I’ve complained before about the massive missed opportunity of Apple failing to properly integrate both owned and streamed music within iTunes. I got over that enough to use and enjoy Apple Music, and I’m confident I’ll be continuing my subscription once Apple starts charging my card, despite the raw deal we get on pricing in the UK.
But I also agreed with Variety that Apple needed to adopt the same approach for OS X as it does for iOS, splitting out the various iTunes functions into separate apps. Having now been using version 12.2 of iTunes for a month, I’m escalating this from a moderate whinge to a full-scale rant. The time has come for Apple to finally rid us of this creaking, bloated disaster of an app, and start afresh …
Don’t misunderstand me: I happen to rather like iTunes as a music player. I like the ability to view my music as albums, artists and songs. Visually, the way albums open out into color-matched track listings is attractive.
I like the user-interface of the Now Playing list. It’s easy to add entire albums or individual tracks, and simple to reorder them. I like the ability to pick a single track and, in one two-finger tap, tell iTunes to play that next before continuing with the tracks already in the queue.
I like Smart Playlists. The breathtaking number of options available for user-created Smart Playlists is incredibly powerful – and can be a great way to resurface music you haven’t listened to for a long time.
I love Genius: my usual way to listen to my own music is to pick a track, create a Genius playlist and play that. Usually I delete these after playing them, but keep the ones I like. Genius can be a little repetitive – a number of different tracks generate very similar playlists – but it’s still my favorite feature.
Of course, iTunes isn’t perfect, even as a music player. I like album art, and when an album is playing I like to display the cover using the Cover Version visualizer. But Apple’s cover art graphics are so low-resolution they are horribly pixellated:
The Genre view is also a disaster, as it virtually has one category per album. But, in the main, it’s a very good music player.
Other media
But it’s a different matter where other media is concerned. Where are podcasts, for example? Where are audiobooks? Ok, we’re techies, we know that if we can’t see something in a visible menu, it’ll be hidden inside that ‘…’ icon, but we’re not short of space in the menu bar here, so why do we have Music, Movies and TV Shows visible, but not Podcasts and Audiobooks?
And Apple hasn’t even tried to integrate ye olde Internet Radio with Apple Music Radio – they are in completely different places.
Syncing
Things get even messier with syncing. Horribly messy. It’s not like syncing was a great experience prior to the launch of Apple Music: despite the fact that I have both iPhone and iPad set to sync via WiFi, both devices randomly appear and disappear from the icon tab. Right now, as I write this, my iPad shows up but my iPhone doesn’t:
If I’d written it last night, it might have been the other way around. Sometimes both devices are there, sometimes one, sometimes the other – it’s just extremely flakey. (Connecting it with a cable generally brings it back… for a while.)
Sometimes music would sync with my devices, sometimes it would simply fail with no clue why. Sometimes a device would disappear from iTunes midway through syncing.
Even when it all worked properly, anyone new to iTunes is going to assume that to copy music to their device, they drag the music to their device and job done. Who, without painful experience of iTunes, would imagine that they need to follow this by switching to the device screen and clicking Sync for it to actually, you know, copy the music? It Just Works certainly does not apply.
But it’s gotten much worse with Apple Music. Sure, I like iTunes Match giving me access to my entire music library via iCloud, and I like Apple Music giving me access to music I don’t own – but that’s no use when I’m sitting on a plane, or in an area with poor data connectivity, so I like to have a decent stash of local music. Since iTunes 12.2, iTunes simply refuses to copy local music to my devices, even with ‘Manually manage music and videos’ checked.
And by ‘some,’ it means ‘all.’
What kind of error message is that anyway? It gives no clue what to do about it. Sure, I’m a geek and I’ve been using Apple products for a long time, so I was able to fix it after only a brief expletive, but how many non-tech users are going to realize that this means they need to open up Settings (not the Music app) on their iPad, scroll down to Music and then flick the iCloud Music Library switch to ‘off’? None at all, that’s how many.
And why on earth can’t I add my own locally-stored music to play whether or not I have a data connection, plus access to Apple Music when I do? It makes no sense at all for this to be an either/or. Especially as I’m pretty sure it let me do this before a hardware failure meant getting my iPad replaced. (Which is another complaint about lack of integration in the Apple ecosystem: since I’m restoring from iCloud Backup, and all my music is on iTunes Match, why doesn’t my music get re-downloaded as part of the restore?)
