I was briefly excited to hear they had separated media synchronization from the atrocity of iTunes. I just experimented with the "Apple Devices App" for PC. Unfortunately, the experience has been poor, which is what I should have anticipated given Apple's track record for PC software.
First, the linked documentation provides no information about where to get the Apple Devices App. It turns out, it's only available from the Microsoft App Store. Fair enough, but odd that the documentation never says that. Second concern: yikes, this synchronization app is 188 Mb in size. But whatever, I have tons of storage on my PC, so let's proceed.
The final and biggest issue: the app simply never recognizes my phone. The phone is unlocked and has trusted the computer. It shows up in Windows Explorer as a storage device (significantly hobbled by Apple's needless file system obfuscation, but that's not new). The Apple Devices App never stops saying "Connect a device to proceed."
All told, a typical Apple software experience.
If Android weren't so awful, I'd be much happier. The way Android devices appear as just a standard storage device with a normal file system is so much easier to deal with.
Forcing customers to use a shitty JUKEBOX app to manage all the content (including applications) on a handheld Unix computer was embarrassing on day one. But after a decade... and then more... it's offensive to those customers.
Now they made the already-shambolic Windows situation even worse. It's bad enough on Mac, where the videos you shot yourself inexplicably wind up in the "TV" app now. Why the hell would you look in Apple TV for stuff you shot on your phone?
This isn’t embarrassing. Apple is supporting their “older way” of doing things for longer than anyone else.
The fact that they let you do via cable so many things that their competitors have deprecated entirely or moved to cloud is commendable. These apps all still support iPods as well.
Tell me how to buy an album from Google and have it automatically sync to your iPhone when it’s plugged in to the computer. No cloud.
Tell me how to make a backup image of your Android phone without touching a Google account. Apple’s sync app can do it for you. Let me guess, you have to use a developer tool that wasn’t intended for the consumer?
Not sure what the hell you're talking about regarding Apple TV.
The APIs for doing these things are open on Android. You do not need to rely on Google for the software, meaning the options are better than the single broken option that Apple provides. You can use syncthing for p2p sync over the Internet or adb sync over the cable or even rsync and all the tools built on top.
Also, Google doesn't sell albums, but you can buy music from Amazon or any other store you like and have good sync support instead of being limited to iTunes.
I’m also pretty sure that syncthing won’t help you with local full device backups and restores right? Isn’t the only way to do that to turn on developer options and use adb or another program that interacts with adb to backup? Google doesn’t even intend the user to do that judging by the way it’s hidden behind developer options, their only full device backup solution is cloud based.
So the question here is “how does Grandma sync content and make full device backups without the cloud?”
It sounds like Google’s option is to implement it yourself. You’ve got to go out and find the right software for your needs and none of it is made by Google.
For full device backups you have to be well-informed enough to enable Android debugging (which, again, is a developer feature and is labeled as such), or to get a third party program like syncthing/rsync. You have to build your sync stack on your own without Google’s help.
That DIY situation fine for a lot of people and it is true that it’s more powerful and open than what Apple gives you. But Apple is selling you a solution that is much more friendly to the average person and represents a complete solution without relying on third party software.
I can tell a 70 year old who refuses to use the cloud how to plug their iPhone into a Mac or PC and take a regular backup without needing to put their data on a cloud. On the Mac you don’t even have to install software, and on the PC the software comes from Apple directly. I don’t have to explain how to tap the build number seven times to enable developer options.
A 70 year old who refuses to use the cloud and doesn't know how to use developer options after following directions from a backup app but can follow the directions in iTunes backup is a rare (maybe nonexistent) thing.
Never had a problem like this on Mac. When I shoot a video on my iPhone, it’s in the photo library on my Mac. Same with downloads, photos, passwords, safari tabs, clipboard and more. No transferring of files required at all, let alone through the Apple TV app?
I've switched back and fourth multiple times. After about 10 years on Android I recently switched back to iPhone for one feature and one feature only - its integrations with hearing aids. In every other way I can think of, I find Android so much better. I remember having the same reaction when I switched 10 years ago too.
Well, I switched for another reason - I've had three Pixel phones, and all three phones had hardware failures in less than 2 years, so there is that.
I'm with you on Google's hardware being just awful, but though iPhone hardware is better, the software makes it nigh unusable, and without at least another decade of regulatory action, Apple won't allow me to replace the bits I don't like with better software.
The cross device integrations really are the biggest selling point of apple devices.
They don't always work, and some work better then others... But every other ecosystem is just smaller.
I.e. you can get your sms from an android on your windows PC through multiple applications, but it's not built-in and you still need to configure it.
Same with the easy switching with air pods. Also available for select headphones and various devices, but not built-in.
I am always giggling about apple fanboys being outraged about windows including advertising in the start menu however, considering apple inserts an advert for their cloud storage in the settings app that can't even be dismissed/disabled.
And that's ignoring the constant reminders that you really should use apple music, the gaming service etc
Updates. No guarantee that you will get the next OS update even on a brand new phone. Which stinks when financial apps require you be on the latest OS.
Yes, this happened to me a decade ago on 2 different Android devices. Since then I've moved my family and extended family to iOS and my ongoing tech support is dramatically reduced.
It's a lot harder to tell older relatives, just go buy a Samsung Android. Likely they will come back with some low end android that the salesperson said was on sale.
Where as If I tell, go get an Apple iPhone. They can pick that up and get the "right one", which ever it is.
I'm not sure I understand. Your relatives can remember to buy Apple but not Samsung?
Also, Samsung offers lower end phones with lesser but still good update policies. They're good phones but a lot cheaper than any iPhone, which should satisfy your older relatives.
If I say buy an Apple iPhone and its very likely they turn up with an iPhone maybe not the one I told them but a new Apple iPhone.
But if I say Samsung Android, they are just as likely to buy some weird no-name Android because it was a color they wanted or size or something the salesman pushed on them cause "Android is Android right?"
Can confirm this is definitely a thing. Though in my case has to do with PC's. My mother needed a new computer and when searching online for a windows laptop, she always ended up looking at the cheapest garbage on sale. Im talking laptops that cost half as much as her iphone. But tell her to look for a mac and she will have to start looking at more expensive devices that won't be e-waste in 2 years. Pretty bizarre.
I know a lot has changed in 10 years, but I'm sure glad to be done with flashing an alternative OS onto my phone to get continued support or to rid it of bloat.
Consistency of user experience. Reliable security updates for old devices that still function. Heavy integration with the Google spyware ecosystem. Poor CPU performance and battery life. Low-quality peripherals such as cameras. Manufacturer defects in Google-branded devices.
like how the back gesture works on iphones across generation and apps?
> Reliable security updates for old devices that still function
7 years of update isn't long enough?
> Heavy integration with the Google spyware ecosystem
last I checked iOS is closed source. Run your own OS or just don't use google apps. I bet most people are using gmail and google maps on their iphones too.
> Poor CPU performance and battery life.
compared to which android phone? and is this before or after apple throttles your iphone?
> Low-quality peripherals such as cameras
flag ship androids consistently have better camera hardware compared to iphones, iphone just makes it up with better camera software. You could go the sony route if you don't live in the U.S. to get a better overall camera focused phone.
Could Cider[1] be what you're looking for?
It's basically a open source frontend for Apple Music that works on Linux and Windows. It's what I use to listen to my Apple Music songs on Linux, and it's amazing.
