
iTunes will never work well - firasd
https://medium.com/@firasd/itunes-will-never-work-well-973674420fa4
======
jheriko
i don't understand how apple have a reputation for good ui... all of their
stuff is terrible.

the main problem: zero discoverablity - i need to google how to do things,
then get some snotty fanboy answer about how easy and obvious it is, but there
is literally no way to infer the functionality from the design.

they do love to steal context too... and interrupt your flow...

... i could go on and on, but having zero-discoverability is highly
unforgivable, its an entire, rock-solid argument on its own.

~~~
striking
Their reputation stemmed from the days where everything _was_ discoverable.
Want to delete a file? There's a trash can glued to your dock. Need to perform
a function but don't know the name? Look it up in the Help menu's search box.

Now, though, they've done the Windows 8 thing of overloading gestures and
hiding behaviors. Want to see your notifications? Two-finger swipe to the
left, _starting from the edge of the touchpad_. If the piece of text hasn't
been there since OS X first came out, is it clickable or not? Because I damn
well can't tell, nothing new looks like a button anymore.

I could also talk about how the gaussian blur effect is just about the most
wasteful effect you can apply to anything, and is a far cry from pioneering
the first fast rounded rectangle drawing algorithm, or anything in that vein,
but I don't need to.

Because Apple's UI is just no longer good. I'd rather every button look like a
shimmering stupid bubble than an unusable postmodern art piece.

Sent from my MacBook Pro

~~~
sirn
As someone who got to use a PowerBook G4 (running 10.5.8) from time to time
(in fact, I'm typing this very comment on it), I fail to see how their current
UI is any more undiscoverable than the UI from 7 years ago.

The trash icon was there in the Dock in 10.5, and still there in 10.11. The
search function in help was there in 10.5, and still there in 10.11. To remove
things from the Dock, right click the icon and the "Remove from dock" is still
there in both versions. Any menu items that will open a dialog still indicates
with three dots ("...") in both versions. Shortcut for opening dictionary is
still not very discoverable in both versions (Cmd-Ctrl-D). I still don't know
how to trigger Space/Expose without either using gesture (in 10.11) or look up
the shortcut key (in 10.5).

I always see people saying Apple UI got worse in discoverability for the past
few years and make it sounds like earlier releases were perfect, but I don't
believe that is true. The bad part of the UI interaction was always there
(e.g. drag icon from the dock to somewhere to remove it). The main difference
I see is that 10.11 has a LOT more features than the 10.5, but the core
interaction remain the same in regard to discoverability. In 10.11, we're
exposed more to gestures, because it's quick, but there is always alternative
way to trigger something without gesture.

~~~
niccaluim
I'd go back even further to find decent Mac UI, to the pre-X OS. Yes, it was a
reliability garbage fire, but the Apple of that time really invested in
usability. They published a 400-page book[1] for developers that explained the
principles behind usability, showed how interface design fits into the
development process, and gave specific guidelines for each type of interface
element. The guidelines they publish today[2] are a lifeless husk by
comparison.

[1]
[http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf](http://interface.free.fr/Archives/Apple_HIGuidelines.pdf)
[2]
[https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Us...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/20000957-CH4-SW1)

~~~
mosselman
[1] is a great resource and a lot of it is still relevant. Thank you for
linking to it.

------
tomasandrle
It must be really hard to maintain and add features to such a huge old
application. Platforms have changed underneath it, the devices and services it
connects to have come and gone, Objective C has changed a lot as well. And
then there's the Windows version...

Still, iTunes is crap. I hated it so much that I wrote my own music player for
iOS, just to avoid using iTunes for putting music on my phone [1].

My guess is that sooner or later, iTunes will be dismantled and the features
will be split into multiple smaller apps. There will be a music app that JUST
plays music from the Apple Music account, a podcast app that JUST plays
podcasts, a sync app that JUST helps you manage stuff on your phone etc. Some
features will be removed (Internet radio, ripping & burning CDs). And of those
that remain, only a few will need to keep a Windows counterpart. That way,
things will be easier to maintain.

[1] Tiny Player:
[https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1140849233](https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1140849233)

~~~
massysett
I think Apple would have split up iTunes long ago if it were only a Mac
application, but they don't want to distribute a bunch of smaller Windows
apps.

~~~
asveikau
Is that so? Some years ago I remember some rando's blog post that seemed to
completely invent this narrative from thin air, and it got repeated a lot by
Apple fans who have never built Windows applications and probably grossly
overestimate its cost. This seems like a pretty lame excuse for one of the
world's most powerful companies to not do something it would otherwise want to
do.

~~~
massysett
I don't guess it's a cost issue. iTunes is the Apple trojan horse into the
Windows platform. They know that they can get anything onto a Windows desktop
by crammng it into this one application. My guess is that strategically they
don't want to give this up.

~~~
asveikau
So you don't think apple can break up the app into various components and
provide a single installer and call the whole bundle "iTunes".

And failing that, you don't think users are capable of installing multiple
things or coping with a re-brand.

But if they did this only on the Mac all these things would work. Windows is
the key.

Sorry, I do not think this is the reason. More likely they just don't want to
put resources into a ground up overhaul of iTunes.

------
lukevers
People always bash iTunes, but I actually use it quite often and I like it.
Maybe it's just me though?

