like that, can offer this rubbish to us.

How many like-minded, long-suffering users like me are there out there?

Mr Bo

[Hugene]

Thank you, I thought I was the only weirdo in the world that just hates iTunes.

iTunes is the only reason I droped the iPod: at one point I spent over 1 year with the same music on the iPod because I couldn't update it with new music from iTunes; for some dumb reason it kept putting the same thing over over again.

iTunes is retarded. And the iPod was retarded for not taking the mp3 files directly.

The other day I told some kids that I was using Winamp for listening to my music. They couldn't believe that winamp is still out there. Yet, for me, it's a perfect mp3 player: low in size and in amazing in performance.

[Demaestro]

Tell me about it!

I hate hate hate hate hate it.

Just reading someone else's rant on it causing my own to swell inside.

The worst offense of all is the windows/iPhone photo management. One of my biggest compaints still is, you can only connect your phone to ONE iTunes... and if the computer that has the iTunes dies then you HAVE TO delete EVERYTHING to sync it to another iTunes.


And in one of the dumbest moves in history, you can't even create a new directory in your default camera image directory without creating it on your computer and syncing the directory to your phone.. and even if you do that you still can't move photos between the directories.

That that means after taking over 100 pictures with my camera phone if I don't want them all dumped into one folder I have to copy them to my computer.. create a folder on my computer.... put the pics I want in that folder.. then sync the folder to my phone..... and when I want to add 1 more pictures to that new directory... I have to copy the picture to my computer... put it in the folder and sync ALL THE back...

ARG!

I have been using Rythombox on my Linux laptop and it is a lot better for managing music on my iPhone, but the problem is after any iPhone update it can mess up some of the meta data of your tunes and that is a huge hassle to fix when you have several gigs.

Also... it doesn't push updates to the phone... you can only do that on iTunes... Yay! (puke)

[john_k]

I am surrounded by iPhones and iPods. My wife has an iPhone and one of my kids has an iPod Touch. And now our two youngest kids have "inherited" iPhones from relatives that have gone on to the latest iPhone model. (With no phone setup, they are effectively an iPod Touch with a camera.) Anyway, with all of that, I have seen a LOT of iTunes issues. We have had this discussion (thread title) several times with friends. I think it is a common aggrevation for most owners of these devices. And the question always comes back to "how is it that Apple, the company that is built on a reputation of ease of use, puts out something like this?" iTunes problems are never (rarely?) mentioned in iPhone or iPod reviews, and yet it interferes with all of your media and apps. You never know when a backup, sync, or update is going to go off into never-never land and not come back.

Being that my wife had to have the iPhone, we are now attached to AT&T at the hip. My first AT&T phone (a Windows system phone) died just after the Samsung Captivate came to market. I'm pretty happy with my Captivate and my wife is very jealous with the ease of synching. The easy blue-tooth & wireless toggles kind of get under her skin too. The added bonus is that I of course get to screw around with android programming.

[Old_Honky]

itunes looks to be the worst of the commercial music download sites, but most that I have investigated are limited in a similar manner. i.e. you just rent the use of a particular track on a limited amount of devices you never actually own it in the true sense of the word.

It is an unwarranted overreaction to the perceived threat of illegal downloading. I remember the days of audio Galaxy when you could find virtually any audio track in minutes. Why couldn't the performing rights people have just licensed successful and working systems like audio galaxy and then we all pay a monthly fee or a per download fee. It was the obvious and easiest thing to do but instead we now have limited, consumer unfriendly monoliths like itunes which work well enough if you want to download something popular and listen to it for a few weeks then forget it but that's about all.

i tunes and their ilk are the equivalent of bbc radio one which replaced the old off-shore pirate radio stations of the 60s and 70s. A more limited service and not exactly what the customers want to listen to.

[bhonda]

I wonder whether some of these problems are because we know our stuff.

I use iTunes on a Mac, and I have to admit, it gets the job done. I can sync stuff across, download podcasts, all that jazz.

But I am only a very, very light user. And even in my limited use of iTunes, I have had my moments of frustration. Just little things like renaming albums, or working out why I've got the tracks from one album listed as two different albums - sometimes they are just harder than they should be.

I'm so used to being the master of an application, and know what I need to do to change things quickly, when I come across these issues in iTunes, it takes me ages.

Part of me wonders whether software experience actually hinders my use of this application. If I was stupid, maybe iTunes would lead me through everything I wanted to do. But if I know what I'm doing, either I second-guess the application, or I just don't follow the application's guidance. I don't know.

Maybe it does just suck.

[StoutFiles]

I'm not a big fan of iTunes, but calling it the worst software you've EVER used? Now that's just silly.

[Rugles]

I hate iTunes. Hate it with a passion.

Love my 6 month old iPod Classic with the 160 g hard drive. But I loathe the software, absolutely loathe it.

Recenty bought a new Win7 desktop for my home. I figured it would be a simple transition of using my iPod with the new machine. No way! It wants me to delete everything on my new iPod and start over. Some of these songs I don't have on my new hard drive which means I have to rip them off my cd's again ... or download them again ... or transfer them from the old machine (which was all virused up so I really dont want to do that). This means many, many hours of work.

So, I have to keep my old desktop in running order in my basement, which now is my dedicated iPod loading computer. Arrggghhhh!

Another huge freakin problem with iTunes. The stupid updates would constantly mess with my old computer. It got so that I refused any software updates because I was afraid of the damage it would do.

Another thing, the learning curve is huge. It took me forever to figure out how to do some simple tasks. Can't believe a company that prodes itself on "ease of use" would make such software.