This app is INCREDIBLE. I have been extremely unhappy with macOS music compared to iOS and this seems to address all my use cases. thanks for sending it along :)
They're currently working on a complete remake of Cider [1], which is "powered by Rust. With a partial shift away from Electron". That might fit your needs?
The latest release, v2.3.0, also supports forcing the player to use 256kbps[2]
Cider seemed to struggle just getting the 256kbps. So getting the lossless options, are not gonna be any easier, but hopefully Cider can figure it out with time!
Yup!
I'm not sure about music that you've added/uploaded to your library, haven't tried that, but given that Cider "iCloud library" I would imagine that it should just work.
I love iTunes, in the sense that I credit it with being the thing that got me to abandon the Apple ecosystem. I don't miss the constant battle with that cursed program.
I gave up on iTunes on PC and Apple Music in general a very long time ago (iPhone 3 era).
iTunes is just a mess. It's the software equivalent of a badly executed all-in-one printer, scanner and fax. Has it improved? No clue. I haven't bothered with it other than for backups.
My complaint about Apple Music is very simple: For some incomprehensible reason they make playing an entire album or albums, in order, as recorded, impossible. Take works such as Brandenburg concerto and a bunch of classical work or most of Pink Floyd's albums. In Windows Media Player I can listen to this work as intended, in the order the album was recorded. I can easily create a playlist of albums and play them back as recorded. With Apple Music, last I looked, this was still impossible.
I own a large library of CD's. I transferred all of them to Windows Media and clan play recorded works as intended without having to handle the physical media. Again, last I looked, this is impossible with Apple Music. The couple of attempts I made over the years were nothing less than disastrous exercises in futility.
Not sure what ideological or business basis Apple uses to effectively destroy an artist's creation and refuse to deliver it as intended. It is clear that selling single songs might be one of these motivating factors. OK, I get it. And this might even make sense for much of the large body of popular music. However, there are works of art that are not one hit wonders and, in my opinion, deserve the respect, consideration and option to experience them as intended.
And VLC plays for sure. I was just looking at videos captured by a (wild) game camera and the Microsoft Media Player could only play some of them, I was sure they would play with VLC and they were right.
Has iTunes on Windows ever been good? I think I tried it in 2003-4, and it was garbage then, so I uninstalled it. In the intervening 20 years, I've never heard anyone say "it's good now!", so I never re-installed it. I assumed that if you were a dedicated Windows user, you just wouldn't use iTunes, and if you weren't a dedicated Windows user but loved your iPhone, you'd do what Apple wanted you to do in the first place, and switch to MacOS.
As someone who generally hates Apple, I actually enjoyed iTunes on Windows in the ~2007-2012 era when I had to use it to manage my iPod Touch (and second one a friend gave me, since I ran out of space on the first, spreading the MLPMusicArchive across both). Performed fine on my somewhat-potato laptops, had a nice interface and search function, got the job done syncing the iPods. I never got the big deal about iTunes in particular.
Huh, that's exactly when I had to interface with iTunes and remember disliking it. It was horribly non native to the point that both it and Safari (which had a windows port in those days) ported the Apple font rendering which stuck out like a sore thumb.
Performance was also bad compared to Windows Media Player, never mind Foobar2000 etc.
And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software.
> And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software.
Loved me some Creative Zen MICRO. I'm sure there were better competitors but it's what I had. There was a tiny 1" mechanical HDD in it with a compact flash interface. The drive is now part of my office desk flare. A real conversation starter.
As someone who generally loves apple iTunes on any platform has always been a usability nightmare. In previous generations and mostly on windows it's attempt to both 'be my winamp, vlc and ebook manager AS WELL AS manage my phone more generally' was just a usability clusterfuck of epic proportions.
I have a friend who never used a Mac nor an iPhone, but he owned an iPod and so installed iTunes years ago and used it to manage his entire music library, and continues to do so to this day. I'm sure he's probably an outlier but Windows iTunes users do exist :)
> I have a friend who never used a Mac nor an iPhone, but he owned an iPod and so installed iTunes years ago and used it to manage his entire music library, and continues to do so to this day.
Same here. I eventually replaced my iPod with an Android phone, but found a software combo that allowed you to sync your iTunes library to your phone just as easily, and also enable reverse syncing of ratings and playback counts. Sadly those apps have been sold to some company that's trying to turn them into cash grabs, but at least for now the old versions keep working for me, even on my new phone and Android 14 (albeit with some tweaking that's rather requires a rooted phone).
The advantage of iTunes is that it's perfect for also managing my collection of radio comedy, because you can easily re-classify manually imported files to be treated as podcasts, which makes for a nice UX (podcasts remember their playback position, and podcast apps track which episodes you've already listened to and which are still unlistened). Most other podcast apps don't allow manual file management, so I'd have to set up fake podcast feeds for my local files otherwise, which would definitely be a hassle.
I do this! My personal computers run Windows. I have an iPod touch that I use for listening to music on a stereo in my living room. I use iTunes to manage my music library. When I want more music, I buy CDs (or mp3s if those aren't available).
It's nice owning things. It has no ads, unlimited skips, and music doesn't sporadically disappear.
I was briefly excited to hear that media synchronization had been separated from iTunes. That gave me hope that I would be able to put media on my phone without a cloud intermediary and without the crippling mess of iTunes. But, sadly, my experience is that the Apple Devices App simply doesn't recognize my phone at all, so it's non-functional for me.
I’m dedicated to Linux but I like my iPhone. iPhones are more-or-less standalone devices nowadays. They can backup straight to iCloud. The only thing I’d need to borrow a Mac for, as far as I know, is a factory-reset.
I last used iTunes on windows in like 2010 or so, I think. It was pretty awful. Although, it did have a neat feature, you could share your library over the lan, so it was neat to listen to other people’s music in a dorm. I’m sure they’ve removed that feature by now, it was too good to be true.
If the phone is functional (as in you can access the Settings app), you can factory reset from the phone, as well. You can also remote wipe from Find My if need be.
True! Actually, I have an ancient iPad that I’ve forgotten the pin for. I think I’d need a Mac to reset it. Fortunately the reason I forgot the pin is that I got a laptop and stopped using the iPad as my SSH client as a result, haha, so recovery is not really a pressing issue.
I cherish the memory of using the local music streaming feature on iTunes, until the day they introduced unreasonable restrictions.
The sentiment surrounding the iTunes release for Windows was notably intriguing. I recall that quite a few people seriously considered taking a day off just for its launch!
Anecdotally I had a friend who exclusively used iTunes on Windows XP back in the day for all his music management and playback. I still have a screenshot of his library that he sent to me over AIM. At the same time I was using Winamp for playback and Mp3tag [0] for tagging.
Present day, I only ever install iTunes on a Windows machine to do backups. My parents still use it to copy CDs to their phones, but that's it.
A couple years ago I was rebuilding my nas that i keep my music on. So I decided to trial all the popular streaming services. Apple Music had a generous 3 month trial compared to the usual 7day-1month ones. I cancelled the service on the second day. Because the Windows iTunes experience was incredibly horrible - laggy/glitchy mess. If hell exists then the worst torture there would be being forced to use iTunes.
I liked using iTunes for library management even before I got an iPod, I kinda liked the “hub” UI design rather than the miniplayer + library window (and even + playlist window) the others had.
Even if— sorry, when— my library got corrupted, and when different sections started taking 1-2 seconds to load, I still liked using it.