The only thing that bugs me, is on iOS, when I load the music app (that's
basically iTunes for iOS, right?) it shows a blank page until it can connect
to the their servers to grab some data. It doesn't have a problem if I'm on
wifi or a fast connection, but I'm often in places where my service is shit,
and I get a white screen and can't pick what music I want to listen to. My
workaround is to pull the menu up from the bottom of the screen and just hit
"play" and then it usually works.

But iTunes itself, I do like.

~~~
pfranz
The lack of async and modal dialogs drive me nuts with iTunes. My main gripe
is syncing my ipod or phone interrupts music playback--they should be
completely separate things. Ideally separate applications.

~~~
masklinn
> My main gripe is syncing my ipod or phone interrupts music playback

It doesn't though. I just tried. Start playback, plug phone (keeps playing),
sync (itunes still playing), disconnect, itunes has never stopped playing.

~~~
pfranz
Thanks for the correction.

I've honestly stopped using iTunes for the most part after 10+ years of
problems like that. It's weird, but I'll listen to music on my phone while
using my computer. I also sync phones/ipods a lot less often since so much has
moved to the cloud. It may not interrupt playback, but I swear I still see
modal dialogs when syncing.

I still think they should be completely separate applications.

------
newscracker
Apple needs to allow importing songs into the Music app on iOS from any
source, not just iTunes and its own store. This has been a long standing pain
point. Not everybody wants Apple Music and not everybody wants to buy music
from Apple. But there are people with existing music collections who want to
add them to iOS devices easily without having to use iTunes.

This procedure works for iBooks, where you can add books from any source
online through the share sheet. But it's not allowed for Music in 2016^,
nearly 10 years since Steve Jobs wrote his Thoughts on DRM.

^: presumably due to licensing issues and/or agreements with the record labels
and/or wanting a monopoly on music

~~~
izacus
Isn't that what iTunes Match did (does?) for a fee?

~~~
dave5104
No, iTunes Match simply allows you to sync your music via iCloud. If you have
a song on your computer in iTunes, Match will find the song in their catalogue
and let you download that to your iPhone, or it will upload the music file
from your computer and let you download that to your iPhone. It was basically
a way to cut the cord, so to speak, and not have to actually sync your phone
to your computer.

You still need iTunes for it all to work in the end.

------
f4stjack
As far as I have used iTunes the only problem I see with it is trying to do
EVERYTHING in a single package. It tries to be

\- music player

\- content manager (music & video)

\- sync manager

\- update manager

\- Apple Music client

and these are the five things I can name on top of my head, without opening up
the app. This is fine, but they are not honoring their boundaries. When I am
listening to my music, don't mess me with the sync business. If there is a new
version, put a helpful icon but only steal my focus if I click to sync tab.

It's like going to a supermarket to buy a piece of candy. Sure there are meats
and potatoes on the next shelves but I need my candy. Yes I can hear you
overhyped sales person about the discounts but. I. Need. My. Candy.

Also I cannot see the logic behind the Apple Music's integration with iTunes.
I have tried to use AM with iTunes on windows and it is not a fun experience I
can tell you. Spotify, even though people are grumbling about its ux, provides
a smoother experience. Search, double click play, right click to save or add
to a customized playlist. Or mess with that knob to download.

~~~
yaegers
The problem is, they can never satify everybody. I bet you that if they ever
split iTunes up in separate apps like you suggested there will also be a lot
of people who dislike that approach and rant along the lines of "Why did they
split it up? It was so convenient to have everything in one place. Now I have
to open a multitude of apps" No matter how much sense that may make, there
will be people like that. The question is, how many compared to people who
want things to be plit up. Apple would be best served to conduct some polls or
maybe even a nice beta programm where you can use separate apps and then give
feedback if it works as intended.

~~~
f4stjack
Agreed. Satisfaction is not an objective commodity. But Apple Music really,
definitively, needs its own app considering the problems it creates in
people's iTunes libraries.

~~~
the_other
I agree, but doubt it will happen.

Step by step, Apple are pushing their customers towards subscription services.
They did it with photos first, then music. From macOS Sierra onwards they'll
be doing it with the "Documents" and "Desktop" directory.

iTunes has always acted as an advance party for Apple's next business
experiments. It gets UI changes ahead of the OS. It gets "features" like this
subscription funnelling ahead of the OS.

------
forrestthewoods
I have never seen any software turn adults into a pile of tears faster that
iTunes. Trying to put music on your iPhone the night before a trip is the most
god damn frustrating thing in modern software.

It literally can't be done. If all you want to do is copy a few songs to your
iPhone you can't fucking do it. It tries to sync your phone. Then says
"warning: this will delete everything". What the fucking fuck motherfucker. I
just want to copy a dozen god damn mp3 files into a file system. It's not
hard!

Syncing is a broken concept. There's no such thing as syncing. There's no such
thing as being in sync. No PC, Mac, or iOS device of mine can ever be fully
sunk. (sync'd?)

The totality of "my stuff" is a venn diagram. Things on my iPhone. Things on
my iPad. Things on my Macbook. I have save data shared across devices. But
also save data unique to each device. I own 100Gb of music. Most of it is on
my Macbook. Some of it is on my iPhone. None of it is on my iPad. I even own
music downloaded to none of these devices. Those purchases exist only in the
cloud. Plus god knows how many apps I've bought and since deleted.

There is no such thing as syncing. No device can ever be fully sync'd. Fully
up to date. The whole idea of syncing is fundamentally broken and wrong.