I haven’t experienced the nightmare Jim Dalrymple described of somehow seeing 4,700 songs disappear, but I have seen small numbers of tracks disappear from my Mac, courtesy of this error message when syncing albums I know are (or were …) on my machine:
Of course, I have multiple backups, but deleting music is still a pretty major screw-up.
Speaking of which, why for the love of all things tech would syncing books remove all music, movies and TV shows?
What about photos? iCloud may (eventually) sync photos taken with your iPhone to your iPad and Mac, but what if you want to manually copy across photos taken with a DSLR to your iPad to easily share with friends? Give any of your bright but non-tech friends a folder of photos, an iPad and a copy of iTunes and see if any of them can figure out how to do it without losing their existing synced photos. Hell, try it with some techy ones too.
I could go on, but tl;dr: iTunes is a total mess – about as far from an It Just Works experience as you could possibly get, and an utter embarrassment for a company which prides itself on simple, intuitive user interfaces. It needs to die, and be replaced with individual OS X apps which each do one job, and do it well.
Individual apps
Let’s have a new OS X Music app just like we got a new iOS one. Have it be a music player, and a means of transferring music to iOS devices, and nothing else. Strip away absolutely everything that isn’t about music.
Fix all the bugs. Replace the obtuse error messages with helpful ones that tell you how to resolve the issue (but only where you can’t stop the problem from occurring in the first place). Provide high-res album art. Fix the genres.
Let users have any mix of local and streamed music they choose, and lose the two-step transfer process for local music – when you drag music to a device, copy it there, immediately. In short, make an OS X Music app that Just Works.
We already have iBooks for books, there’s no reason to even see books in iTunes when iBooks can do the syncing perfectly well. Pull out Podcasts into their own app, exactly as per iOS. Ditto Audiobooks, iTunes U, Apps and Tones: give each their own lightweight, totally intuitive app. And, of course, give each a consistent user interface.
When all that is done, collect all the drives containing the iTunes source code, put them on the lawn in front of 1 Infinite Loop and auction off the right to have at ’em with an angle grinder. That would raise way more money for charity than a lunch with Tim Cook.
Do you share my views? Take the poll, and let us know your thoughts in the comments.
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First vote, yaaay. On a serious not, I think iTunes is fine. I have no a single problem with it.
*note. Edit system, guuuuuuys, hellooooo? I wrote it to you two times. Easy Disqus system that you can implement to WP in like a second.
Very valid comments.
Also, I pay for iTunes Match, have since the day it came out. Why can’t I ask iTunes to replace every song I have on my PC with the iTunes Match version? I mean, I can manually download and replace them – why can’t I simply click a single button and REPLACE them all with the iTunes Match version? Who wouldn’t want to do this?
highlight all the tracks and right click then download all…… c’mon bro
my bad, “make available online”
*offline
I fixed this. I didn’t update iTunes. Got iTunes match and it got all my songs back and I sync my stuff fine
They need to take a lesson from Microsofts UI team. As an Apple fanboy, the more I use Windows 10, the more I hate OS X.
You are Microsoft fanboy surely not an Apple one. The Microsoft UI is the worst ever created. Metro/ModernUI is such a childish lazy mess that only a real idiot could design such crap!
Are you serious? The Windows 10 interface is a visual mess. Many, Windows’ fan dislike it in comparison to Windows 7. I’m glad you like it and maybe you need to ditch the Mac and get yourself a nice Dell — I hear they are much cheaper than Macs, especially if you get a low-end Dell with all the adverts and crapware on it.
Man, I think even you believe what you just posted. Do not try to deceive us with such a big lie.
iTunes should be the perfect example for how Apple can take a feature packed application and create an intuitive interface to make it simple to use. iTunes is probably the most un-Apple application they offer
Carving iTunes functionality into separate apps makes perfect sense until you realise that a lot of iTunes users are on Windows PCs. There’s not a chance in hell Apple will create separate Photos/Podcast/Music/Books apps for another ecosystem.
To me it seems because iTunes is on Windows, we must all suffer.
Pretty sad and pathetic that iTunes is garbage because of Windows. That should be no excuse. If most iOS users own Windows PCs then Apple should be invested in making a better experience for them.
So separate the apps on Mac then.
And significantly increase the work needed to have a single app on Windows with the same terrible user experience? If Apple wants Windows users to be convinced to switch to a Mac, they need to have at least somewhat intuitive apps on Windows.