Somehow, in high school around that same period, while everyone was over on Winamp, it was still my favorite to both catalogue/tag and listen to the ~80GB library I had back then.. Genuinely can't remember why, though, but I do remember everyone else hated it.
I use an old version of iTunes on Windows and haven't found anything better, for the following reasons:
1. It has a taskbar player, which is a tiny strip of media controls which sits in your taskbar. AFAIK the only other player to offer this is Windows Media Player.
2. It has the best-looking (for me) GUI with the column browser etc.
3. You can use parental controls to disable all the crap like the store/videos/radio/etc. to make a very minimalist player.
> 1. It has a taskbar player, which is a tiny strip of media controls which sits in your taskbar. AFAIK the only other player to offer this is Windows Media Player.
In the taskbar meaning where you select applications that can maybe show the window title but by default is just icons these days? Or the in the notification area / system tray? If the later, Winamp has a bundled plugin for that, and I believe Foobar2000 does too.
Messy branding is now par for the course at Apple. The iPad line alone is something out of a Dell catalog: iPad, iPad 10thgen, iPad Air, iPad Mini, iPad Pro.
The only one that really sticks out as odd there is the 10th gen. Basic, Air, Pro is also their laptop lineup, right—it has been for quite a while, and nobody has complained. Mini seems like a reasonable and easy to interpret addition give tablet use-cases.
I’m guessing the 10th gen is the one with the super long support lifetime or something like that? That’s a slightly weird iPad-ism.
The issue with the Mini is that you'd usually expect it to be the budget option (since it has a smaller screen), but it's more of an Air with a smaller screen in terms of hardware and features, with a price to match.
And it doesn’t help that the original one was a budget model. (If I remember correctly.)
Personally, I like my mini being a mid-tier device. Apple probably positioned it this way to avoid undercutting their cheapest model. It’s also a bit cramped. You’re sacrificing some usability for size and they’d rather people make that trade off because they want it rather than it being cheaper.
In the most recent iteration of this lineup, the 12-inch MacBook was comically underpowered, especially for its price, there was no good reason to purchase that instead of an Air or a Pro. This was also quite short-lived, with an official discontinuation after four years.
Huh, I didn’t know they’d dropped the basic model.
It always made sense to me, at least: “pro” is premium in a power direction, “air” is premium in a lightness direction, and the base model is just the base model.
But I guess it is unsurprising that Apple doesn’t want to do a base model, haha.
Another way of looking at it, I guess, is just that it is an evolutionary process, and every MacBook is a descendent of the Air now.
The 2015-2019 12-inch MacBooks had zero benefits over MacBook Air, maybe other than the Retina screens, until the release of the 2018 Retina MacBook Air. Other than that, they had CPUs <= 1.4 GHz, a single USB-C port, and even the camera was only 480p. They were never cheaper than the base model of the 13-inch MacBook Air.
It’s weird branding. Your local music and iTunes purchases live in the Music app. Apple Music the service also lives in the Music app.
(Music purchased on iTunes can be downloaded directly to the device without syncing, but you need to manually sync with your computer to transfer over music that you acquired elsewhere. Either that or you subscribe to the iTunes Match service assuming that sticks around)
Basically, in the PC version of these apps the main difference compared to Mac seems to be that Apple didn’t split Podcasts and Audibooks into separate apps. They’re just mushed into an app that’s weirdly called iTunes. I feel like they should have clumsily but less confusingly called it “Apple Podcasts and Audiobooks”
I assume this is to cover the gaps in the new apps. In macOS they moved extra stuff to Finder. It seems the device sync app might make more sense on Windows. Maybe that will happening in time.
...only if you also install apple music or apple tv. If you don't you can still use it for music/videos.
>When you install the Apple Music or Apple TV app, you can only use those apps for your music, TV shows, and movies; you can continue to use iTunes to listen to your audiobooks and podcasts.
While offline playback will be unaffected, I wonder how long iTunes's connection to the iTunes store ecosystem will keep working and whether you'll eventually be forced to install Apple Music for accessing the iTunes store?
This is a shame. iTunes on Windows has been pretty good for bulk ID3 tag editing. Feels like a decent chance capabilities will be removed in the future.
The phrase “everything you needed to be entertained” is indicative of the biggest problem that I see with Apple today: a focus on consumerism and passive consumption. Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form. It’s a very subtle difference, but it speaks to the attitude that Apple projects today. When was the last time the intersection with the humanities was mentioned, versus how sleek and desirable the technology is?
> iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form.
I get much more enjoyment out of experiencing new music through radio functionality in Apple Music or Spotify than wasting time "collecting". It expands my horizons rather than limiting myself to what I already know I like.
There's nothing passive about recommendations. I hear a new song I like, I go to research the artist, I start a new radio station based on them, find other artists I didn't know before... it's far more active and stimulating than just listening to the tracks I already know on repeat.
In my experience you almost entirely lose the human experience of sharing playlists, talking about new discoveries, getting together with people to listen to new music.
For each individual it is probably a better experience, but there is something lost still. I don't know if it's fair to lay blame for that on Apple though, it seems like that's where things are going anyway in some many dimensions of life.
Disagree. My kids play stuff on the HomePod on the kitchen, or I do - we chat - ‘what’s that?’ If I like it I add to my library. We hear a tune on TV or a movie sound track, find out what it is and research the rest if the bands stuff. I muck about with the Discovery station, discover bands I never otherwise would, add them to playlist that get played in the car. Etc etc.
Just the other day, I discovered a rather incredible ambient/drone album using a nonstandard tuning [1] via Spotify's Discover Weekly, and excitedly pinged all my art-music-liking friends about it.
I looked for it on YouTube (via Invidious) and found it. Not my kind of music but that's not the point.
The point is that if somebody likes to keep a copy of some songs discovered during a day of autoplaying through YouTube, downloading them is very easy for anybody that wants to. Maybe it's easy to do it also from Spotify but I don't use it so I have no idea.
If you pay for Spotify, you can download songs/albums/playlists in the app if you want them offline for a flight or somewhere else you won't have access to internet. It's a single tap. (And you save songs you like with a single tap too -- and even if they lose rights, which is extremely rare but happens, you still have a record of liking it.)
Obviously that's not giving you a local .mp3 file, but that's because it's streaming, not buying.
I'm not actually sure how to do that on Spotify. But for albums I like, especially lesser-known artists making music of various kinds (I tend to lean heavily towards electronic music broadly described as "experimental"), I generally just buy them on Bandcamp and put a copy on my NAS.
After using Spotify for over a decade I moved to Qobuz, mostly on principle. Most of my library was transferred.
The one thing I miss is the recommendations, especially as I like music that isn’t very mainstream. It might be that Spotify’s algorithm is better than Qobuz, or it has a huge amount more data.
I've tried several other music platforms, but nothing has really expanded my musical horizons like Spotify's Discover Weekly. Even 5-6 years ago, most of the electronic music I listened to was relatively mainstream like Boards of Canada (BoC is great music, don't get me wrong). Last year, the album I listened to the most was Se Ve Desde Aquí by Mabe Fratti [1].
Related isn't it just the absolute worst when you find a song you love by an artist you've never listened to, and subsequently going to all the rest of their discography, liking absolutely none of it and it turns out the song you loved was just kind of a one-off thing from them?
Not saying every musician has the obligation to chase my personal tastes of course but it never fails to get a sigh out of me, haha.
