
iTunes Has Slowly Destroyed My Will to Collect Music - lisper
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2016/05/will_apple_music_complete_itunes_destruction_of_my_will_to_collect_music.html
======
UVB-76
In recent years iTunes on OS X has managed to achieve the feat of becoming
more bloated, sluggish, and yet also losing important features.

I've spent most of the last five years hoping Apple are re-writing the thing
from scratch, and have been neglecting any meaningful updates to the current
fork in the meantime, but I'm losing hope.

------
careersuicide
I dunno. Reading this I can't help but feel like maybe the author is doing it
wrong? I'm going to be charitable and admit that Apple has made iTunes
incredibly difficult to use effectively, especially since the store is awful
and they really, really push the iTunes store on you. That the interface is so
slow and inconsistent doesn't help either.

My advice to anyone who has any desire to use iTunes is: acquire your music
from elsewhere as actual mp3 files, tag them using something like Mp3tag[0]
and then drag and drop them into iTunes. Make sure you check the "Keep iTunes
Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to
library" options in the advanced settings. The only control you're really
giving up then is the exact naming scheme of the files in the folder. But
"<library directory>/Artist Name/Album Name/01 Song Title.mp3" is a pretty
sane convention in my opinion. I have close to 18,000 albums in my iTunes
library that I've added this way over the last decade and a half. It works
pretty well and I have no problem reasoning about what music I have.

I totally agree with his complaints about Apple Music though, it's pretty
inscrutable. But I wrote my own music streaming server with Sinatra and iOS
app to go with it so I always have access to whatever is stored on my hard
drive at home in a way that makes sense to me. If I'm not at home that's what
I'd rather do, no syncing or anything weird.

0: [http://www.mp3tag.de/en/](http://www.mp3tag.de/en/)

~~~
Bartweiss
I would definitely argue that "make sure you have these advanced settings
configured or you're screwed" is a sign of hostile software. I'm totally
unwilling to use iTunes or Apple Music for my collection.

That said, if you're particular about your music collection, it's basically
always going to take some curation. Giving up because Apple didn't make that
easy isn't entirely Apple's fault.

~~~
mikewhy
> make sure you have these advanced settings configured or you're screwed

However, those very settings are on by default.

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Cozumel
Someone has to say it: why do people keep using it? If it's not doing the job
it's supposed too, or worse, actively deleting your music it's time to scrap
it!

~~~
UVB-76
There's still nothing better than iTunes, at least on OS X.

It's the best of a bad bunch.

~~~
mayneack
In the "don't delete my music" category - google music is pretty good. You can
upload your files without deleting them and then stream from web or mobile
app. I haven't tried playing offline from the browser, but caching on my phone
is fine.

~~~
ktRolster
_In the "don't delete my music" category - google music is pretty good._

It makes me sad that's even a category for consideration. wtf

------
wiredfool
From what I've seen of iTunes ability to keep album art that I've added or
automatically download ones I'm missing, there's no way in hell that I'd let
it match my music collection.

Some of the cover art is ok, some is meh (special edition banners), and some
is in the WTF range (one zydeco album especially).

Not that I have that much that's not mainstream, but I'm kind of particular
about the stuff that's in there.

~~~
vlunkr
If you're looking for something to organize, tag, and locate album art I
recommend musicbrainz. They have an app for osx. It's not incredibly intuitive
at first but I'm currently cleaning my collection up with it

~~~
pdwetz
They also have an API that you can use if you're programmatically inclined to
automate the process. It does have limits, so be mindful of including delays
between requests.

[http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Development](http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Development)

------
ThomPete
When I was a young teenager in the early nineties I dreamt about having all
the worlds music available to me via the internet.

This is more or less the reality today.

Access beats ownership anyway IMO.

~~~
UVB-76
A lot of people repeating that line will change their tune when Spotify
finally goes out of business in a couple of years time.

~~~
ThomPete
Streaming Music in the cloud is not going anywhere.

Not sure why that would change that?

There have never been as much access to music as there is today. It's a good
thing.

~~~
Bartweiss
Price conflicts. The streaming system is obviously worthwhile, but we haven't
negotiated a price point where users, streamers, and artists are all willing
to play ball.