It doesn’t have to be obvious. ITunes 11 had a nice sidebar from which you could navigate to any section, choose iOS devices, create playlists, visit the store, sync devices, etc. Go back to that sidebar interface and just make each section a separate, clean piece of software. Create separate preferences for each.
Personally I’d love to keep my music on the internal SSD and videos on an external HDD. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I’d like the opportunity to list them by author rather than by title when I’m picking them to sync. The same with text based books. I’d like to pick which music videos get copied to my iOS device rather than the all or nothing approach that’s been the norm. I’d like to have WiFi syncing work reliably.
I’d like to see the free space reported by the iOS device section of iTunes agree with the amount of free space reported by the device, along with a function to manipulate “Other”.
Incorporate the iBooks app and keep the store (though clean it up) so all media can be purchased from there.
There’s a lot that could be done using the sidebar as a launcher while keeping the look and overall UI the same and it could work as seamlessly on either Mac or Windows.
Apple already created Photos/Podcast/Music/Books apps for another ecosystem, they just left them a mess like they did on the Mac. Just create iTunes to be its own, self-contained ecosystem.
The last good iTunes was iTunes 7.
AMEN. Coincidentally, iTunes 7 was also the very first good version – all versions prior really really sucked.
We’ve discussed this before Ben, my experience with iTunes closely matches yours, including the inability to copy any local music to an iPhone when iCloud Music is turned on.
The only niggle I have with your plan is that while Apple should split things out into different apps, they don’t necessarily need a different app for every single feature. I can’t see any benefit to having a separate ring-tones app. :)
I’ll add that I’d like to see the app stores merged into a single app. No music or books should ever be displayed in that store app – each category can live on its own. I find it infuriating at the moment searching in iTunes for one thing and getting results for a completely different category of product. Imagine having to sort through clothing and auto parts while trying to buy groceries at the local supermarket.
To be clear, this means a single app for OSX and iOS apps with the ability to clearly filter which content you’re looking for.
Music continues to be purchased in the music app. Books in the iBooks app. Also make it easier to move photos to and from an iOS device without having to use the Photos app to actually manage your library – maybe create a universal service in OSX that any photo managing app can easily use consistently. I use Lightroom and have no plans to manage photos with the Photos app for example.
On merging the app stores – big yes. You could have an app called “Apple Store” with all the software AND hardware. Ooooo…
I seriously hope Apple is listening. I cringe overtime I have to open iTunes to sync a book to my iPad. Separate Apps or RIOT!!!
#protip: email the ebook to yourself and then on the iPad just “Open in iBook”. I agree, though — it’s a hacky pain in the butt.
I’ve told that shortcut to several of my non-tech friends and its just added stress … and unnecessary convolution that puts people off using the iPad as a reading tool!
Warning to this pro tip: if you do this (not having the Mac iBooks be the source of the book) bookmarks, highlights, and notes will not properly sync across devices…
E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth….1.02GB
While I agree that iTunes is a mess, I really like that I can seamlessly switch between my own collection of bought and ripped music and the new streaming service. It’s the main selling point for me. I think, all things music should stay in one app. But I think different apps for TV, movies, podcasts and apps would help to improve user experience.
Sure, I want to leave all music in one app.
I feel that having to go to multiple apps in order to sync different kinds of content would be the worst possible option. Syncing devices needs to be as simple as possible and the suggestion given in this article is, by far, the most complicated solution to this problem.
I also don’t think that compartmentalisation is the best approach on the desktop. That is an essential interaction paradigm on mobile: each app needs to do one thing (and do it really well) due to the lack of screen real-estate for overly-complex functionality. The desktop, though, is a multitasking environment and I believe we can have desktop apps with more than one function.
iTunes really is in need of a radical redesign, but I don’t think splitting it up into 7+ apps (Music, Books, Podcasts, Movies/TV Shows, iTunes U, Sync, Audiobooks, etc) is the solution.
I totally agree with this. Just fix the bugs and it’s fine
Multiple apps already exist today, Ben is looking for a cleanup. We already have the apps we need, just have to move some functions around. Move iOS apps to the “App Store” app for starters. Remove duplicated functionality from iTunes – we already have iBooks and Photos (and other photos apps). There’s no need to create 7 apps.