That's a widely different experience I'm getting from it, discovery is really bad in my opinion. "hearing a new song I like" is usually in a completely different place than Apple Music... I don't know if I'm an outlier, but recommendations are absolute rubbish on the home page. Same goes for Netflix actually.
> Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form.
This was (and is) also a blatant form of consumerism. I honestly don't see any difference in the negative effects on this outside of going through apple rather than my local FYE.
? no it wasn't. it was taking a beautiful, timeless, intrinsically valuable thing (music) and building a business around it.
the idea was that if iTunes is the best way to tag, collect, burn, and listen to music, people would naturally adopt it and then go spend money in the store.
this lies in contrast to modern apps' desire to provide an endless library of content within the app or paid service. drives up engagement but pretty soon the point is less "best in class for music lovers" and more "how do we keep them here forever spending money"
And music lovers spend less money with a monthly streaming subscription, than they used to spend purchasing tracks or albums. I don't know about you, but I certainly spent more than $10.99 a month back when I was buying CD's. And it's even cheaper now in relative terms if you factor in inflation.
Some people think that curating a music collection is fundamentally different from collecting funkopops or some other similar mass-market consumerist behavior.
Those people are wrong, but that is what they think.
They'll ramble on about purity and emotion completely oblivious to the fact that someone searching for, categorizing, and collecting various types of paperclips is perfectly capable of experiencing the same emotions.
They mean that 20 years ago I was really into music blogs and videos and tagging and getting videos onto my iPod to the point it's literally what got me into programming: step by step, shitty AppleScript to set up auto convert + add to iTunes flows, compiling C to get the latest HandBrake that could do non-DVDs...
Now it's too easy: I have the absolutely fantastic experience of having infinite music in my hand on demand without any of the work. I've completely lost touch with music over the last decade. I am always vaguely frustrated because it's not _that_ good, it panders to my taste too much, and there's no value to any of it.
The foraging made it a hobby and intellectually stimulating, the "please tap this! or this! or this! or this!" makes it boring and all the same.
> The foraging made it a hobby and intellectually stimulating
Funny, I get a far superior foraging experience exploring radio stations based on obscure artists and other people's playlists.
I don't understand how the friction of having to build programming tools made your music experience better.
And I truly don't understand how making things easier leads to you losing touch with music. Maybe it's more just a function of getting older and having other, new priorities enter your life?
I checked in with the poster, they got oddly upset, shook their head and started mumbling under the breath: "no, _DVDs_, handbrake. the programming was for iTunes movies". Then they spoke more clearly: "no, my lifestyle hasn't changed, and no I won't prove it, even if I wanted to, I don't understand the idea of strangers telling me my lifestyle changed and that's why I don't read Pitchfork anymore"
Maybe as you matured and developed more responsibilities as life went on, you had less time and energy to invest in music as a serious hobby. This is a normal development.
I checked in with the poster: they got oddly indignant about it and claimed they knew themselves well and they meant their comment. I asked for more concrete proof that their lifestyle hadn't changed significantly and they refused.
I still don't see the distinction—you presumably bought the music somewhere. It can't just be the marketing you're complaining about because piracy is just as viable now as it was then.
Sure, Apple aligned itself in a way that ultimately added to its and its partners’ bottom lines. But somehow, the company’s attitude felt aspirational to me in a way that it does not today.
I can see your point. For me personally, though, the progression was:
1. Like the look & feel of Apple hardware
2. Feel like the iPod/iTunes scene is shiny bullshit, but whatever
3. Buy a laptop & figure I'll give OS X a shot, if not install Linux
4. Fall in love with the ability to really get some work done rather than have to futz with my system all the time (despite loving to futz with my system)
iTunes started as a free utility for organizing and playing mp3s for mac users, then Windows support was added. For the first few years you couldn't even spend money on it if you wanted, then they added the iTunes store without removing any functionality, and still charged nothing.
What it is now is absolutely blatant consumerism, but you are misremembering what iTunes originally was.
> Twenty years ago, iTunes’ emphasis was on collecting, experiencing, and enjoying an art form.
Or, better yet, creating.
Time was when FCP trounced any video editor for Window, all of which were buggy and unreliable. Now, FCP is more of a niche product for pro or semi pro editors.
Garageband was never the top choice for pros, but it was highly accessible at that time. Hours of fun for an adolescent. Now, it's weird and tough to use, presumably due to a fruitless bid to target the pros.
Apple has basically given up on the low end of the pro market with their product choices and it's extremely disappointing. At a 5000 ft. view, their product line was basically gentrified as monied consumers pushed out artists and creators.
> weird and tough to use, presumably due to a fruitless bid to target the pros.
Have you tried the phone app? It’s fantastic, and easy to use. I assume the expectation is that if you are opening Garageband on a Mac these days, you “graduated” from the phone.
> fruitless bid to target the pros.
I personally know multiple musicians who have albums on streaming services that they made in Garageband.
>Have you tried the phone app? It’s fantastic, and easy to use. I assume the expectation is that if you are opening Garageband on a Mac these days, you “graduated” from the phone.
This idea of a "low-end creation apps" always sat weird with me. As kids our go-to tools were usually pirated copies of Cubase, Vegas, and Photoshop. Garage Band, iMovie/Windows Movie Maker, or MSPaint weren't even considered.
> When was the last time the intersection with the humanities was mentioned, versus how sleek and desirable the technology is?
Probably around a decade ago, at least. The low hanging fruits of digitalisation have been gone for a while now. I can't really think of anything they've released since for which it was immediately obvious what "problem" was solved. So it requires different arguments to convince us to buy their stuff...
I think Apple has always been like this (one-button mouse, B&W display, proprietary keyboard plug, dropping the floppy, adopting USB, adopting FireWire, making the original iPod only function as a FireWire hard drive on Windows, etc.) But, like any product maker, the choice of whether you buy it or not is up to you. If you don’t like the whole package, find another option?
To put it another way, if, for whatever reason, someone made a delicious food item that was perfect for me in every way — mind-blowing taste, exceptional packaging, incredible mouthfeel, truly a cut above any other food — except that it gave me the extreme shits, I wouldn’t keep eating it and complain about it all the time. I would simply not buy it anymore. I don’t think, as a complete package, it’s for me — despite the fact that everyone has the right to food to nourish them.
I've never 100% understood it either, the only steelman I've been able to come up with over years is most people are like me and lose or damage the wireless earbuds every 6-12 months. I'm lucky enough to be a yuppie tech nerd with disposable income to treat it as a fact of life. Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year.
> Whereas for them it feels like a forced march to spend $150 every year.
Except that you are not, there exists a 8-10$ dongle from apple for lightning to headphone and, i just had to check, there exists a usb-c to headphone dongle for the same price range if you happen to have the newest gen phone.
So instead it's a forced march to buy a new dongle if you happen to lose your cheap wired headphones/earbuds, assuming you just leave the dongle attached to the headphones/earbuds.
'forced purchase' is much different when its $8 and not $150 (and let's be clear you can get bluetooth headphones and earbuds for well under $100 at this point). Let's also remember that when apple made this change originally they packed in earpods w/ lightning connectors.
I can understand some grousing when the headphone jack was removed. I can't understand grousing still almost 8 years later. Buy the phone or don't buy the phone, they clearly aren't going to add the jack back.
I hate wireless headphones because they are a strictly worse product. They cost a lot more, can be lost, and need to be charged. But the only advantage they offer (being wireless) isn't actually useful. So I use wired headphones, because they are flat out better in every way that matters.