At the moment, it seems like someone always has to take a loss, and the
rationalization might be ugly.

~~~
ThomPete
[http://www.businessinsider.com/spotifys-growth-has-gotten-
fa...](http://www.businessinsider.com/spotifys-growth-has-gotten-faster-since-
apple-music-2016-5?r=UK&IR=T)

------
6stringmerc
I was thinking about this while driving recently - both the iTunes / Apple
Music approach, and the way I go about organizing and sorting my things.

As a guy who grew up with Mac until playing catch-up with Win95 (and some DOS
to fit in), being familiar with digital storage techniques has formed over
time. I get the concept of certain files being certain places - system files
versus personal files versus program resources. This kind of structuring
appeals to me.

Thus, rather than totally embrace the "OS as Helper" technique that Windows
likes (put everything in "Music") or going the iTunes route (behemoth
management program with hooks to other stuff), I maintained some of my fencing
habits. Sure, I use the "Music" folder but that's only for purchased music. In
a separate folder - which makes things easier to back-up I think - I have my
"Music Projects" folder.

In my workflow I've got my DAW projects and output separate from what I'd
consider the 'commercial music' area, and this might have saved a lot of
stress that Pinkstone went through. Maybe not, but my hunch is it might have
helped. iTunes can't touch what it can't see, and letting it anywhere near a
collection of bootlegs and/or "less than legal" origin files is something I
would avoid out of general suspiciousness. That applies to original works that
don't fit any standard cataloging function either; I don't think that would
help me.

Personally I'm still satisfied with Winamp, a couple skins and visualization
things (it does help me ID3 tag my music as well), and honestly can't recall
if I've ever installed iTunes in the past 10 years. I genuinely don't think
so, and while my own process has flaws and issues (overlap of versions, DAW
files are big, etc) there's some protection I kind of like in a way.

------
Wonnk13
I've purposley avoided Apple Music for this reason. I still use it as my main
library, but i've starting using Google Play Music for their radio stations,
which I have found superior to iTunes.

Anyone have advice for moving off of iTunes completely? Do you backup to S3 or
a external disk?

~~~
6stringmerc
I just spent a while offloading a bunch of music from a Macbook Pro that had
to be returned to an educational institution after years of use. I was able to
get to the music files directly and copied/pasted them over to large flash
drives. I did the same for photos on that machine. From there I uploaded them
to a network storage device where they've just been chilling until they're
downloaded to a new machine.

------
mcv
I loved iTunes back when I had an iPod. Used it a lot, and made managing
playlists a lot easier than what I had before, which I think was MusicMatch
player, or something.

iTunes could rip my CDs, it could make playlists, and I could sync the whole
thing to my iPod. I honestly don't see what other features it would need, but
if I understand correctly, Apple managed to turn it into a horrifying
monstrosity.

Nowadays, every once in a while, I accidentally launch iTunes on my Mac, and I
have no idea how to use it anymore.

------
nikdaheratik
First, having an alias to the "Automatically add to iTunes" folder on my
desktop has helped quite a bit with adding non-Apple ecosystem music
(primarily from Bandcamp) to iTunes. It doesn't seem to make too many wrong
choices, but then again, likely the people who package the mp3s do their best
to work with the ecosystem.

Second, I've stayed the eff away from iTunes Music. It likely doesn't have
what I want anyways, but compared to their hardware, it just seems more like
some executive's idea of how to improve Apple's income from iTunes rather than
an actual music lover's platform. And iTunes is kind of a hot mess trying to
do too many things while execs decide to keep tinkering with it rather than
doing the multi-product rethinking they would need to make it work again.

Third, a few times a year I make sure to backup everything that isn't on
Apple, and most of everything that is. And not via "Time Machine" either,
which you should be doing, but actually copying the iTunes music folder or any
other downloads onto external media.

------
mystic001
[http://beets.io/](http://beets.io/)

beets has done an amazing job helping curate my music. I'm sure it's been
covered here before.

~~~
sondr3
Has it gotten better at tagging classical music? I used it for a while a year
or two ago and back then it was pretty bad for tagging classical music.