Fuck iTunes. No iPhone of mine will ever know iTunes ever exists. I now use
Spotify. I download music to my phone for trips. My phone will _never_ be
connected to any Mac or PC.

If you must copy music don't use iTunes. Once upon a time I used Copytrans.
It's free and gets the job done.
[http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager/](http://www.copytrans.net/copytransmanager/)

(This rant brought to through the sobbing tears of my partner. Thanks iTunes.
You worthless piece of shit.)

~~~
gergles
Copytrans now costs $20.

There is no good tool for "just put some fucking music on my iPhone" that
doesn't cost money that I've ever been able to find.

------
knodi123
The single worst thing about itunes, in my opinion, is the way it handles
duplicate songs. It has a "detect duplicates" feature, but all that does is
show a list of groups of songs that it thinks are duplicates, _and it has
false positives!_ But the one thing it can't do, is detect when you've added
multiple copies of _the exact same file in the same directory_.

My music collection needs to by synced across computers, and if it refused to
add the exact same file twice, then the operation would be trivial. Add mp3s
to your music directory, drag and drop all files to itunes, and let it detect
new songs. Since it's not, I have to do a long series of "okay, the timestamp
on this file is newer than the newest added-on date in itunes.... I think....
except this directory was untarred, so it retains old timestamps, and blah
blah blah..."

~~~
labster
fdupes is your friend in cases like these — it finds duplicate files fast. As
usual, the CLI tools are much better at solving problems than a terrible GUI
like iTunes.

~~~
majewsky
You don't even need a separate tool for that:

    
    
      find -type f -name \*.mp3 -exec md5sum {} + \
        | uniq -dDw 32

~~~
knodi123
The problem isn't duplicate _files_ , it's that iTunes has an internal list of
songs, and it allows the _same_ file to appear in the list twice. I can manage
a directory of files, I just can't manage iTunes' indexing of them.

I understand why you would have assumed this was a file issue, though, because
the real problem is the most idiotically stupid thing ever.

~~~
Raphmedia
Isn't the library simply a big .xml file? I wonder if you could parse it
yourself to get rid of the duplicate.

I would try but I have a 20k+ songs itunes library and it takes hours to
reindex whenever I move anything...

------
cageface
If you're using a Mac then you should go buy yourself a copy of Swinsian now:

[http://swinsian.com/](http://swinsian.com/)

It's a lean, fast native player that supports tons of formats, has great
library management features, and omits all the bloat and confusion of iTunes.

~~~
Dain42
It doesn't really matter to me, as I'm not a Macintosh user anymore, but does
it have the smart playlist feature like iTunes?

That's the biggest thing I miss in most music players, including my current
one, Google Play Music (with my all-access).

~~~
crummy
Not sure if you're aware but Simon Weber has a Chrome extension for smart
playlists in Google Music.

[https://github.com/simon-weber/Autoplaylists-for-Google-
Musi...](https://github.com/simon-weber/Autoplaylists-for-Google-Music)

------
pfarnsworth
iTunes is the worst piece of software I've come across in a long time. I
banned it from my computer until I upgraded to my iPhone 7. Now, the only
computer with enough disk space to accommodate my backups of 256GB is my
personal desktop, so I was forced to install iTunes. It's infuriating and in
the 4 years that I haven't used iTunes, it hasn't gotten any better.

I would love to blacklist whoever is responsible for iTunes from ever finding
work again, because it's obvious they give an ounce of care about UI design or
keeping their customers happy. They really don't deserve to be working in
software. If they had any honor they would be thoroughly embarrassed for
producing such a horrible piece of software.

~~~
zepto
It's obviously not a delightful piece of software, but attacking the team that
works on it is mean spirited.

You know nothing about the constraints they work under.

~~~
varjag
[https://xkcd.com/277/](https://xkcd.com/277/)

------
jsz0
I'm having a hard time understanding these tweets.

Playing a song and adding songs to 'up next' are two different things. That
dialog box has saved me multiple times. What's wrong with it? It only occurs
when you are telling iTunes to do conflicting things that it cannot resolve by
itself. It's a better outcome than clearing a playlist someone may have spent
a lot of time working on.

Software update and login dialogs? Yes those are a thing many apps include.
What makes these unique or interesting?

The podcasts menu seems super straight forward to me. Am I missing something
here? It says exactly what it does.

Contacting the iPhone update server dialog? Once upon a time Apple's servers
would go down under a heavy load of people activating new iOS devices.
Presumably the dialog is there to inform you there is a problem contacting the
iPhone update servers. Either way I think it's long since been changed.

~~~
firasd
Okay. So I’m no UX expert, just a developer and I’ve also worked in product
management. I think at some point, if you work in this field, you have to
develop instincts around the design and experience of things. A modal (i.e.
app-​locking) dialog that says “contacting the iphone software update server”,
which is current behavior and not changed as far as I can tell, is so far out
of the realm of acceptable in my view, that if we differ on that point, we
can’t even begin a discussion about the more subtle issues… (Consider that
Chrome updates itself all the time; now imagine if you launched Chrome, typed
in gmail​.com, and it suddenly locked up all your tabs because it was
‘contacting the Chrome software update server’.)