Not having a wire is an obvious advantage, even if the negatives you listed are true. Obviously this only applies to me, but having to avoid yanking or catching me headphone cord significantly impacted my range of motion if I was doing anything other than walking or sitting down.
Indeed Apple AirPods are such a step above in usability of even other wireless headphones, let alone wired, that they're almost a separate product category.
They're so much better than what we had before that once you've used them for a few days it's hard to go back.
I have AirPods Pro but ended up prefering the Samsung Galaxy Buds (had many different iterations of them from Samsung). Samsung products compatibility is overall better with non-Apple products and it works ok with Apple products too.
If you have to use Windows computers for work and use Microsoft Teams and all that, Samsung line works. If you want to connect with a Linux computer, Apple AirPods get terrible audio quality (and had same issue on Windows 11), but the Samsung Galaxy Buds (all of them) seem to work fine.
I mean... I assume that the person you're replying to doesn't buy Apple products. I certainly don't, precisely because I hate their arrogant "we know better than you" approach to technology. But I still think it's valid to discuss it as a drawback of the company's philosophy, even if you are choosing to not be a customer.
Sure, I'm for open discussion, but I think it could be argued that it is the central underpinning of Apple's entire ethos. It's a matter of perspective whether this is an arrogant approach or a user- and productivity-friendly design philosophy. Discussing that is great.
Stating that you are forced to use or upgrade a thing, that Apple is somehow giving you something counter to what they have offered or that you have decided to pay for, or that there is some platonic ideal of hardware that Apple should be pursuing is the take that puzzles me. Just... choose another piece of hardware.
I mean, that's what I'm doing. I stopped buying apple stuff about 20 years ago. My phones are Android, which I'm not exactly thrilled with, but consider to be the lesser of the evils.
But let's be real, a smart phone is practically a requirement to participate in modern society, and there are two options. iOS and Android. "Opting out" is becoming increasingly hypothetical.
I feel this, and it's pretty dismaying. I'm ok enough with Apple still, but I do question it frequently. I'm watching closely the Asahi project and Haiku (I know, orthogonal approach) on the desktop and constantly questioning my use of smartphones. I don't love the walled garden that Apple has become, either.
The Mac in the early 2000s was centered around creating. iLife was the big selling feature. As a kid, I was super thankful my parents bought an iMac because it meant I could create music in Garageband, organize it in iTunes, mix into into a home video that iMovie loaded from my digital tape camera over FireWire, then burn a DVD in... iDVD. I spent countless hours creating stuff that way, whereas on my previous handed-down Win98 laptop I only played games.
Not much of that works as a selling point anymore. iMovie and Garageband are still great, but they don't even come preinstalled.
Someone local has some kind of i-device (iPod? iTouch? He doesn't remember) from which he would like to extract copies of the music on it. I'm not even sure what to do. I have heard so many horror stories of iTunes just trashing libraries ...
I'm not even sure what I would search for in terms of Windows software or what kind of cable I would need. And Apple's branding is so ... operationally overloaded, overlapping, whatever, I'm confused.
This question seems a little dumb, perhaps less so in terms of our DRM world: by "transfer" does that mean move or copy? Because we're hoping to copy, not move.
Apple's software won't let you do that, you'll need something third-party. If you're lucky, the device will be old enough to jailbreak to get full access to the file system.
I like how they fail to mention that the Apple Music App on Windows is hot garbage riddled with bugs. A few weeks ago they broke reordering of upcoming songs, the "play next" feature and I don't know what else.
I have submitted bug reports with exact steps, reproducible on at least two accounts on five different conmputers. Haven't heared back, doubt I'll ever will.
Anyone can recommend a streaming service that isn't Apple Music, Spotify or YouTube Music? Bonus points if I can just add a plugin to my old trusty winamp to use it.
Cider[0] is a client I've seen for Apple Music. It seems to have pretty good reviews. It is paid software, but it's a one time purchase of $4. Worth a shot!
It's incredible how bad it is both for macOS and even on iOS.
I know people like to criticise Spotify's UX/UI but whenever I'm using Apple Music on my partner's devices (she has AM, I'm on Spotify) it's a quite marked difference in snappiness of the UI, Apple Music for some reason has the same weird loading behaviour that the App Store suffers from (and sometimes even fucking System Settings on macOS goes through), and I can't understand how Apple can drop the ball that much in their own platforms...
It's definitely one of the worst apps I've ever used in a long time. Finder is another POS.
Slow. The main "Listen Now Screen" is slow. It's an un-cached webview or something, that should be instantaneous.
The "Search area" is on the scrolling side bar on the left, and the toggle for searching between Apple Music and just your own library is on the right. It's not in the toolbar at the top where it should be and where it is on damn near every other macos app.
The lyrics can't expand to bigger, unless you switch to fullscreen mode, and then they're often unreadable because of the background colours.
I don't understand. These are "just" media players and all split up to do one thing each. How do they all do that one thing so miserably. TV hangs for multiple seconds every single time I download or delete episodes of TV shows and the player is so incredibly bad and doesn't save your progress properly
Huh, it never occurred to me that you could download episodes on an Apple TV. What’s the use-case? I download shows on my iPad so I can watch them when I’m traveling without internet, but my Apple TV is always plugged in. Intermittent connectivity in the home? Maybe bugs stick around because the feature is rarely used?
I'm not talking about the device btw. I am indeed talking about the TV app that comes preinstalled on Apple devices. I watch from my Macbook. The TV app is confusingly also Apple TV with a subscription service called Apple TV+
My use case is I've found that, for reasons unknown, the streaming quality is worse than if I download the episodes. Streaming always stays at 720p or lower whereas downloading gets me 1080p every time. And being able to watch things when I move around even with spotty internet
I can’t do the most basic of tasks on Apple Music on my Windows PC - I literally can’t play music!
I’ve tried:
- redownloading the app
- deleting all local state in the Music folder
- logging out of my account, and logging back in
- deauthorising my PC, then reauthorising it
It just never starts playback, no matter what I do!
Cider works fine. The Music apps on my phone and Mac work fine. Very weird.
edit: plus, they have a lot of problems with music artists getting mixed together - if an artist has a common name, say “Ray”, you’ll see music from other artists with the same name mixed in. Apple’s support totally disclaim responsibility and said I should contact the record label to get them to correct it. This is absolutely ridiculous, and the record label predictably doesn’t care. It ruins recommendations :/
> If you don’t install Apple Music or Apple TV, you can continue to use iTunes for all your media.
… so why would I install either of those? What’s actually changing if I only have iTunes installed?
The interesting thing is – what will happen in the future? Will they continue maintaining the parts of iTunes that are now being duplicated by the Apple Music app?
This being Windows, at least you're not being forced to immediately upgrade like it happens on a Mac (where those things are seemingly tied to your version of macOS) and in the case of eventual breakage can continue using a previous version indefinitely, but that leads to the next question – on the off chance that you do want to use the iTunes store, too, how long will that keep working with old iTunes versions?
Thanks, I hate it.
I tried to transfer some audiobooks I have using iTunes and it didn't work. The music app is buggy as hell.
I'm not sure if Apple wants me to buy a Mac or switch to Android but I'll probably go with the latter.
I feel like this is largely Apple realizing that their iPhone, iPad, and even Mac customers sometimes need to use Windows.
Given this also went along with an iCloud for Windows redesign.
Instead of them fighting Windows, make the experience slightly better for their customers which really just helps keep them in your Ecosystem, just slightly expanded.