~~~
dave2000
I tag everything the same way, no matter what I use to listen to the music,
the OS I use, tag app, music source etc. Just Artist, Album, and track number.
Clear all the other fields. For classical, I appreciate that there can be
different labels releasing different masterings of the same recording, or
different conductors of the same piece, or a given conductor conducting the
same piece with different orchestras etc but for me I'm happy sticking that
info as part of the Album. For example: Gurrelieder (Boulez). I don't see any
point in getting anal about it all. You can stick the notes in the folder you
store the music in, or have filenames with extra details but as long as the
music player lets you drill down from artist to album, and plays the tracks in
the album in the correct order, that's good enough. I don't waste my time with
cover art etc because if I want to look at it I can do that on a pc or in real
life; i'm never going to be staring my my phone while it's playing, and it's
never going to be quicker to wade visually through cover art to find what
you're looking for (although I guess it might aid lazily browsing through your
collection if you're not sure what to play).

~~~
billforsternz
Very sensible advice I think. Your system insulates you from things outside
your control.

------
georgekin
To chime in on my workflow here, I used to be a heavy user of windows media
player, until streaming became big and I bought into the Zune system - for
which the software was incredible.

You could download media from the online library and it'd count as part of
your local library, and you could create auto playlists that filtered all of
your music (streaming and local) into those playlists. Then, you'd just auto-
sync those to your devices.

This method isn't possible on any service anymore, and I believe it's because
of increasingly more restrictive licensing. The closest I've found, and what I
use today is google music. I upload all of my local content to them, and then
mark songs that I 'like' as liked. GMusic has an autoplaylist of all my likes
that I then sync to all my devices, including my car which has an android
stereo.

I encourage everyone to step outside the Apple/Spotify walled gardens every
now and then and resurvey the offerings - iTunes is just such an awful bit of
software that it makes their service a non-starter for me. GMusic has a great
mobile and web client, with download support which is all I need.

------
arielweisberg
I dislike iTunes as well as the built in music player on my iPhone just due
the bad UI and some difficulty downloading songs to my phone. I also use it
with iTunes match for all my music and I listen many hours a day and do curate
my collection with it.

It's not perfect, but it's not exactly clubbing baby seals. It's always
respected my metadata changes even when things start out wrong. I think I got
boned a few times when match mixed up explicit/non-explicit versions, but that
is it.

I still very much enjoy collecting music and I don't think iTunes is getting
in the way of that. I really have to wonder what the author did to delete
their entire collection in iTunes? That isn't a thing that is supposed to
happen easily on desktop. The stuff I have synced with iTunes match is even
harder to delete and there is warning when you try to delete the cloud copy.

On phones yeah it's just a brain dead disaster with multiple ways to have it
wipe.

------
whistlerbrk
My belief is that iTunes is purposefully broken and will likely be broken up
into separate apps.

On the music side it forces people to use streaming services instead which the
music industry prefers to digital ownership, and Apple's own service is doing
well. They've (Apple) always played ball with the music industry as everyone
must, they've just managed to get better deals than most when working with
them.

Where it really hurts is in podcasting. I think podcasts & audiobooks would be
much bigger if syncing worked worth a damn on iTunes.

On the i-device side, syncing should be be removed wholesale from the media
player. Honestly, it should be relegated to a little task icon like Caffeine.
The only reason this isn't the case is because the storage capacity of these
devices is so (needlessly) tiny, again perhaps purposefully in order to
prevent day to day users from keeping a lot of downloaded music/videos
locally.

------
TaylorGood
10 years I had 10,000+ songs on my iTunes - their version updates and
switching computers (prior to / not fully utilizing Time Machine) slowly
decayed my library down to ~150.

Then along came Spotify, Soundcloud, etc and I haven't returned to iTunes. No
Apple Music either. Not sure what would get me back to my iTunes habit of 10
years ago...

------
psychometry
This is why I still use iTunes 10. After that point, the program no longer had
the organizational features I'd been depending on ever since iTunes 4 or maybe
even earlier. It's unfortunate that there isn't a similarly feature-rich music
organization app for OS X available (and I've tried them all).

~~~
hackaflocka
I updated at some point and regret it. Do you know if it is possible to
downdate my iTunes and go back to 10?

~~~
psychometry
I used this: [https://awesometoast.com/downgrading-to-itunes-10-7-from-
itu...](https://awesometoast.com/downgrading-to-itunes-10-7-from-itunes-11-on-
osx/)

~~~
hackaflocka
Thanks, will check it out.