I’d be fine with music, podcasts, radio, movies and TV shows living inside a single app, but the app needs to support each of those things properly. Right now iTunes is designed for Music and everything else is simply kludged in there very poorly.
I think syncing could be made a function of the OS via a button in the top tool bar. That way it’s always one click away, any any app (iBooks, iTunes etc) would merely trigger the OS level sync to run. It’d mean we don’t need a device manager in half a dozen individual apps, and it’d also mean iTunes wouldn’t need to be running for wireless syncs and backups to occur throughout the day.
Thank you for writing this! I had the exact same issue as you with the enable iCloud Music Library. Why would that make it impossible to put music on the phone from your computer, technically it should’ve already been on my phone if it was on iCloud Music Library then! Before somebody makes a condescending remark, yes I have my phone set to show all songs not just those downloaded for offline listening…
“so why do we have Music, Movies and TV Shows visible, but not Podcasts and Audiobooks?” …. could it possibly to do with they sell/make money from the former and not the latter …..
They make money from audiobooks, so I don’t think that’s it.
Read my other comment. You can customize this by clicking edit
It’s a single app that does too much. And there’s functionality in there that probably hasn’t been touched because no one wants to break it.
I think the actual problem though is while it’s well deserving of a re-write at this point, what do you do about Windows? And there’s still plenty of revenue derived from the iTunes Store so just saying “screw them” is a terrible business decision.
An App that does too much?
We aren’t asking for additional capabilities – we are asking for the capabilities that are already built into it, to work. Like let’s make iTunes Match and Apple Music work together? Or, let’s let various iOS devices synch different profiles independently. If I back up my iPhone with select music/apps/pictures/movies on it – how about it restore with the same music/apps/pictures and movies?
How about let me “MANAGE” my music – if I have iTunes Match, allow me to replace the crappy music files on my HDD/SDD with the DRM free versions automatically? Just click “Update my Library” and viola – all my crappy rips are updated, and my crappy rips are either archived or deleted.
As is, iTunes is a hodge-podge of partially functional, poorly laid out and randomly functional routines.
and don’t get me started on wireless syncing (it doesn’t) and the haphazard way the ‘played dot’ does/does not get updated when you play a podcast on the phone you copied from iTunes
why should they continue to require us to “sync” our device using an “app”? how about giving users the option of plug in the device and treat it like a hard drive? i store >2TB of music on a NAS but also have to manage it in iTunes only for my iDevices. idiotic. i’ve already done the filing work on my NAS. so yeah, where’s the poll option for “we don’t need a goddamn app, let me manage my stuff”? i’m quite sure they can make the device smart enough to know where to put (and make accessible) whatever file types i drag to it.
Is that because iOS devices don’t have user accessible file system?
I hate one-size-fits-all approaches to things. Whenever you try and make something universal for everything for everyone, you end up with an unintuitive bloated mess. I’d much prefer single-focused apps that do one thing and do them well.
My it can be rescue vote comes with a big but..as in but iTunes needs a complete over haul, back end and the front side. When was the last time this was done. Sure Apple has kept it “pretty” but it’s becoming (or already has become) OS X’s version of bloatware.
It’s also about time that Apple allows other device to synch in iTunes.
I just bought a brand new Philips GoGear Vibe video and music player. Granted it’s not as grandiose as an iPod, but losing it will only set me back 30$…
But since iTunes is also way too grandiose to connect, and properly synch with, anything else than an iPod, I have to use a tweaked version of Songbird, on a Windows 7 PC, in order to achieve a decent synch. And I haven’t tested because it works just fine for me as it is now, but my bet is that it would probably work just as well on Windows 8 or 10.
The problem as I see it for Apple, is that I find myself more and more using and old PC, solely because they insist on having a such a closed system attitude.
And the more I use that old PC, the more I enjoy it, and start doing other things with it, other that synching my little device… Or to be more precise, I enjoy how open PCs can be… And that’s got me thinking, as usual, about what kind of machine I will buy next… And my other bet is that I’m probably not alone in that situation.
Why would, or should Apple support non-Apple products?
Your Phillips GoGear is Phillips’s problem; not Apple’s.
Early versions of iTunes (iTunes 4?) supported some third-party MP3 players like the Rio One and Motorola ROKR.
Blast from the past:
“As the ultimate way to manage digital music and create custom CDs, iTunes lets users:
…download songs to popular MP3 players from Rio and Creative Labs with plug-and-play simplicity with no extra software or complicated driver installations required.”