I do, although I use an older version. I used it to play the local music files I've accumulated over the years (I don't always sub for spotify and it doesn't actually have a lot of that stuff anyway).
Even on win10, windows media player is still garbage. iTunes has the column browser which, although disabled by default, is superior for navigation. Its also better for editing file metadata and managing playlists. You can automate iTunes via COM and I have my own command line music player program that uses this, to get playlists and similar metadata.
I think the Windows client will live as long as the iTunes Store.
Which I was sort of more confident about when it seemed to just be in a forgotten corner of Apple somewhere just ticking along. Now it's clear someone has come up with a strategy™, I think there's more risk they might screw with both to push people into subscription services, and I can't help but see an iTunes Store shutdown as being the beginning of the end for digital music sales.
You can still buy movies and tv shows from Apple through the TV app, even though AppleTV+ exists. My guess is the iTunes Store simply becomes the Apple Music Store.
iPhone/iPad is a gateway to the Apple ecosystem. If a Windows users couldn't share their media with their phone, they may never buy any Apple hardware at all.
Yeah if you're a creative professional you often have a Macbook for web, presentations, comms, coding, photoshopping, design then a PC for video editing, AI and 3D.
As long as I can still move pictures from wife's phone. Still, this is such an annoying change. As in, Itunes on PC always sucked, but it did not occur to me that Apple would want to actively make it worse.
edit: This reminds me. Wasn't there a FOSS project that has most of Itunes functionality?
If I plug iphone in to a PC without itunes, best I can hope for is extraction of images. To even access a small portion of the rest of the filesystem, I need(ed now ) itunes.
What I recall using once for some backup purposes was a itunes like program that gained access to almost everything ( all media ).
I like how Apple's page starts with "When iTunes was originally released, it had everything you needed to be entertained. Now, there are individual apps for all your media" - yes, exactly! That's the problem!
I disagree. It is nice to have separate apps for Music, Podcasts and audiobooks. You know, do one thing well.
Spotfiy tries to do all of these and it's a bloated mess.
Back in the day, you uploaded all your own media. you didn't have access to hundreds of thousands of streaming options across music, podcasts, and movies. Having a single app to upload your media and sync to your MP3 player was optimal.
Now that everything is streaming, and accessible on mobile without a need to sync to a local source, the benefits of media type unity is much weaker. It's easier to have individual apps that provide access points to each type of media library and optimized for that type of media.
But,
There are still those of us (such as myself) that prefer the local media sourcing, using iPods, etc, and that would love a unified app without any store. Just a window into my personal media library and the ability to sync it to a handheld device. Though the options for handheld devices these days are both slim and expensive...
One thing I miss with the move to mobile and cloud-first is that you used to be able to organize your phone apps on a desktop which I did every 6-12 months to clean them up. I find that's a real pain on an iPhone. I guess I can just remember names and search but I liked a more organized layout over 4 or 5 screens by general category.
That's because they're a bloated SaaS company trying to monetize M4A files.
A music app simply lists what you have available. SaaS bloatware on the other hand constantly changes its UI to maximize engagement and nudge users towards ad-stuffed podcasts, because the music is a loss-leader for them.
“Do one thing well” isn’t the same thing as “make several almost identical copies of a monolith, all wearing different hats”.
I just hope this doesn’t actually come with three times the resource impact of iTunes. As far as I remember from my Windows days, iTunes was enormous and basically supplied half the macOS standard library and frameworks compiled to DLLs with it.
The new apps seem to take more advantage of the open source collaborated cross-platform version of Foundation rewritten in Swift that uses as much of Windows' WinUI and other native libraries as it can get away with (via more direct WinRT/Swift bindings), much thinner than the Objective-C Foundation the old iTunes was built on that used very few Windows native libraries. The apps themselves are still closed source so we don't know for sure, but overall they seem less bloated and more "Windows native" than the old iTunes, while apparently still sharing a lot of Swift code with their Apple platform relatives.
It's a fascinating new version of the old stack that works much better on Windows, if those things are true. At least in my usage so far, the Apple Music and Apple TV apps feel much better on Windows than iTunes ever has.
Unlike Apple, which can have all their apps installed by default on their OS, Spotify doesn’t have such luxury. They’re lucky if users take the time to download and install their one app let alone asking them to install multiple apps.
I’m sure if Spotify had the choice they would split things into separate apps. Having separate apps makes it much easier to deploy changes since you don’t need to coordinate (as much) with other teams for every release.
> They’re lucky if users take the time to download and install their one app let alone asking them to install multiple apps.
In practice, this doesn't appear to be an obstacle. Companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, etc. have many apps in the App Store "Top Charts".
If anything, this would be a smart marketing strategy if Spotify could (for example) make a compelling standalone "podcast" app, because it would allow them to double or triple their footprint on App Store charts.
I doubt anybody would care about Spotify putting everything in one app if podcasts, etc were just sidebar items, especially if there were settings to hide them, but the issue is that they’ve intentionally made these things hard to avoid. There’s no way to signal to the Spotify app that you care only about music and will never be interested in other Spotify offerings.
As opposed to just ... a tab in iTunes?
There's a lot to hate about iTunes historically, but having the useful stuff in one place was not the thing to hate, and the additional value each app brings is almost nothing, whereas the clutter they bring is real.
It's good to be able to focus on things, but this is way too categorized and just drives even more clutter.
To be fair iTunes wasn't that great either, it was mostly a necessity to use iPhone (Update etc). Personally I haven't used any of these apps since it became possible to perform backups and updates without a computer.
Perhaps its the elder millennial in me, when I am on my desktop PC, I like to keep my taskbar clean and not have all these windows scattered about to keep me entertained, gives me a feeling of clutter. I like to have one app that just does everything for me when it comes to audio entertainment, I like the Spotify app for that reason.
Maybe it was a function of iTunes rather than an integrated app but I always found it sort of a mess. As I recall the only reason I started using it for music was that syncing from my other music library app just got too cumbersome.
My issues with the individual apps isn't that they're individual, it's that they're all Catalyst apps. This brings with it mandatory sandboxing, so my media files must live on my system drive. Any attempt to relocate them violates the sandbox, and it's recreated clean.
It's pretty neat, and pretty surprising, that I can still sync my iPod in 2024. But having a large collection of audiobooks means there's a lot of data clogging up my system drive - where audiobooks would otherwise be an ideal candidate to be offloaded almost anywhere else (they're slow, they're infrequent, etc).
Because there are specialization that are important. Longer form audio generally requires a more robust set of controls for chapters, audio playback speed, timed skips and resume than a bog standard audio player. Not to mention that a podcast player is going to need functionality for finding new podcasts, displaying information both at a podcast level and individual episode level, providing some kind of way to 'subscribe' and thus download said podcast (for offline listening) or stream it on the fly.
General tools are great and I'm never going to argue that there should not be generalized tools (like say a VLC), but specialized tools are also great and should be encouraged where they make sense. To me the differences between listening to music and listening to audiobooks or podcasts are different.
My problem is – certain features of podcast apps (like tracking of your playback position and tracking of listened/unlistened episodes) are also very useful for my collection of radio comedy. That collection however mostly doesn't come from actual podcasts, but instead has been accumulated from all sorts of places.
Most podcast client apps don't allow manually importing files, so I'd have to maintain fake podcast feeds for all my local files. There's software for that, too, but it'd still be more cumbersome than with iTunes where I just need to set the media type of those files to "Podcast" and I'm done.