------
mud_dauber
I haven't (willingly) used iTunes in years. When I do, it's only to reset a
frozen iPod.

Shazam: music discovery while mobile

KEXP Twitter feed: music discovery while streaming at work

Amazon: one-click purchase

Clementine: Linux media manager including iPod sync

AllMusic: artist research

------
hackaflocka
In 2016 Apple insists on wiping my iPhone's mp3s clean if I connect it to any
PC or Mac other than the main PC or Mac that was used to transfer mp3s on to
it.

------
nickbauman
Golden rule of owning your own (purchased or created) content: only use 3rd
party content organization applications. I don't use iTunes for my music. I
don't buy things from amazon for my kindle.

Regarding UX: iTunes is proof that bad UX doesn't matter as much as
"location". Users somehow figure out how to use apps if they matter enough to
them.

~~~
bad_user
The other golden rule of owning: never buy DRM-enabled content, even if you
can break it, because doing so only encourages the actors pushing for DRM.

And bought content needs backup.

------
jeena
I've been using Subsonic because it was free software but since it moved away
and is now closed source I stopped paying and am now using Syncthing to sync
all my files in between my computers and my Sailfish OS phone, I have to say
that this is the best way I can enjoy my music yet.

------
hackaflocka
I know a few women who tell me they're horrible at using computers. When I
asked why, they said "because I can't even figure out iTunes."

Between dodgy iCloud and bloated iTunes, Apple has destroyed the "computer
self-esteem" of a generation.

------
gjolund
iTunes is the reason I got rid of my iPhone.

------
vincentbarr
I highly recommend Vox [1] as a lightweight alternative to iTunes.

I've used it as a compete replacement for iTunes with the exception of when I
want to add music to my iPhone.

[1] www.coppertino.com

------
Animats
iTunes is working as designed, enslaving users to Apple's "cloud". A few power
users might not like this, but they're a small fraction of the user base and
don't matter to Apple. That's the reality.

------
ktRolster
The new UI designs in iTunes are almost as bad as the new UI designs in xCode.

------
gadlfy
iTunes has a simple solution they could employ — simply don't delete the
original music from the device they are "cloning to the cloud".

------
spacemanmatt
Same.

------
AckSyn
Wasn't that claim determined to be a hoax?

~~~
Sophistifunk
I know _something_ has deleted several dozen MP3s from my collection. The end
result of which is iTunes would refuse to sync my phone. Because those two
features belong in the same app, and all. In the end I had to delete my entire
iTunes music library and start fresh, _just so my phone would sync_

~~~
ergothus
That was the experience that moved me from an iPhone to android several years
ago - not only that I had to wipe my phone to sync, but that

* I couldn't back up what was on the phone (without first wiping the phone) * that iTunes wouldn't let me re-download any music I had bought (this was pre-iCloud) * this was the second time it happened to me - the first time was with an iPod pretty early in their existence, so I was willing to accept incomplete options. (I'm rough on laptops, which is what I had been syncing to)

Seeing that they had no interest in improving this situation after years of
being aware of it, I bailed. I'm told that Apple is now better about repeat
downloads from their store and have stopped considering the PC as the source
of truth for the device but they still are terrible for families with multiple
accounts but not one Mac/PC per user.

Frankly, I'm glad Apple is out there pushing boundaries, but I've not missed
anything from my iPhone. (my Macbook remains a great Unix-ey device)

------
bunkydoo
Yeah iTunes is long past it's prime, Vinyl or CD is really the only way to
collect music now I suppose. I would discredit CD a bit due to quality of mp3,
but whose to say you cant buy a collection of FLAC CDs

------
rocky1138
I hate to be rude but this author is a dumbass. In big bold letters he has "On
a basic level, I don’t have a music collection anymore because Apple made it
too hard and frustrating to maintain one." when instead it should read "I
didn't take care of my own music library and instead left it to a third party
who didn't do what was in my interest."

~~~
sfindie
I have 30,000+ songs in my music library. I've taken the time to meticulously
tag each and every song when adding music to my library.

I currently use MusicBee and love it. It's somewhat lightweight and its
tagging tools are great. I've also used Media Monkey for a few years and that
also has great tagging tools, but it's not as lightweight as MusicBee.

I only ever use iTunes for purchasing songs I can't get via other channels
such as b-sides or whatever.

