Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Off Topic OT: I hate Apple

Ok so maybe I'm an anachrophile and for quite a few years I resisted Apple's iPpod and was very happy with my Creative Zen Touch or some-such. Only problem was it wouldn't charge through its USB. I was visiting a friend on exchange in Washington (DC) a few months ago and decided to take the opportunity to bring home an iPod without the EU headphone volume limiter.

First dissapointment I had to use iTunes and it wouldn't import my existing rips. Next, compared to the creative software iTunes was useless at finding album art work. In simple terms everything I ripped to my Zen had artwork (despite no use for the information as it didn't display artwork) and yet a third to a half of my rips using iTunes couldn't find cover artwork.

However, it was more usable as it could live in my car and keep charged through a USB adaptor and so it slowly filled up.

Today I allowed iTunes to install the latest version, it had been insisting for the last few weeks. Once it had rebooted my computer it needed me to input my password for the first time since this adventure began and I got it wrong, can you remember a 7 month old password? I could but I forgot it had to have an upper case letter, lower case letter and a number. Ok reset my password, after quite a few tries due to the above... starting to get a bit cross now.... [censored] Why does MY password to MY stuff have to comply with Apples OTT settings?

Plug in iPod and it wants to update the OS. Ok can it get any worse? Well yes it wants to wipe the iPod drive to install the new OS. Then guess what? It cannot re-install all my 'tunes as there is slightly more than the iPod holds on my hard-drive. Why can't it just do its best or even offer to compress the rips to get them to fit?

So my iPod is now blank. Bloody Apple........ I'm sure there is an answer to this but I do have a life as well.

Hi Richard

When a new version of iTunes is installed, I've found that it forgets your previous settings, and instead of syncing with your iPod's playlist, it will want to sync with the entire library. If you connect the iPod, look under it's settings in iTunes, and recheck the appropriate playlist.

I've ignored roughly the last five updates of iTunes, as I have a stable installation that already does what I want (v9.2).

Cheers

George

I hate it too, it really doesn't like my Audio books. I have a lot digitised from my old cassetts.
The CD audio book is treated like an album so every chapter is an individual song. Shuffle that and make sense of it won't ya LOL.

Every so often I have a go a finding the missing files on my computer then get them into iTunes, then I have to make sure they get in a proper order and I have other things to do with life. Why it just never found them all, I dont know?
I have to have it all as Music as I can't work out how to get it into Audio books. It seems to find all the duplicates on my back up disc as well so if I am not carefull I would have double everything on the iPod.

It is great if you just like pop music and download it from iTunes.

The problem is that, who else does large drive MP3 players anymore?

I have an iPod 80 gig under sufferance right now. Lucky I got it cheap second hand and so I put up with it.

Happy I have not put any monies into the Apple Pie. Chris

What are the alternatives? Anybody fancy making a list of non-apple MP3 players with decent storage capacity these days? I can't.

How about Cowon ? They do a range of roughly iPod equivalents, with the same capacities. Oh, and they play FLAC files too...

Cheers

George

+1

I've had an iAudio 7 for a few years and am very happy with it.

Sounds decent enough (driving Senn HD280s) and the battery life is incredible.

D

It should be possible to specify 'fill all free space with songs' in the 'music' tab of the iPod in iTunes.

+1 on the Cowon. Oh to still be able to just drag 'n' drop files like I could straight onto the players of yesteryear.

Unfortunately, to get music into my car via its aging integrated music system, the only after market adapters for mine presuppose iPods. So iPod it remains until my next set of wheels.

Thanks, I'll have a look for that option later.

Richard

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As for the iPod...

My six-year-old iPod Nano 1G is used daily, and doesn't skip a beat - and is frequently updated via the latest iTunes software without issue. Although there is nothing wrong with it, Apple in their wisdom have determined that in a very rare circumstance that the battery might possibly get warm resulting from a suspect battery supplier at the time. Subsequently, Apple are kindly replacing my faultless iPod with a shiny new/refurbished iPod Nano at nil charge to me - or for anyone else around the globe in similar circumstances.

Any other company might have taken the quite reasonable view that such owners had gotten full value out of the device over the intervening period, and not replace the device - but they haven't. In my book, Apple is demonstrating exceptional customer care - much like a once well-respected high-end audio company once might have.

The tick box is fine until you find iTunes has duplicated everything. Then it gets so tedious.
But it is good for the majority of users. My tastes Audio Books) complicate things.

Chris

[NotAllowedPleaseUseUrlTagAndFullUrl]3ke686z" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">How to find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library