Why does Apple not fix iTunes. It is horrible and I am glad to see that I am not the only WebmasterWorld member who hates it.

[Rugles]

but calling it the worst software you've EVER used?

How about calling it "the worst widely used software ever".

There must be hundreds of millions of people suffering with that crap.

[Samizdata]

How about calling it "the worst widely used software ever"

Webmasters tend to reserve that title for Internet Explorer 6.

...

[Rugles]

There is no comparison, IE6 at least allowed you to easily browse the Internets .... nothing is easy with iTunes.

[StoutFiles]

The worst software I have ever used would have to be Microsoft BOB. There's no words to describe it.

The worst software related to the handling of music files would be RealPlayer. Couldn't play anything reliably and spammed the computer.

iTunes is pretty awful, but let's put it in perspective!

[J_RaD]

The other day I told some kids that I was using Winamp for listening to my music. They couldn't believe that winamp is still out there. Yet, for me, it's a perfect mp3 player: low in size and in amazing in performance.

Winamp has been used everyday on my computer for 12 years now. Why do people just assume since they stopped using the program its gone and dead?

[Demaestro]

IE 6 is a dream compared to iTunes

Windows ME gives it a run for it's money as the worst widely used software, maybe classic AOL as well.... but even those things were recognized as broken and attempts to fix them were made... in the case of the former they succeeded in the case of the latter.. not so much.

[graeme_p]

A friend of mine's main reason for keeping Windows on her netbook (she otherwise prefers Linux and has it on her laptop) is that she loves iTunes.

I use Quod Libet myself - its flexible, handles classical music OK, and stores your changes to metadata in the file, not some database of its own.

@Stoutfiles, at least the MS Bob project manager deserves credit for having a great plan B.

[BillyS]

The biggest headache I have with iTunes are the constant updates...

[brotherhood of LAN]

Literally everyone I know who uses an I-something has complained of I-tunes deleting their songs.

[HuskyPup]

Tried it once for 5 minutes and gave up, Winamp does all my stuff for me.

My other half is always complaining about Google's Picasa adding/deleting/losing stuff, I still use PaintShopPro 6 for everything, it's never once failed me and still works in Win7.

[Rugles]

The biggest headache I have with iTunes are the constant updates...

Have you had the joy of an iTunes update messing up your machine?

It took me 2 hours to reverse the damage once.

[trillianjedi]

I've been a Mac user for years, and I'm probably the biggest Apple koolaid drinker here, but even I will concede that iTunes is well below par for Apple.

I wouldn't exactly call it the worst software ever, but it is pretty poor, flakey, and inefficient.

It's the crown jewels for Apple. You'd think they would be investing in it like crazy.

has complained of I-tunes deleting their songs.

I've lost perhaps £200 worth of music and videos thanks to the flakey way that iTunes syncs, and has the capability to delete (even wipe a device) without interaction with the user.

I have actually stopped using my Apple TV for this very reason - if I fire up iTunes on my computer on the same LAN, bye bye all my videos when it tries to sync up and if I don't notice and kill it in time (these are ones you've paid for, and you cannot get them back).

So I totally agree that Apple absolutely has to get this sorted.

I will not be using the new Apple Desktop app store for this very reason - I don't want to purchase an expensive piece of software only to find that I have to buy it again due to the way that iTunes tries to sync everything. Too much risk.

[Rugles]

Apple apparently has some big announcement concerning iTunes on Tuesday.

I am hoping its a public apology!

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc is set to make an announcement Tuesday about its iTunes Store, the leading music retailer in the United States.

Apple posted a message on Monday on the iTunes website, teasing an announcement to be made at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, but gave few clues.

"Tomorrow is just another day. That you'll never forget," the message read.

The iTunes store raked in more than $1 billion in revenue last quarter. The company launched iTunes 10 in September, and also unveiled Ping, a new social networking service.

Apple's iTunes is the largest digital music store in the United States, and it also sells and rents movies and television shows. More than 10 billion songs have been downloaded from the iTunes Store since it launched in 2003.

[Samizdata]

I am hoping its a public apology!

You will probably have to make do with the opportunity to buy some old Beatles tunes.

...

[Rugles]

I have plenty of Beatles tunes already.

What I really need to do is plug my iPod into my new computer without erasing all the Beatles tunes (and 2000 other tunes) I already own.

[StoutFiles]

Is Apple oblivious to the fact that all people that would be excited about Beatles music on iTunes have already ripped the music to their computer? I'm sure they'll still make a fortune on this though.

[Samizdata]

I have plenty of Beatles tunes already.

That does not make my prediction above any less correct.

...

[Rugles]

I never suggested you were wrong.

I am still hoping for an apology .. and a way to move my iPod to my new computer without wiping it clean.

[StoutFiles]

Buy an external hard drive and keep all your music on that. Problem solved. The worst that can happen is that you have to reload music on your iPod, which you can let it do while you go do something else for a while.

[Rugles]

Problem solved.

Way ahead of you. That is what I tried.

The problem is, when you go to attach the iPod to the new machine its wants to synch and wipe out everything on the iPod. Some of the music on my iPod was not on the external drive. The reason being that I bought the external drive because after my hard drive had filled up and I had deleted some of the music on the hd because I figured it was safely on my iPod.

So now, I would need to spend many hours ripping that music from cd's again.

Thanks a lot Apple.

Plus, all the playlists I set up to manage the 3 iPods in our home are wiped out too. So there would be many, many hours setting up the playlists again.

The stupid program should just have a simple "export to new machine" function. arrrggghhhh!