After all, design trades in subtleties, otherwise if the discussion is just
about explaining the purpose for a widget, everything in an interface can be
explained, even this well-​known ‘bad UI’ example:
[http://i.imgur.com/UJXoqwR.png](http://i.imgur.com/UJXoqwR.png)

~~~
barneybooroo
The Microsoft AutoUpdate client on OSX is a beautiful mess for this.

 _doing anything else_

> Microsoft AutoUpdate starts bouncing in the dock

> Modal "There are no updates for your Microsoft software at this time."
> dialog appears.

Seeing as half of the updates it receives are FOR THE UPDATE CLIENT, it's
incredible this behaviour hasn't been fixed in the last eight years.

------
neilellis
I've switched to using Plex now, I find iTunes and the Music app way to
complicated to use and constantly throwing up dialog boxes when all I want to
do is listen to some music.

I've never truly understood how the people who gave us Safari and OS X gave us
iTunes - they couldn't be more different.

~~~
mrsteveman1
> I've never truly understood how the people who gave us Safari and OS X gave
> us iTunes - they couldn't be more different.

They're almost certainly from completely separate teams, I've always heard
that Apple operates like a bunch of disconnected groups that rarely ever
interact with each other, perhaps that has changed recently.

But regardless of the details the end result is very often as you describe,
and it's odd to see happen over and over. There are certainly managers and
executives working over each of those groups that should be guiding them in
the right direction so that things feel like a "part of the whole".

~~~
flukus
> They're almost certainly from completely separate teams, I've always heard
> that Apple operates like a bunch of disconnected groups that rarely ever
> interact with each other, perhaps that has changed recently.

Every company of non-trivial size operates like that.

~~~
majewsky
A company is usually a tree-like structure, where the branches are connected
by the root node. Too bad that this particular company's root node was
garbage-collected in 2011 while there were still live references to it.

~~~
nicky0
But iTunes was already shit when the root node node was still around.

------
gregn
Saying "iTunes will never work well" is like saying the sky is blue. Why would
anyone need a kitchen sink to copy an audio file to their device? Oh, wait,
unless there is manufacturer locks, and controls put in place to steer
consumers' capital flow. Oh yeah, that's why. From that perspective I would
say iTunes is a smashing success. And this negative social virus has spread
like gang-busters spawning countless imitators.

~~~
Declanomous
This trend is why I started using Linux full time again. I'm not a die-hard
believer in the Unix Philosophy, but systems designed with it in mind
generally avoid the worst bloat.

I feel like a similar mindset is ruining gaming as well. The best games from
the past had a design that I'd compare to movies. The story and fun was self-
contained and complete. If another installment was created, it was also self-
contained and complete. With rise advent of microtransactions, games seem more
like sitcoms or slot machines. The experience of a single episode (or pull of
the lever) is a full experience, but it's intentionally designed to feel
always feel slightly incomplete.

I mean, the design of games now is pretty user-unfriendly. Anything that could
compete with a publisher's ability to charge more for gameplay has been
crippled. Simple example -- almost every game used to include god-mode cheat
codes that you could use to your hearts content. Now a lot of games charge
money for extra weapons and other things that used to be considered cheats,
even in the single player modes.

Another example is the team creation tools in EA sports franchises. You used
to be able to copy and paste players from one team to another. My brother and
I would create teams where every player on the team was our favorite player in
Madden and FIFA and pit them against each other. That feature has been
absolutely gutted in FIFA, most likely because it interfered with their
Ultimate Team mode. However, they gutted it for offline play as well.

I don't fault the developers and publishers trying to makee money. I do think
it's really lame that modern games have intentionally locked or removed simple
and historically common features in the pursuit of profit. It makes every
gaming experience feel like I'm being forced to buy everything from the
company store, and it sucks.

------
SCdF
OK, so I use OSX, and I want to play mp3s that I have locally, and see them in
a library format that I can search. Even maybe have album art, though I'm not
fussed.

Ignoring itunes, how do I do it? What is a good fast low memory music playing
app with library management? If I was on Windows I'd be using Foobar2k. On OSX
it seems to be either itunes, a command line app, or various bloated messes
that aren't honestly better than itunes.

~~~
dade_
Quod Libet is cross platform and runs on my Ubuntu box, Windows Surface and
MacBook Pro. It is fast, has a simple interface that actually works and has
been extremely stable. It also manages playlists that work in my car's USB
port. I do like having my music in the cloud, and finally settled on Dropbox.
I am still looking for a decent Android Dropbox music player for this setup,
but for iOS, I use Eddy cloud music player/streamer. It even bookmarks my
place in audio books. Sad part about Eddy is that it takes so long processing
my entire music library on Dropbox and starts the whole process over when
reinstalled. Also, haven't figured out how to get it to work with playlists
saved to Dropbox, but I have asked for the feature.

It was Apple's changes to the music app on my iPhone that finally annoyed me
enough to seek an alternative setup which baffles me, because the only reason
I was convinced to ever purchase my first Apple product was an iPod and they
have completely screwed it up.

I did use Google Music, but Google's insistence that the desktop doesn't exist
made it useless on Windows & Mac. I tried every Google Music app I could find
for either platform. They are unstable, often slow, and usually break every
time there is an API change.

------
sparkzilla
I spent almost two days trying to resync my music after iTunes deleted it for
no reason. It's the worst software on the planet.

~~~
coleca
After I subscribed to iTunes Match, it "helpfully" reworked all of my ~4300
song iTunes library so that most of the songs where I ripped a whole CD into
iTunes were now spread across various "Greatest Hits" albums from the same (or
sometimes different) artist, with random cover art. And after reading Jim
Dalrymple's horror stories of upgrading to Apple Music, I am fearful both of
ever discontinuing my iTunes Match subscription or upgrading to Apple Music.

