Bruce Willis didn't Buy Hard: His girls can't inherit his iTunes

Re: Apple Schmapple

Itunes is a mess because it's designed to stop you sharing music files -- presumably the price Apple paid for getting the record companies on board the iTunes site.

Far simpler to use a player which supports drag and drop and rip your own CDs (between 50p and £3 in flea markets, charity shops).

Re: Apple Schmapple

To all the haters because the OP mentioned he works in IT.

I too work in the industry, as a programmer and occasionally as an analyst, having had the misfortune to use iTunes on occasion I can understand the frustration - I found it to be an annoying incomprehensible pile of crap, that refused to let go control. To be honest, I can say much the same about Windows Media Player as well, although that doesn't try quite so hard to force me to use it's ecosystem.

Working in IT, I also have many friends who work in the industry, some of whom are Apple afficianados, some aren't. More than one have at times complained about iTunes and their Apple kit, most noticably the horrendous time it takes to sync your collection to the cloud (several days, according to the few people I know who've tried it with large collections).

What Apple got right, was the UI on the iPod - beyond that I cant give them any credit, since the software required on your PC is attrocious.

Re: Apple Schmapple

Sharepod - tiny executable, portable. Never touch iTunes again.

Or, as has already been suggested, Rockbox. If you really wanna geek out/feel superior. Mind you, the geeking out part is debatable these days since they moved to a pretty much one-click installer.

Re: Apple Schmapple

If you had one more year of "working in IT", you would have known to look inside this top-secret, hidden dialog box in iTunes called "Preferences" or "Options."

Inside, you will see two confusing (almost invisible) checkboxes:

o Manage music files manually

o Sync over WIFI

I'll let you figure out how those cryptic settings will work. (Your decade of "working in IT" should serve you well here...finally.)

And don't tell anyone about these iTunes settings. Very hush hush.

As to Bruce Willis' "issue", all his mp4/AAC files are DRM-free. I'm certain his lawyer didn't point that out before asking for his retainer-fee payment.

Re: Apple Schmapple

It's also a pain to play files on another computer - even if you're willing to install Itunes, it's unclear whether doing so will "sync" with the new computer, which you don't want to happen. I've asked Apple users this, and they don't know the answer. So you're left with looking at the files directly, but they're all scrambled by Apple. Hopeless! It was quicker to simply download the files illegal!

On my Sansa, it just mounts as an external drive, the files are unscrambled, and it Just Works.

Re: Apple Schmapple

When I first got an Ipod - '06 I believe - I fiddled with Itunes for a bit. It was, at that time at least, very eager to convert all my music to a new format and put it on the Ipod.

It was also being generally annoying - again at the time - wanting to start @ boot and all sorts of stuff that I could not agree to.

2 after acquiring my Ipod, I found that Winamp had decent functionality for throwing Mp3s on my Ipod, and I've never looked back (technically, I've just looked back, but you know)

DISCLAIMER: My Ipod is old. This might not work with newer models, and also Itunes might not be horrifyingly annoying any more

Re: Apple Schmapple

Just get a SANSA Clip (at a fraction of the price) and its as easy as drag+drop files. And then with the money you've saved you can go and buy something else worthwhile.