> Because there are specialization that are important. Longer form audio generally requires a more robust set of controls for chapters, audio playback speed, timed skips and resume than a bog standard audio player
That's merely a reason not to use one /inadequate/ app for all audio.
Podcats (I use Overcast) are pretty different from music and I wouldn't generally intermix them. And you already have Library and Streaming modes of Apple Music so podcasts would be yet another mode.
The things is that iTunes also allows you to manually reclassify you media files as a podcast, and I found (still do, actually) that very useful for managing my collection of radio comedy scrounged together from all sorts of places (downloads from BBC iPlayer, downloads from various places collecting that kinds of shows, a very few genuine podcasts). That way I could keep them out of the main music library, gain the listened/unlistened episode display and playback position tracking, and still easily sync them over to my phone [1].
Without iTunes, I would have to set up some fake local podcast feed on my computer to get those episodes into the podcast app of my choice instead.
[1] Using iSyncr + Rocket Player after switching from an iPod to an Android phone – sadly those apps were sold by the original developer two years ago, though, and the new owners are seemingly just trying to turn them into a cash grab, so I cannot recommend them any more, though for now the old versions sort of keep working, albeit you need a rooted phone to work around some issues.
On the other hand Apple Music already has audio streaming and playback and a Library mode so should Podcasts write their own?
While yeah debundled separate apps will make probably the main use case of what was the bundled app better it also likely leads to stagnation and buggier experiences over time in the apps where the less popular features were debundled into.
Like all knowledge and talent required to code the Audiobooks app is the same as whats required to code the Music app so which team would you rather be on given the choice.
I don't know if you remember but iTunes was the overbloated app from hell that couldn't be refactored because it was too far gone. Every year it got slower and buggier and increasingly just wouldn't work.
Thank god they started cleaving off chunks into separate new apps that got built from scratch. It was a monstrosity.
I don't understand why you think separate apps is a problem. Heck, the #1 complaint about Spotify is that they added podcasts and audiobooks into the existing app rather than as new apps, which clutters up the interface.
Strong disagree, when itunes was about managing your phone generally (backups, resets, file transfer), managing your personal music collection on and off your phone, managing and playback (sans books i think) your itunes store purchases (music/movies/books)... it was too much. It created a weird usability nightmare where things that should have not been blended were blended.
Every PM who worked on iTunes should be cancelled from the tech industry. Having iTunes on your resume should be the Mark of Cain as far as I'm concerned. I've never had the displeasure of working on a more terrible piece of software in my life and it shouldn't be this bad. Shame on everyone who worked on it, even though given Apple stock price, they are likely 8 or 9 figure millionaires.
Purchased tracks are either 256 kbps AAC or ALAC (Apple Lossless). It's worth noting that Apple's AAC encoder beats everything else (I've done lots of testing), even though at 256 kbps this isn't a huge consideration.
Their Apple Digital Masters program (formerly Mastered for iTunes or "MFiT") offers guidance and tools for labels, which is why Apple's iTunes catalog offers such consistently high quality.
I keep most of my music in Jellyfin (at least most of the stereo as opposed to 5.1 music) I wrote a Python script that would download chosen albums from the server, run them through the Apple's command line AAC encoder, cache the results, and then carefully copy them in the right order to an exFAT file system on a USB stick that I use in my car.
I've been wanting to add a lot of Super Furry Animals albums to that stick but my mac mini died last year and I wasn't in a hurry to get a new mac. From time to time I think about pulling the SSD out of it and getting the Python script running on my Linux server, I could either use a MP3 encoder like LAME (always encoding at a high bit rate so it's going to be OK) but I do hear people have cheated to get the Apple AAC encoder to run on other OS
I've used the same software to pack up music for my Garmin watch and for that I do use AAC Pro at 96kbps because I figure in the gym or out on a run it is a noisy environment. For that the Apple encoder really is superior to alternatives.
iTunes on PC has always been so much worse than iTunes on Mac. I was on Android for awhile in no small part due to having tried to use iTunes with an iPhone (remember when you had to do that?) and hating it.
Apple’s podcast apps have been second rate since the very early days also. So they should just give iTunes for PC the Viking funeral it deserves.
> iTunes on PC has always been so much worse than iTunes on Mac.
Like Flutter, its unfixable jankiness comes from not using native controls. Anyone using iTunes for Windows is really using a bit of pre-X Mac OS in the form of Carbon/QTML. This is surely one of the reasons that Apple is gradually giving iTunes for Windows that Viking funeral you're asking for.
iTunes was a complex mess with too much functionality in one app, but for many years it worked really well for me. Replacing it with the new apps has been a process of removing functionality I relied on, obfuscating and making less user-friendly existing functionality, and pushing people into using cloud services. Some examples:
- Older versions of iTunes had a great "home sharing" function that allowed sharing the library with devices running iTunes on the LAN. I used this very extensively. iTunes running on my 2008 Mac Pro still runs the server, and there is kinda-sorta client functionality in Apple Music, a bit hidden, but it is not reliable (constantly disconnects mid-song). Also, there was never an iOS client which would stream from this server. There were some half-baked attempts at open-source apps that would do it, but Apple broke them by encrypting the streaming across my own LAN.
- iTunes stored podcast and audiobook files in a simple and transparent way. Now podcasts (accessed using the separate Apple Podcasts app) are stored buried in Library subdirectories with long gibberish filenames. Although they're really just MP3 files with extra tags, it's now very difficult to just grab an episode by filename and save it elsewhere or forward it to a friend.
- iTunes had best-in-class tag editing. Apple Music's tag editing is buggy.
Jobs had a vision of the Mac as a media hub for managing your collection and I liked that vision. Apple even (eventually) removed DRM from iTunes downloads. Forcing me into DRM and subscription services? No thanks. What I've done instead is, gradually, buy many dozens of used CDs and rip them, to replace any lossy iTunes files I purchased years ago. My entire library is now CD + ALAC (lossless) + purchased FLAC files that some vendors offer (and which were never supported on iTunes or Apple Music, but play flawlessly from the Synology). I use rsync to sync my iTunes library to my Synology NAS, and use Synology's free iOS apps to stream the whole library on our iOS devices, or on laptops and desktops, just use the web player. It works great and I can stream to stereo receivers without any difficulty as well using an AudioEngine B-Fi. No streaming services, no monthly bills.
WOW finally I encounter somebody with the same use case as me in the wild. I thought that would never happen. Except I stream off my 2007 Macbook instead, which is basically just a NAS to me at this point. (I actually do own a Synology NAS but have not integrated it with this existing system)
I hate the UI on Apple Music enough that I don't use iTunes Home Share anymore, but instead run an instance of MPD and then just control playback through ncmpcpp. But to modify tags, add ratings, etc. I have a Screen Sharing session open to the 2007 machine to use iTunes. I have an ongoing project to write a web app that would free me from iTunes altogether, but it will be a while before that's usable.
I don't remember if I ever encountered the disconnection issues you did with a modern machine + home sharing with an older one. The thing that drove me the most nuts was that I could not use home sharing if I was using my headphones over bluetooth. They had to be plugged in for home sharing to work.
My favorite trick was when I figured out how to get the advertisements from home sharing forwarded over VPN, so I could use it when I was on work travel. Unfortunately that broke when I upgraded from Mavericks to High Sierra and I never figured out how to fix it.