My solution thus far has been to stop even trying to listen to music on iTunes
and switch to podcasts instead (on Overcast, not Apple's horrible Podcasts
app). #ThanksiTunes

~~~
sooheon
This is the one complaint I agree with. Honestly, all the so called UX
problems in those tweets are eye-rollingly contrived, but there's no excuse
for messing with the actual music that I own.

------
agentgt
Almost every cloud music app I have used has issues with the concept of a
"queue" or playing a snippet of something while I am in the middle of a
playlist. Spotify, Mog <defunct>, rdio, and itunes seems to never do what I
want when it comes to "just checking out a song while other songs are
playing".

Lets say you have enqueued up a bunch of songs on Spotify or perhaps have a
really good shuffled playlist god forbid you accidentally click on a song
instead of queue it.

Because of this annoyance at times I just give up and put on Pandora. Their
song selection sucks but otherwise I think Pandora is fairly stress free UX
wise.

~~~
yoz-y
I really liked queueing in the original Amarok. iTunes kind of halfway gets it
right with the concept of Up Next. However it seems now that in iTunes 12 it
is no longer possible to queue an album at the end if there is nothing in the
queue at all. I'd prefer if the action of playing an album did "put it in
queue & play"

------
eklavya
I don't know about the UI or anything but it's 2016 and iTunes still makes me
re-download any firmware from start in case of any network issue. So if you
are downloading a 2.5 gigs file and that screws up even once in that whole
download at any place, iTunes says fuck you. This becomes a problem when they
screw up iOS 10 update and brick your iPhone and the only way to fix it is
restoring from iTunes and then iTunes keeps giving you the middle finger.

~~~
dx034
Not only that, when I had to re-download the firmware due to the failed iOS10
update, even pausing the download caused it to restart..

~~~
kccqzy
And interesting if it's downloading some purchased content from the iTunes
Store, this doesn't happen. Also, those downloads don't throw a modal dialog
when it's trying to "contact the server". It just seems like downloading
firmware doesn't reuse existing code for downloading content.

------
soufron
It's so true. We used to have very simple and efficient music players such as
winamp. The problem was that they were playing free mp3 that you stored on
your hard drive. With regards to that, iTunes is not a music player, it's a
media manager. It's all designed around buying stuff, not playing it. It makes
me think of the bad dvds with non-skippable trailers we used to have 10 years
ago.

------
mrsteveman1
I'm still kinda curious why iTunes has blocked the UI thread so often for such
a long time, perhaps a limitation of the overall architecture of the app
combined with having webviews everywhere calling out to native code?

~~~
giaosudau
This is the most annoying in Itunes I tried Apple Music but couldn't stand to
wait between each click to album artist and so on. That why I switched to
Spotify which is much faster and easy to use.

------
jharohit
There never was and never will be a better music player than Winamp!
#WinampSkins

~~~
gdulli
I was happily paying $10/month to Spotify but canceled my subscription because
the desktop player was so bad and incomplete. After a while I realized that
attempting parity with other players was not on their to-do list.

I'm not even a power user, there are many advanced and obscure features of
Winamp/foobar I never used. But those products have the nuances of day to day
management of playlists and usability figured out and Spotify in comparison
doesn't care. It seems they'd be happier to have you use web/mobile and not
even support a desktop player.

------
josteink
> Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting iTunes, too.

While a great quote, it's not entirely true.

Some of us said enough is enough and ditched the iOS/Itunes ecosystem for
something better. Why suffer needlessly?

~~~
nicky0
And even better, with iOS 10 we can now delete the Music and iTunes apps from
our phones.

~~~
slig
Unfortunately that's not what happens. You can removed it from the Home screen
[1], the app keeps using space on your phone.

[1] [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204221](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT204221)

~~~
nicky0
Ah, that's interesting. Well, as long as it's not on my screen I'm happy
enough. :)

------
bshimmin
One interesting thing about iTunes is that it is one of the few applications I
can think of which manages to irritate both power/sophisticated users (ie.
everyone here) and also regular users. I'm not sure _anyone_ actually likes
it.

------
tempodox
So this dude made a couple of tweets, then he wrote a medium article about his
tweets.

~~~
kwijibob
I actually found this method quite readable and a pleasant surprise!

------
chiaro
Wait, you can star-rating AND heart songs? Why? Why both?

~~~
systoll
Stars are old; hearts are new; stars are gone by default, but you can turn
them back on in the settings.

Why there's no conversion factor [EG: heart = 5 stars], i don't know

~~~
sooheon
There's no reason to convert backwards if they want to phase out stars. Also,
I'm guessing they hope to make the act of pressing heart an "experience" for
the listener. Give everyone the joy of professing your love of a song to their
algorithms. I know I got a dialog playing it up the first time I pressed the
heart.

------
trevyn
Hah! I also literally had to Google how to play a song on repeat, but for me
in the new iOS 10 Music app.

~~~
huphtur
Related:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tfrWqGcsMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tfrWqGcsMg)

------
javajosh
For OSX VLC is a surprisingly good player for music and it supports FLAC.

However I'm quite interested in building a dedicated OSS music player
node/electron for OSX (and windows eventually).

