-Jan-09, at 5:38 AM, David Poehlman wrote:
This was an interesting post from Eric. I have to point out though that you can trick ITunes into moving your files for you. All you have to do is give the artist the name of the folder you want that stuff in.
Right, but then you have to know to do something like that before you import yur 70 gb library, or you have to import 2 or 3 times to get it right by trial and error. Then you have to either learn how to make the library seperate your music albumns, audiobooks, and so on such that they don't mix, or you have to make a music library and an audiobooks library, and assume that you want to keep those files on hard drive all the time. Not only that, but ITunes is the only thing that handles it's own library. If you have an offline catalogger so that you or some one else can see your collections without being right at your computer, or a sum checker, or an nfo generater, or any other program that might want access to your files, they need to be organized nicely on drive anyway to make them easier to work with in programs that aren't ITunes. So you duplicate the effort again while you make it look pretty in ITunes, and retain your organizational system on the hard drive.
As to why we need a library, someone thought we did or windows media player and ITunes wouldn't have them. Other than that, many folk feel a need to have some semblance of organization in their media content and the library gives a good look and feel for that.
Fare enough, but even windows media player doesn't force you to use the library if you don't want to. If you cue up a selection of files it will playlist them neetly on the fly and play them from the context menu, and then forget about them when you press alt f4. You get a choice. Even winamp has a library, but if you turn it off, the program will do the basics of media playing without commandeering your media collection. In fact it will do quite a lot more than the basics, and if you find that the library enhances your listening experience, you can add it with the push of a button. As far as I know, ITunes is the only major player that *forces* you to use a library.
As ot ripping and burning, I have found nothing that comes even close to the ease of ITunes and as to syncing, nothing could be simpler. No drag and drop, no fiddling with drives and folders and copying and pasting, just make your ITunes play list, boss it arround anf voilla.
Why do you need to make a playlist to burn a cd? Add the files and burn works in simply burns, but it doesn't monopolize the files to do it, and it will make data cd's/dvd's, audio cd's, immage rips and burns, coppies with varification on any supported disc on your drive, and all without handling the files, which are nicely organized in finder for backup and catalogging purposes. Even things like volume labelling, dao and tao, are either defaulted or almost instantly changeable.
I've got an Ipod classic. I love it, and it holds my music collection with plenty of room to spare, but what if I had a nano 4g that only held one 10th of my collection? If I want to put the new audiobook I just bought onto my nanno, why should I import it from the download or mp3 cd to ITunes, then fiddle with it so it doesn't try to sync my whole collection, actually I'd probably have to have a seperate library for it, then sync. Why not just copy the book from my mp3 cd or download to the player directly? In fact, importing audiobooks to your IPod is such a hassel for enough people, we've actually got a special little front-end to do it for us if we want to fork out a little money. What about choosing songs. Should I turn off automatic syncronization, go through my 70 gb of albumns, check the songs I want, all 7 gb of them, and then hit the sync button? Or wouldn't it be just easier to coppy and paste the albumn folders I want for the day to my IPod. All moot, since you have to use ITunes to sync to an IPod, but why?
To me, the answer is that if they lock you in, they make more money. For example, if you start out using an IPod and ITunes and get locked into the system, There's less chance that you'll go out and by a creative zen when your music collection doubles in size and you need more space. No, you'll upgrade to the next IPod, either because you really like it, or because you're used to it and don't know any better. On the windows side, ITunes installs a whole pile of stuff you don't need. How many windows users want safari web browser for example, or quicktime player. And yet, The more people who install quicktime player, the more coppies of the enterprize software for developing quicktime componants apple can sell. I'm not against capitalism, and I don't begrudge the company a right to make money, but I don't entirely swallow the arguement that ITunes is built the way it is because the system is really nice and user-friendly. People like it, but the design of the system locks people in so the company can charge money, and that's why it's designed that way, more than for your own ergonomics you there in front of yourmac in your livingroom. It's really the epidimy of everything windows users accuse the mac world of being, and oddly enough, the rest of the mac world is just not like that at all.
Best, Erik
