Itunes, wonderful or useless?

[Ferbian]

I've been using Itunes for about a little over a half years time, having purchaused hundreds of songs, I personally find it very useful.

But sometimes I can't help but think it couldn't be more of a pain in the ass, the fact that some songs aren't available in certain countries, or at all, where as their available in CD form.
Itunes can also prove to be a problem in forms as where you've just reinstalled your Windows, you would be pretty screwed if you didn't have all your songs moved onto an Ipod or Iphone etc.
And if you're somewhat stupid enough to delete your online receipt (yes, I were that stupid, don't ask) you're without proof that you actually purchaused it, in case it was stolen and you need insurrance coverage.

On the other hand, Itunes can work wonders for you, in cases such as, laziness (because it's so much easier to go on the internet, than go down town to purchause the CD)
It can prove quite useful because you don't have to worry about a broken CD because it's in form of software.
Also Itunes can prove incredibly useful in case you just want 1 specific song, and not the whole album, because you only like one song, but despise the rest of the album, problem solved and it's alot cheaper than having to purchause the whole album

So I ask you, Itunes to you: a wonderful program, or just plain useless?

 

[The Phenomenal One]

Honestly, I cannot stand iTunes. It's just one of the many reasons why I do not do iPods. For starters, I think the layout is completely horrid and boring. And it can be a complete bitch on PCs or atleast mine lol. IMO, Microsoft's Zune Marketplace pwns the hell out of Apple iTunes, especially with the Zune pass and streaming music via wifi to your device.

 

[info62]

I hate iTunes. I would never spend money on there, but I have been given multiple gift cards which is the only reason why I ever used it. iTunes completely ripped me off. I'd buy songs with the gift card, and every other song I downloaded wouldn't work and would say something like "sorry, your giftcard has expired" and the 99 cents was still taken out of my balance. I would immediately try buying the song again, and ANOTHER 99 cents was taken from my balance, and I got the song no problem this time. That has happened to me so many times that I couldn't stand it and just gave up.

For the most part when I want to buy individual songs I just buy them off of Amazon now. There's a lot of legal places to buy individual songs in place of iTunes. So while the idea behind iTunes is definitely not useless (I would never buy an album if I only liked one song on it), iTunes itself sucks, and I would definitely recommend using an alternative

 

[Smooth Sexual Chocolate]

Lots of itunes hate going on in here.

I've never had any problems purchasing or downloading music of itunes, and anyone who ever stops by the music section can see how much music I listen to.

With that said, I love itunes, I blow way more money than I should scouring their library for new music. Their genius feature is a bit so-so, but combine it with a little pandora action and you could find any sound you are looking for.

I have never had problems downloading songs off itunes, and my purchases always come out crisp and clear. Gift cards work fine as well ( I only use cash, so I purchase a giftcard anytime I want to buy new music)

so in conclusion, I am a big supporter of itunes, I've discovered so much delicious music since I started using I tunes and it has changed my musical world for the better, anything else is just hate imo.

 

[Dave]

I love iTunes. I have been using iTunes for years now and I have never encountered a problem with it that would make me think otherwise. However, it is not the use of iTunes store that makes me think this. In fact, it is quite the opposite scenario. I have never been a fan of having to pay for media and the only media type that I will purchase for full price are video games. That being said, I do not use iTunes store to download music or video files. Especially when it only comes in a format that is iPod ready. However, I am a fan of how usable the application is. It is very easy to find the files that you are looking for and I have yet to come across an application that allows me to do as many sorts and searches on my library as iTunes does. There is also a wonderful amount of plug-ins that are available for iTunes that really can't be matched by a lot of other applications, at least for what I use iTunes for.

In my eyes, iTunes is probably the best application out there for home use and music organisation.

 

[Smooth Sexual Chocolate]

I love iTunes. I have been using iTunes for years now and I have never encountered a problem with it that would make me think otherwise. However, it is not the use of iTunes store that makes me think this. In fact, it is quite the opposite scenario. I have never been a fan of having to pay for media and the only media type that I will purchase for full price are video games. That being said, I do not use iTunes store to download music or video files. Especially when it only comes in a format that is iPod ready. However, I am a fan of how usable the application is. It is very easy to find the files that you are looking for and I have yet to come across an application that allows me to do as many sorts and searches on my library as iTunes does. There is also a wonderful amount of plug-ins that are available for iTunes that really can't be matched by a lot of other applications, at least for what I use iTunes for.

In my eyes, iTunes is probably the best application out there for home use and music organisation.

I completely agree, I only touched upon the itunes store, but the fact is your not going to find a better way to organize and keep track of your music. There are just so many options, you can organize your music any way imaginable, and find it in a snap.

One more thing about itunes that is unmatched by any other media playing system, and that's the original itunes visualizer, that thing produces endless images and colors, I would swear that the original visualizer never produces the same image exact image twice. They also have the updated 3d style visualizer, its fun for a couple songs, but it's barely capable of wiping the classic ones ass, imo.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

One more thing about itunes that is unmatched by any other media playing system, and that's the original itunes visualizer, that thing produces endless images and colors, I would swear that the original visualizer never produces the same image exact image twice. They also have the updated 3d style visualizer, its fun for a couple songs, but it's barely capable of wiping the classic ones ass, imo.