~~~
newscracker
Would you mind developing a QuickLook plugin for the latest OS X/macOS
releases that could play FLAC? :) I've been breaking my head over it and don't
seem to have any solutions.

~~~
javajosh
Wouldn't mind at all. Of course, that's not really in my wheelhouse...

------
unwind
I'm not an iTunes user, but the irony of posting about UI issues on a site
that breaks my browser's Back button hit me pretty hard. Ouch. Please don't do
that, sites.

------
kawsper
I like iTunes, but I hate how Apple try to get me to subscribe to Apple Music
both on iOS and OSX.

------
newscracker
When iTunes started, it was fine because there was only music to deal with.
But with the addition of other media types in iOS devices, it's become very
messy. If you have books and photos on your iOS device, there is no simple way
to get these to their respective apps on the Mac (iBooks and Photos/erstwhile
iPhoto). Using iTunes will do almost nothing if you aren't buying all your
stuff from Apple, except backup all data (including these) into a "hidden"
location. You'd have to use each of these apps every time you want to just get
the latest from the iOS device to it.

Apple should introduce a simple sync application that will take all photos to
Photos, all books to iBooks, all apps to iTunes or some new App app (the
removal of app transfer from iOS devices into iTunes is a big issue in
different ways), all music to iTunes, etc., along with all the respective
user-created metadata (like collections for books, favorites for photos,
etc.). Most importantly, this should work for things obtained from non-Apple
sources.

(Sometimes I wish Apple would have interviews with users like me to understand
how difficult things are and use that to improve its products)

------
CapitalistCartr
I strongly prefer a Unix approach to tools: each tool does one thing, Vasili.
One thing only, please. That eases understanding of what is going on. Users
are better educated and troubleshooting bugs/flaws is vastly easier. I
consider a corporate decision as to what my computer will do irrespective of
my wishes to be a flaw.

------
Twisell
Well to be fair the title might be: iTunes will never work well ON WINDOWS.

I was always wondering why I can read so much rants about a good product I've
been using on a daily basis for years... Well it seams that the Windows
version sucks, and what is described is really a world away from the native
cocoa version on macOS.

~~~
forrestthewoods
There is no user experience difference. There hasn't been for at least 10
years. You can't put together a post that says "this is how it works on OS X"
versus "how it works on Windows". Because it's the same.

------
M_Grey
This is why I still use Winamp, and now more and more, Plex.

~~~
zamalek
Although I'm a proud owner of a Winamp license, I've been using AIMP over the
past year or so. It's blatantly, if not purposefully, a Winamp clone but has a
few excellent innovations of its own and is frequently updated. I strongly
recommend it for any Winamp fans.

~~~
M_Grey
Thank you! I just checked it out, and as a long-time Winamp user (I mean...
since there was first a Winamp) I see exactly what you mean and I love it.

------
TD-Linux
Do you still have to use iTunes to transfer music to iPhones? Can't you just
copy files over and use some other playback app on the iPhone? The author
sounds makes it sound like they are "forced" to use iTunes.

(disclaimer: the newest Apple product I own was manufactured in 1983)

~~~
majewsky
> Do you still have to use iTunes to transfer music to iPhones?

Don't use an iPhone myself, but if I did, I would try if KDE Connect on iOS
supports file syncing over Wifi like it does on Android.

~~~
makomk
KDE Connect is Android-only, and even if there is an iOS version sometime I
don't think it would ever be able to support file syncing like on Android due
to Apple restrictions on filesystem access.

------
coralreef
I found the new iTunes for Mac to be quite clean (12.5)

------
jdeibele
I was surprised (and pleased) to see Apple add "rename" to the file menu in
Finder for El Capitan. Coming from Windows, I found the "click on a file to
rename it" very unintuitive. Evidently a lot of other people did, too.

Now if they'd make it so Finder always opens a window if you select Finder and
a window isn't open ...

~~~
the_other
Finder includes your desktop, so technically you already do have a window
open.

------
ForFreedom
One of the features I hate in iTunes is adding music to the library. When
adding songs it should create a shortcut from the music folder that is being
added from rather than creating a copy of the songs in its folder. When
creating a copy into the iTunes folder the storage space on the macbook is
lowered.

~~~
FussyZeus
I've actually just moved my entire iTunes library into my ownCloud directory
and let it sync to my other systems. Windows is fine with it, just point your
chosen media app at the folder and it _should_ just ignore all of iTunes'
files and grab the music.

Every once in awhile I get a sync error but it never seems to affect anything
and sorts itself out, going on about 8 months now with no real problems.

------
rawTruthHurts
Off topic trip to Memory Lane:

[http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/OSX/itunes2_erased_drives.html](http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/OSX/itunes2_erased_drives.html)

------
pearjuice
I am glad people in the reality distortion field of Apple trying to defend
this and throw an ad hominem regarding the author, are getting downvoted into
oblivion. Maybe they will realize some day.

------
xufi
Using VLC with command line to listen to my playlists works great for me

------
circa
Unfortunately iTunes is still better than the competition. I also know that
isn't saying much.

RIP Rdio, Lala, and countless others. Hell even Beats was better!

------
hhsnopek
"Spotify" just switch now and never look back

~~~
strange_quark
Spotify has just as bad if not worse UX as iTunes/Apple Music. Spotify kept
taking away useful features from their desktop app and promised to return
them, but never did, even years later. Plus, I don't need to run another
instance of Chrome and Adobe Flash which constantly consumes 5% of my CPU and
a few hundred MB of RAM just to listen to some music. While still not perfect,
I'm pretty happy with the newest release of iTunes and the iOS music app.

