you also forgot to mention creating folders filled with nothing, and preventing you from listening music that can't play on itunes with any other player....because hey that would make mr. jobs and his merry men of fuck ups unhappy.

first, IPods work one way, you can only copy stuff to, not from, this makes it difficult for people to share and illegidly steal music. You can always enable "disk use" and copy songs directly to your ipod as data to share, but you can't listen to them then. There are programs online that allow you to pull music off of your ipod though.

Second, you can decide what gets synced (if anything) to your ipod. Go to the summary tab of your ipod in itunes after you plug it in. You can select/deselect from "Open ITunes when this iPod is connected" "Only sync checked items" "Manually manage music and videos" "Enable disk use". Similar options can be found under the Contacts, Podcasts, TV Shows, Movies, etc tabs.

You can also have iTunes organize or redirect your music to a specified folder, its all about how you do the settings.

Learn to read the fucking instruction manual about a software before you start bitching about it. I'm sure you kind find all the things you want to enable or disable. Jesus!

consolodate your music...

itunes does suck, though

It's just not a very intuitive platform SBD. I guess i have that gripe because i've been on windows all my life and ITunes definitely feels like a mac. program. I also didn't get a decent instruction manual either.

get an emusic account ... or download songbird

I've never had a problem with iTunes, iPods or any other Apple product. It's simple, clean and intuitive. I can't understand how people could be frustrated with iTunes.

If you're organized and like your music the same, use iTunes. If you like dumping a bunch of 96kbit or 128kbit crappy music into a folder so you can shuffle your latest pop sensation into a party mix, use something else!

Here Here JohnProlly!

At the same time, I can understand how windows users may not find iTunes intuitive. It isn't that it's not intuitive, it's that it's a different type of thinking than windows. My point is give it a little time, it's a new program, and it doesn't suck, it just takes a little getting used to. You'll figure it out, just play with it before you start bitching.

dammit! I'm a windows user and i like things complicated!

steve jobs is the devil.

itunes is for pussies.

get winamp and play your buddies' apple-poisoned songs.

haha, nice Apurimac

my ipod is a piece of shit. Battery doesnt work. Aint my fault

...thats what you get for wearing down your batteries

I didn;t know iTunes had an instruction manual?

I have an idea...lets turn this thread into a MAC vs. PC argument....that's never been done.

I also love how every time you open iTunes it asks if you want to upgrade to the newest version for the day, typically something like 7.1.1.1.2.1... I like to use a piece of software the way it's developed, then get a nice major upgrade once every few years. They're turning evil... like Autodesk. AutoCAD 2008 anyone?

Itunes is to Vectorworks as Winamp is to Autocad

SuperBeatledud ,

"first, IPods work one way, you can only copy stuff to, not from".

I don't think this is true. After reading what you wrote I opened itunes and right clicked on a song and dragged it into my flash drive, then I took it to my other computer and played it. Give it a try.

I wish the search option in iTunes was more effective. I can type 'Thom' into the search command in my music library, then have to retype it if I try to search a playlist.

streamline, the answer to your riddle is in the quote.

iPod, not computer.

I hate itunes too.

I hate how it assumes I'm an idiot - and it can't play FLAC or wavpack or vorbis or any other decent non-proprietary format. (unless that's changed recently)


foobar2k 4 eva.

i do not have an ipod. hi everyone.

what is worse, retro, is that I have a few ipods (though the lower end of the price spectrum...) thanks to gifts and the throw-in's when I bought my computer...and I never use em! I use itunes only for podcasts and radio on my computer and I also love using this thing called polyp that plays mp3's off of delicious tags... http://polyp.free.fr/

well for one i don't like to wear headphones. secondly, i dont feel the need to hear music or podcasts on a 24 hour basis. i dont need it in my car. i don't commute by train so i don't need to tune out the cruel world. frankly, i'd rather hear the messy world around me.

i second manamana's foobar2k shout-out.

if you like options - visual, performative and aural - get it.

also - if you are tired of the iPod's oneway sync - add a custom firmware to that custom foobar2k config you have.

rockbox

this will let you play any format you please and sync both ways while you are at it. it has a killer sdk so it has tons of third party additions.

manamana, itunes plays mp3 and aac, both of which are open formats.

also vorbis

itunes works fine

but the interface, like quicktime and iphoto etc is crappy and bulky

aac is proprietary, mp3 is anything but decent in comparison to other options.

vorbis is a start, though.

actually aac is not proprietary.

i quite like itunes, but i can see why other people might not, especially on windows.

Anyone know another decent FREE player for OSX? I'm forced to the dark side at work and can no longer enjoy the wonders of Winamp...*sigh*.

Hey Hoff, didn't you know all that about ipods and itunes before you bought it? Your gripes are the primary reason I do not own an ipod.

All the buzz in the Mp3 player world these days is the wi-fi capable SanDisk player. Get your music on the fly and forget itunes.

I never used iTunes and had a non-Apple MP3 player before. I had heard about stuff, but it didn't seem like any of it was stuff that affected me. I wanted something with a larger capacity (over 10GB) and that leaves only a handful, so I figured I'd go with the one with the most support. The player itself is killer. Once I can finally get everything where I want it, it will be fine. I don't regularly sync and even use iTunes which is good. I just want to get all my files in one place which is far more difficult than I expected. It's mainly just backing it all up in a logical way on my external drive which SHOULD be easy. Guess I'll be burning up a bunch of CDs to move stuff around. Oh well. It'll get done eventually.