Phew! For a second there i thought no one was going to give the visualizer any love, but you nailed it Smoothie, the iTunes visulizer can not be beaten imo. I used to spend countless hours at uni getting high and listening to some Portishead, or Porcupine Tree or Mogwai etc and just zoning out while the visualizer went on a mad one. Clubs and bars, that are very focused on music being on, should use it as their default visualizer instead of music channels imo.

There are some annoying things about iTunes though, i have to say. I'm pretty pissed off that i can't convert movies that i've downloaded and put them on my iPod. My mate downloaded Public Enemies for me, and iTunes wouldn't even make an attempt to convert it, it just sat there and ignored me. Why can you convert music back and forth but not videos?

Plus the iTunes store is sometimes all over the place. I look at some stuff and think 'Ok, you've got this, this and this from way back, but why don't you have these, these or these?' How can they have the last 2 Stabbing Westward albums and not the first 2?

And then the videos section is weird also. I was stoked to find ALL of Batman: TAS, Superman TAS AND Justice League on iTunes, but no Justice League Unlimited? WTF? It's not like it's an new series that just cropped up, so where is it? If you can download the Family Guy/Star Wars parody the day after it airs on TV, why can't i download a TV series that ended in 2000, when every season that preceeded it, is readily available?

The worst problem for me is that on occassion, it's mandatory to download the new version, and since there's an updated version nearly every other month, it's a real hassle having to download it every time. I don't have a secure net connection at home, i use mobile broadband, so if the signal cuts out during a download, then tough, you'll have to start all over again and hope it doesn't cut out again. iTunes seems to force my connection to cut out, and then i'm fucked. It never happens with any other program on my laptop, but always when upgrading iTunes, so the constant updates are annoyng, the mandatory ones are even worse.

Apart from all that though, i've got to say i've used SonicStage and Napster and a bunch of others, but for me iTunes has been the best, and i don't even use it for all the other gimmicky shit they include.

 

[Dr. Stinger A. Zoidberg]

I for one, can't stand it. It's slow, boring, and at times, frustrating.

First off, you click on it when it's on your desktop. Then you wait 2 minutes for it to load. Ok, it finally loads, then it comes up with a pop-up saying you need to update your itunes software. You try to get rid of that, and what does it say? "iTunes has stopped working." So you click on it again and go through the same routine, you get to the pop-up and you decide to update it. However, now you have to restart your computer. Fuck. So there goes another 3 minutes restarting your computer. Anyway, your computer restarts and you click onto iTunes again. Ok, nothing changed. Except, now it gives you a pop-up telling you it is not your default program for music. So now you have to go fix that, you click OK, and it gives you another pop-up listing all of the music formats it can hold. You click OK on that and now you can finally start using iTunes.

Now, you want to go to the store to get music. You click on iTunes store, and that takes forever to load. Why? because iTunes is "Updating your music library." So you finally get to the store and you go to find a band you like. You type it in in the search bar and it brings you to the band. However, there is a certiain song you want. You find it and you're about to buy it when you realize you cant because it's "Album Only." Man, fuck that. So you leave the iTunes store.

Now you go to plug in your iPod to put new music on. It takes forever for iTunes to even freaking realize that you have your iPod plugged into the computer, and once it does, it tells you that a new software is available. So you click no to downloading that, and it takes forever for the pop-up to get off the damn screen. So once that's gone you click to sync new music. However now you get the pop-up "iTunes can not locate the following songs... Would you like to delete them?" So now you play around with iTunes mashing yes and no until it allows you to keep the unknown songs on your iPod. So you go to sync, and it takes forever to load onto the iPod.

Screw iTunes.

 

[X]

Wow, so much iTunes love going on in this thread, and that's fine and dandy because I've used iTunes for years and will continue to do so (I've grown accustomed to it's interface and enjoy it's features), WinAMP is far, far superior to iTunes, atleast when it comes to everything other than iTunes ability to buy music/media online. Then again, I don't buy my music, I download it (yep, I'm a pirate), so these online stores have absolutely zero use to me whatsoever, which is why WinAMP is so superior. It's interface is FAR better, it has more features, more plugins, and it's visualizers absolutely DEMOLISH the weak-ass iTunes visualizer. Seriously, you ownload the latest WinAMP and the Milkdrop plugin, and you've got yourself the single best music visualization program on the internet, incredibly complex patterns and schemes and colors always changing, always shifting, always random, just a great program. Add to that how easy it is to hook up an iPod or any other mobile device to WinAMP and the abilities to search through that iPod for certain terms, names, songs, etc (something iTunes has never had), and it pretty much just trumps iTunes in every way you can.

I use iTunes, and I enjoy it, but it's hardly the best of it's kind. I'd highly recommend you guys check out WinAMP and give it a free download, it's a remarkable media player that everyone should have installed on their system.

 

[Alex]

I love iTunes, when I'm listening to music as all my albums and songs are in one place. However when it comes to buying music from there I only do that occasionally, not because I'm a pirate like X (arrr) but because I don't see the point, if there's an album I want there's not much in the price between a digital copy and a physical copy (sometimes a CD is cheaper) some singles are quite expensive for one song (that's probably because I'm tight) and there are some songs that iTunes don't have, such as 'The Kings' by Run DMC that I had to get somewhere else.