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/01/09Apple-Introduces-iTunes-Worlds-Best-and-Easiest-To-Use-Jukebox-Software.html
According to this knowledge base article from 2005-2008, iTunes used to support a variety of third-party MP3 players:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080210050859/http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93548
Seems like you’re complaining about Philips’ garbage product rather than Apple’s software. Songbird exists for the Mac. You can also run Windows in a VM on the Mac – not sure why you’d need a PC for any of this.
For a company that makes great hardware I do sometimes wonder how much resource/people they have behind the software they do seem to have to pretty big bugs/faux pas still
I recall restoring my phone one night (a multi-hour job considering it’s a 64GB 5s and I load my entire music library compressed to 192kbps) and finding that ALL my media got loaded into “Other” in the morning.
In my experience, restoring an iPhone does not restore the music, only apps and settings – and passwords and more settings if you enable encryption.
If you restore from a backup done on a computer (never tried from an iCloud backup) everything gets restored except fingerprint data. Sadly, I became an expert at this. iOS 7.0 to 7.1 were buggy to the point where I’d have to do a full restore about every 3 weeks as regular maintenance for the first 7 months I owned the phone. I was overjoyed when 7.1.1 came out and fixed those bugs!
I agree that iTunes is messy. But Apple cannot just blow it away, because it supports a legacy interaction model with a tonne of devices they sold that still need it. However, they already have/are breaking the functionality out into separate apps. Podcasts app lets you manage podcasts and sync between iOS devices without needing to use iTunes to manually sync and manage them. Photos means you never need to sync photos via iTunes anymore. iTunes Match and now Apple Music are designed so that you never need to sync music via iTunes anymore.
The messy problems arise when you try to use old-school iTunes syncing (still in there to support non-iOS iPods) at the same time as you’ve already made the leap to separated apps, for Photos, Podcasts, Music etc. It is not a “bug” or a “problem” that when iCloud Music library is turned on iTunes music syncing doesn’t work. The iML obviates the need to manually sync music.
I feel that the new design of iTunes (v11+ I believe) does an excellent job of fully and completely segregating whole media types. Making it very easy to just disable a media type and ignore it. I have no podcasts on my computer, I have no iTunes Movies or TV Shows on my computer, I have no iOS apps on my computer. Each of those sections is disabled and invisible in the iTunes app. Each of those media types is handled by its own app on iOS.
What’s the big deal? I feels like it’s an acceptable situation given that we all know iPods (pre-iPod Touch) needed iTunes to sync these various media types.
The quality of Apple’s software engineering has been going downhill for half a decade now. What’s so clunky isn’t just iTunes but Photo, Mail, Maps and iCloud. This is not to mention that even on high end laptops and desktops graphics can be jerky (LaunchPad and Mission Control). You don’t see these kinds of persistent problems from one version to the other on the Windows side anymore but somehow Cupertino manages to devolve while the rest of the world expects personal computers to behave more like appliances rather than science projects. The only reason that I’m still using Apple products is because it gives me joy using those functions that Just Work for me that still haven’t been removed by Apple or metastasised into something odious or even horrid. I’m still holding out though. Maybe El Cap can change my mind.
You call yourself a “power user” but then goes on to saying the SOLUTION / fix for your problem was disabling iCloud music library?!?!
There is so many things wrong with your whole post I don’t even know where to start. It’s like you’re complaining about something because you just don’t understand.
You said “there’s so much space left, why not show the other icons”, then show a screenshot in which there’s an “EDIT” button that allows you to enable as many icons as you like right there, just the way you wanted. Let’s be honest: you’re not really a power user, are you? No, simply using your iPhone to browse Safari and listen to music on iTunes all day long doesn’t count as “power user”.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to go through your whole post showing you how to do all of the things you wanted, so I guess I’ll have to just leave the answer to the “edit” button above.
Is English your first language? Nothing wrong if it’s not, but you clearly didn’t understand any of Ben’s post, nor does it seem you actually have any experience with the current nor past versions of iTunes. The problem isn’t one of layout, it’s that functionality is broken. There are bugs, dozens and dozens of them, on top of some shady paradigms.