I've been mostly happy with Plexamp. Main issue with it is the inability to sync my entire music library offline onto my phone (FLAC->Opus) which according to their support pages is not a feature they plan on supporting.
I’m liking Jellyfin’s music support for my giant collection of FLACs (other formats are supported). I can pull it up on any browser (don’t need to install anything on my work PC). There’s also an iOS app called Fintunes that provides a great native music-listening experience.
Apple Music is mostly fine. And as long as you're going to sync to an iPhone, it probably doesn't make sense to use a different app. (Though I use VLC for other things.)
I recently tried Apple Music and then gave up because it didn’t support podcasts and the podcast apps that exist in the Apple ecosystem aren’t as good as Spotify
>> the podcast apps that exist in the Apple ecosystem aren’t as good as Spotify
Do you mean Spotify is better because it's all in one? Or specifically as a podcast client it's better? Because, as a podcast client, Spotify is shockingly bad. Perhaps the worst podcast client available. Apple Podcasts, Overcast, and Pocketcasts are all much, much better.
The UI is lackluster, since it's just the same one from the normal Spotify Music experience.
Because they bought Joe Rogan they had to add video too and video is horribly implemented. There isn't even an obvious way to turn it off.
I consider myself tech-savy but I gave up trying to turn off and just switched to Apple Podcasts.
Podcasts and Music are not the same.
Please if you really want Podcasts to happen then, Spotify, make a separate App for it.
Spotify podcasts were what made me jump ship to Apple Music. At least back then, Spotify would heavily prioritize their podcasts in the UI. Podcasts were front and center on the main screen. I don't just mean the desktop or mobile UI, but in Apple CarPlay and Android Auto too, where screen space and attention are at a premium. I had to keep fighting the UI to get to what I was paying Spotify for: the music. When I tried out Apple Music and saw that it was music only, it was easy to leave Spotify because their priorities were no longer aligned with mine.
Not a spotify nor Apple Music/Podcast/itunes user here.
Aren't both audio stuff where you press play, pause, stop, rewind and fast forward?
The only difference I can think of is that you might sometimes want to accelerate playback of podcasts but that doesn't mean it can't exist in the same player.
Podcast apps, good ones, have many features you don't need in a simple app like a winamp or vlc.
1) An online catalog of series that is searchable (probably both by name and topic and participants).
2) That catalog must contain metadata both at a series level and an episode level.
3) That online catalog must also be navigable without search, of course.
4) Ability to subscribe to any given series and for the app to have an option to pre-cache an episode for offline use.
5) Several content controls that aren't really required for music listening but are must haves for podcasts such as timed skips (30s, 60s) and playback speed adjustment (only useful in a music player where you probably want to do beat matching).
I think the biggest differentiator though is the episode/series catalog. It makes podcasts actually discoverable.
There are audio players that allows you to find radios by various criterias: genre, bitrates, location, etc.
I don't think it is hard in term of UI nor does it justify a different app when you can have an additionnal tab that allows to find podcast. You just have to change the criterias.
Subscription to podcast is done via rss right? I don't think that is a huge deal either.
More the inverse, that Podcasts is bad because it doesn't have the integrations Apple music has, eg there's Sonos support for Music, but none for Podcasts.
This is Spotify's main advantage: most people already have it installed, and it's good enough if you don't care that much about the podcast-listening experience.
I was in this boat. Now I'd really like to get off. The UI is bad but I got used to bad. But I've been asked to change my password *checks email* 10 (!) times in the last few months. I don't share my password with anyone, but I do use a VPN.
Anyways, I can't seem to find a suitable alternative that will keep track of my listening progress across both linux and iOS.
Chapter support, playback rate control, smart speed (skips silences), voice boost, a UI that’s less horrific than Spotify’s are the main things for me.
Did they really invest in Rogan and podcasts just to keep their existing customers? I thought it was to entice podcast connoisseurs to the Spotify platform, who WILL care about podcast listening experience?
Podcast apps let you subscribe to feeds, so it automatically downloads new content when available. Some also have quality-of-life features like speeding up playback, syncing progress between devices, and letting you view text data that accompany the audio (e.g., episode descriptions and links).
Podcasts also tend to carry different metadata than music files, e.g. chapters which makes a dedicated client a little nicer since it’s guaranteed to handle all of that correctly.
Though that's mostly on whoever processed the audio. When I still had a podcast, I ran it through something or other equalize volumes (and do a couple other things) and it was pretty good and easy.
I hope ability to get photos off iPhones is improved. I can NEVER get it to fully work for more than a few pictures. I know we are supposed to sync them to the cloud now but it's nice to be able to put them on the big drive on the PC sometimes too.
I’ve noticed this and it seems like the biggest factor is the transfer setting in Photos. I have constant issues (e.g. file copy stops after a few files, can’t see all files in the folder, or phone just disconnects) if (under Transfer to Mac or PC) it’s set to automatic, but when changing it to keep originals, the files copy without any problems. I assume the automatic setting makes the iPhone try to convert between HEIC and JPG.
If you want a certain format for the images, just set the camera to use that format, or convert it yourself after copying off the phone.
Thanks for the tip. It seems I have it set to "keep originals", if I recall this is one thing I changed when having this issue. It has been some time though since I last tried it (because I hate it so much). I'll give it another go sometime soon.
It's only available on macOS, but I've been using the built in "Image Capture" app to do this. It's the only thing I've found that correctly handles all the photos and dumps them in a sensible way.
My process is:
* Connect iPhone to MacBook or similar
* Use Image Capture to dump all photos to a local directory in $HOME
* rsync the directory to my NAS
* Run a wrapper script around ExifTool [0] to sort the photos into folders
Hmm, I have never had a problem dragging and dropping them off my iPhone via the device that shows up in the My Computer screen when I plug my phone in via USB.
Sounds like you are doing a few photos at a time? My library count is now over 200k photos. It worries me that it is almost impossible to get a guaranteed backup of them from iCloud to local storage. Even when I tick the box in Mac photos app to store originals, from my own testing I’ve found lots of images are still only locally loaded when first viewed. Not great for making local backups!
I downloaded my iCloud library from privacy.apple.com, you can request a copy of your data there. It will take a few days before they send you a link that expires in a week but you'll get your whole library in 50GB zipped chunks.
I have tried it both this way and via some tool like import via MS Photos and earlier Picasa. It works for a while but after a few hundred photos, just seems to die. I've had this problem on every PC I own, with all iPhones I own, using a ton of different USB wires and ports. And it seems to degrade over time somehow, the first attempt I might get 200 photos moved, then the next time I get 20. Stuff like that. I assume it was related to the driver because when it stops working, the phone disappears from the file explorer. Of course, it could totally be me somehow, but I've tried everything I know to eliminate user error.
First, the linked documentation provides no information about where to get the Apple Devices App. It turns out, it's only available from the Microsoft App Store. Fair enough, but odd that the documentation never says that. Second concern: yikes, this synchronization app is 188 Mb in size. But whatever, I have tons of storage on my PC, so let's proceed.
The final and biggest issue: the app simply never recognizes my phone. The phone is unlocked and has trusted the computer. It shows up in Windows Explorer as a storage device (significantly hobbled by Apple's needless file system obfuscation, but that's not new). The Apple Devices App never stops saying "Connect a device to proceed."
All told, a typical Apple software experience.
If Android weren't so awful, I'd be much happier. The way Android devices appear as just a standard storage device with a normal file system is so much easier to deal with.