~~~
johansch
I think users like you are part of the reason iTunes is like it is. Never,
ever, take away a feature. Never ever refactor the UI to simplify things.

------
AJRF
The failure of iTunes is intrinsically linked to the unsuitability of
WebObjects as a modern application framework.

iTunes isn’t bad because Apple is inept, far from it, but to make it fine at
this point would require a rewrite and I assume at Apple there is a tradeoff
between “Is this crappy to use” and “Well, does it at least work?”, with the
latter being a stronger motivator (or in this case, demotivator) of change
than the former.

~~~
masklinn
AFAIK the vast majority of itunes is a regular cocoa application, what does
webobject have to do with anything?

------
peterburkimsher
iTunes was beautiful up to 10.7. Then they removed the column browser,
disabled the Library view, and broke USB sync. I still haven't upgraded, and
I'm desperate for another company to step in.

~~~
lupin_sansei
Agreed. You can enable the column browser and the library view if you want
though. Check the View menu.

------
riffic
iTunes is terrible on OS X too. Apple needs to throw it all out and write
modular replacement apps for various functionality from the ground up.

------
optimuspaul
I have never understood why there is so much hate for iTunes. I think it's
fine. It does everything I need it to and probably more. Why put so much
energy into debasing something?

~~~
pwthornton
I think most users would agree with you. Hating on iTunes is popular with tech
people, but I don't know if your average person cares.

The biggest complaint I have with iTunes is that it tries to do too many
things, and it would be better to break the app up. It somehow got itself into
the smartphone and tablet backup business.

Years ago, I wrote that iTunes should be split up into smaller apps:
[http://interchangeproject.org/2012/04/16/itunes-should-be-
sp...](http://interchangeproject.org/2012/04/16/itunes-should-be-split-
into-3-4-smaller-more-focused-apps/)

I don't know if I really care that much anymore, as iTunes works fine for my
uses, but I'm also no longer a heavy iTunes user. I use my iPhone to play
music at home and on the go. I watch movies either on my Apple TV or iPad.

I mainly use iTunes to see what's new in the store. That could be a reflection
of using iTunes, however.

------
kennell
iTunes is beyond hopeless at this point. It needs a full rewrite, possibly
split into multiple apps.

------
aakarpost
Ditto. It has a UX problem.

------
chipotle_coyote
Okay. I get annoyed by things in iTunes and think the whole application really
is overdue for replacement -- I'd like to see things split up somewhat more
like iOS, with a "Music" app, a "Video" app and (since this is the desktop) a
device management app. But I confess that a lot of the lamentations about the
UI design (not necessarily the UX design, which I'll circle back to in a
moment) strike me as, well, highly overblown. I'm sorry the author couldn't
figure out how to make songs repeat, for instance, but while the repeat icon
has _moved_ in newer versions of iTunes, it's literally the same icon as in
the screenshot of iTunes 4 from a decade ago. (That's the earliest screenshot
I could find.) And perhaps the Windows version of iTunes is uniquely horrible
compared to the OS X, er, macOS version, but I can type the name of a song
into search and have it instantly located; if I double-click a track name (or
the big play arrow that shows up when I hover by it!) it just starts playing,
but it certainly won't select a rating or a heart unless I click a star or a
heart; so on and so forth.

I'd really argue the biggest problem with iTunes' UX stems from the way it's
still, after all this time, inexplicably modal. I've never had a problem
syncing an iOS device while it's playing music, as one commenter mentioned,
but there _are_ dialog boxes it brings up that are not only UI-blocking but
process-blocking, which makes iTunes kind of a mess as a headless media
server. (It still _plays_ media, but won't be able to add any until the dialog
box is dismissed.)

But I still cut iTunes a fair amount of slack. I've been using it for nearly
as long as it's been available, I've subscribed to iTunes Match, I've
subscribed to Apple Music, and I've ripped my own music library full of
lossless tracks. Not only has Apple not, repeat, _not,_ either deleted those
or fiendishly replaced the files with AAC simulacra, it turns out to handle
mixing my ripped tracks, purchased tracks, and "borrowed" tracks (i.e., ones
that are only available in my library through the Apple Music subscription)
pretty seamlessly. The introduction of Apple Music was a huge mess,
admittedly, both in terms of UX and some teeth-grindingly poor song-matching
algorithms (a distinct regression from iTunes Match on its own) -- but the
server-side flubs seem to be straightened out now, and the current UI for
Apple Music is pretty solid.

But, yes, I'm sure iTunes will be rewritten. I'm also positive that when it
is, there will be a veritable explosion of thinkpieces that will almost all be
variants of, "Who asked for all these horrible changes? iTunes was just fine!
Apple is always fixing things that weren't broken! This would never have
happened if Steve Jobs were still alive!"

------
jrcii
I've grown very fond of a CLI media player named cmus. It's lightning fast and
does everything I need with a simple interface
[http://matthieukeller.com/media/2015.01/2015.01.cmus.png](http://matthieukeller.com/media/2015.01/2015.01.cmus.png)

I also keep aliases in my .bash_profile for streams like this:

    
    
      alias bbc='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://bbcwssc.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcwssc_mp1_ws-eieuk 2> /dev/null'