The only good thing about this article and all the comments is that they are opinions, everyone’s a critic on the internet. Here is the thing, there is a reason Apple is the biggest company in the world, they achieved this precisely by not listening all those bozos on the interweb and elsewhere. Playing monday morning quarterback is always nice, color me impressed when all of ya stepped up and do better, show Apple how it’s done by creating and becoming the biggest company in the world. There is a common Dunning–Kruger effect in this article and the comments that follows it.
“Other media
But it’s a different matter where other media is concerned. Where are podcasts, for example? Where are audiobooks? Ok, we’re techies, we know that if we can’t see something in a visible menu, it’ll be hidden inside that ‘…’ icon, but we’re not short of space in the menu bar here, so why do we have Music, Movies and TV Shows visible, but not Podcasts and Audiobooks?”
-On your point on other media I can see and tell you that you are able to edit the order of the different mediums. You click the edit part. Since I only use iTunes for podcasts and iTunes U I made those my first. Just click edit and drag. Don’t complain about something you just don’t know how to use.
Itunes has been the worst piece of bloatware ever produced by Apple
This software solution fails at its most basic task => syncing mp3
The syncing process is tedious to say the least. I cannot understand why it takes so long to sync 2 poor mp3, the fact that various diagnostic files are exchanged during the syncing process doesn’t help
As noted in the article the fact that wireless syncing is so unreliable is also beyond me…
Someone was fired over the flaws that were included in Apple maps but I don’t see anyone getting the boot for Itunes failures which has stretched over multiple years
Ben, as always, you’re reading my mind. Here’s what I said about 3 years ago:
iTunes not only is a misnomer, it’s also heaving under the pressure of things it needs to do. It’s time to split it up. Or, if not, rename it Apple Media, and split off the Store side (although I think streaming may become the future, in which case splitting it by media type makes more sense – Apple Tunes (sic Music), Apple Movies and Apple Books, each with with its own store. And while you’re at it, why not add Apple News?
Seems I should become an Apple strategist, don’t you think?
I have had numerous syncing issues with my iPhone, but none with my iPod nano.
As a media player/music manager iTunes is fantastic and has great tagging support. Just give me iTunes without all that other crap!
I voted for multiple apps though if I had more faith in Apple I’d prefer fewer apps but with much better design – easier to use and with no “gotchas.” On a more general note, it always amazes me that these big companies with thousands of presumably good designers and coders can screw things up so badly. I’ve always noticed that with Microsoft but now I’m noticing it more with Apple too. I’m a semi-techie but my wife is a definite non-techie. She loved her early generation Mac but now hates her new iMac because not only is it much more complicated, Apple has begun to follow Microsoft in making too many unnecessary changes when the OS upgrades. My wife has no tolerance for this and does little on her otherwise wonderful machine than email and some web browsing. Apple is certainly veering away from “It just works” paradigm.
It IS a mess now, and entirely unintuitive. And especially the copying of photos and videos; a nightmare. Apple needs to create an iPhone sync interface so we can use it like a hard drive (which it is), and load stuff on and off. It has gotten too big, and iPhones and iPads are now too capable, to keep it the way it is in one app. I think we can handle going to photos to transfer photos, going to iTunes to transfer music, and going to iBooks to transfer book. I, for one, don’t often do all three at once. One back-up app, and then let us sync to the individual apps as we like. Right now it’s a mess.
The issue with not syncing the music cause you have Apple Music is not iTunes but a stupid policy (Business Logic). Where this fails even more is that Apple Music does not have every album out there! Sure I can’t bitch and moan about the comedy albums that I have that we released by the comedians themselves but I also have stuff like Def Leppard’s Pyromania that will not sync over. Ok fine let me get it off of Apple Music. Tough tits cause all you get is some remastered shit fest of DL remaking their songs “hipper with more beats!”. Fine! I can’t blame Apple cause DL won’t release their classic album but at least let me sync it without having to disable Apple Music, Sync and then Disable.
I’ll stop bitching before iTunes wipes out my entire collection.
The solution…and the ONLY solution…it that Apple needs to create and implement a (lightweight?) Content Management Solution in OS X. If Apple had been spending the time the past 10 years engineering that instead of putting bandaids on iTunes, and adding “features” that were basically nothing more than “buy more stuff”, these syncing issues would not exist. Getting that CMS to Windows might be problematic, but that shouldn’t have been (and should not be) seen as a show-stopper. The role of a CMS is to handle metadata and workflow data about managed “content”, usually digital media. It would, effectively, replace the Library databases of the various Apple iLife apps. For extra credit, Apple should mimic and adopt the “Library” feature from Windows in the Finder, whereby multiple filesystem/network share “sources” magically appear as one cohesive “Library” to applications looking down from above the filesystem.