~~~
mikeroher
That's awesome. Do you have any others??

~~~
jrcii
Sure. There are a lot of streams available on shoutcast.com, just click the
download icon and copy the URL, some stations list their stream URL on the
site, just google the call letters + "m3u" or "pls" etc, then there is this
site which is the best directory I've found so far radioroku.com. If you use
iOS there's also a great app for playing these streams called fstream.

Here is my list:

    
    
      alias wor='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://wor-am.akacast.akamaistream.net/7/495/179680/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/wor-am 2> /dev/null'
      alias wgy='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://wgy-am.akacast.akamaistream.net/7/697/21577/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/wgy-am 2> /dev/null'
      alias npr='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://www.npr.org/streams/mp3/nprlive24.pls 2> /dev/null'
      alias rain='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=2340 2> /dev/null'
      alias rain2='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=368490 2> /dev/null'
      alias rain3='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ9OWMsJBTk 2> /dev/null'
      alias art='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=366888 2> /dev/null'
      alias chopin='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=590375 2> /dev/null'
      alias phil='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=248466 2> /dev/null'
      alias french='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://www.listenlive.eu/franceinfo.m3u 2> /dev/null'
      alias fip='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://www.listenlive.eu/fip128.m3u 2> /dev/null'
      alias bbc='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://bbcwssc.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcwssc_mp1_ws-eieuk 2> /dev/null'
      alias 1010='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://8733.live.streamtheworld.com:80/WINSAMAAC_SC 2> /dev/null'
      alias ewtn='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://http.yourmuze.com/ewtn-2/mp3-128-s.mp3 2> /dev/null'
      alias wabc='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://8723.live.streamtheworld.com:80/WABCAMAAC_SC 2> /dev/null'
      alias wktu='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://wktu-fm.akacast.akamaistream.net/7/110/19973/v1/auth.akacast.akamaistream.net/wktu-fm 2> /dev/null'
      alias chant='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://calmradio.com/playlists-free/gregorian.pls 2> /dev/null'
      alias chanteurs='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC --quiet -Idummy http://sv1.vestaradio.com:4090/ 2> /dev/null'

~~~
dmytrish
Thanks for a great list of streams!

I did a similar thing (using `mplayer` though) for me, wrapping it in a script
that takes shortcuts for stream names:

[https://gist.github.com/EarlGray/d64514459892650881353a465c4...](https://gist.github.com/EarlGray/d64514459892650881353a465c4b9a05)

------
gjolund
iTunes was a significant factor in me moving to Android.

------
andrewclunn
iTunes circa 2008 was amazing. Like so many things, once they unified the bIOs
and desktop OS code bases and technologies everything went to shit.

------
hashkb
This isn't constructive, just spiteful and angry. I can't tell what problem OP
actually has with iTunes.

~~~
firasd
Hmm… I’m not spiteful, I just don’t have any hope for improvement. iTunes has
been chronically bad, I could find thousands of other articles and
testimonials about that. At this point the issue is clearly endemic to the
product.

Constructively: everything else aside, one glaring and easily-fixed problem is
the dialog boxes. No program released after 1997 should be so behind in the
state of the art that it throws up modal dialogs that lock up the whole app to
say pointless things like “We’re checking for updates”.

~~~
brandon272
I use iTunes every day and have never noticed this modal.

------
Bud
Interesting that every single UI example in this article is from an old
version of Windows.

Fuck Windows. You want iTunes to work well? You want to see Apple's real UI?
Then use their real platform.

~~~
flukus
If iTunes is so awkward why would I want to switch to a whole OS + computer
made by the same company?

~~~
Bud
Perhaps because of said company's well-deserved reputation for overall OS and
UI quality?

Everyone admits iTunes is not the greatest thing ever to spring from the mind
of Steve. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

~~~
flukus
> Perhaps because of said company's well-deserved reputation for overall OS
> and UI quality?

Why would I go off reputation and not my own experience with apple software?

~~~
Veen
Because a reputation is the result of the experience of many different people
who communicate with each other. Your experience with Apple software is a very
small sample.

Your position is a bit like saying: "Although everyone else thinks the earth
is round, it looks flat to me!". Of course, you're free to disagree with the
consensus opinion, but you'd probably need a better argument than personal
experience.

If the consensus differs from your personal experience, it's worth taking a
second look.

------
altitudinous
You missed the point. iTunes is a old product holding together well.

* No doubt if iTunes was designed today it would be completely different. But as a legacy product it has to satisfy legacy users that are familiar with the UI, and legacy products (this iTunes still supports 10 year old iPods and older?!!)

* Say iTunes failed today. No doubt the writer would say it deserved it, and the product was a failure from the beginning. But I want to emphasise that iTunes has existed for several years now and has given many hours of pleasure for many millions of users. it works well and is a success.

You are naive if you think iTunes one day will work well. It won't get better.
What is going to happen with it? It is obvious. You don't have to go past
Microsoft with Internet Explorer. They kept that product going for years and
it was a great success. However eventually the tech aged and they replaced it
with a new product, Microsoft Edge. The same will happen with iTunes.

~~~
kayamon
> You missed the point.

No he didn't.

> iTunes is a old product holding together well.

No it's not, it's a terrible product and always has been.

> You are naive if you think iTunes one day will work well.

He doesn't think that. In fact, the title of the article states the exact
opposite.

> What is going to happen with it? It is obvious.

Yes, which is the whole point of the article.