This isn’t an unprecedented solution. CMSs and DAMs have been used in publishing, web, and multimedia FOR YEARS. The data syncing issues between multiple databases also isn’t unprecedented; Active Directory/OpenDirectory, LDAP, SQLServer have been replicating N->N for over a decade.
With a properly designed CMS/DAM engineered into OS X and iOS, the Finder and Spotlight would take on some powerful roles…finally. iTunes would basically become a “front end” client, and all of the development focus could be spent split between making it a great Library manager and Storefront interface. Photos.app Library would be replaced. Done properly, it would also unlock a LOT of value for OS X Server and small workgroups (and likely compete with Microsoft’s SharePoint). The NEED for this has been around since OS X first shipped; Apple simply missed the boat in seeing it. Now they have a real need for it, and STILL aren’t able to see the forest for the trees.
Further, there is a TON of existing product/talent out there that Apple could acqui-hire to jumpstart this, RIGHT NOW.
(And don’t say it can’t be done…it IS BEING DONE, right now. There are products like this on the market, they just need the Apple eye of design and be brought together in the right mix to create an insanely great experience. Just look at projects like Plex, Delicious Library, iView/Media Pro, and the like…THEY are better at this than iTunes, which is saying a lot. It can be done, it SHOULD be done, it NEEDS TO BE DONE.)
It goes without saying that by implementing an “open”, or at least API-fronted CMS housing the data, iTunes and associated Apple apps wouldn’t be the ONLY apps available to users. If you don’t want to use iTunes to manager your music collection, fine, let 3rd parties step up and communicate with the Library CMS. Many of Apple’s problems would go away if they only would play fair and COMPETE. The fact that they seem so afraid to do that belies their PR of how great they are. (There used to be several apps that could “consume” and modify the Library.XML file, so users who cared to could end-run iTunes. Apple slowly and rather quietly squashed that competition. And iTunes has become a pig. Hrmmm, wonder how? If you’re so great, play other teams; we saw how Apple fared in the ’90s against the cloners, tho, didn’t we?)
Wow bringing back the Mac Clones. As a former Mac IT rep I can say that I was happy to see them all go away. The only thing worst than the clones were the Performas.
agree
How do you do this:
Give any of your bright but non-tech friends a folder of photos, an iPad and a copy of iTunes and see if any of them can figure out how to do it without losing their existing synced photos.
Put them in photos …. Cloud sync job done :)
the “…” button is the worst UI button ever created. it makes me physically ill
I don’t want seperate apps. They need to make it simpler.
I don’t even own an iOS device anymore. I only use iTunes to download music and then sync it wirelessly to my android phone.
I wish apple would make an iTunes app for Android but I guess they would rather have you pay monthly for their streaming service….
Lucky this is an Apple fan site.
The music industry has been teen-focused for 80 years, and all efforts go into generating hype to sell newly released pop. This is where Apple has placed its bets
Real music lovers (OK teens love music too and thats all good)… Old music lovers are obsessive explorers/collectors/archivists/hoarders. iTunes does not work for our crowd.. I’m thinking of installing a gimballed turntable in my car.
I have no problem using iTunes. I don’t think it could be any easier.
Seems to me that iTunes became a mess when Apple started using it more as a marketing tool and profits driver for the Store and paid less attention to/deemphasized user experience and management of one’s own [local] music collection. (What happened to “it’s your music?” I shudder.) For someone who has been walking in the Walled Garden since the original Mac (actually, the Lisa), it’s become a nuisance to have to use iTunes to listen to my own collection of music. The Store is a nightmare to navigate, starting with the really inferior search engine. The new Music stuff is just more of the same-old same-old: why is it that “tastemakers” and “discovery” agents just lead to the same chart-driven dreck that lowest-common-denominator listeners scarf up? I thought discovery was to lead one to, well, *interesting* music. It’s in there, but it’s hard to find. After suffering through the continual bloating of the app and all the bugs that seem to be par for the course since about v10, I’m searching for another app to manage my music collection. And I’m sticking with Spotify, for the higher-res premium tier. The sound quality difference is worth it to me. And then there’s the whole syncing issue, especially with several devices. It’s just a hot mess, and I’m filing for divorce.
“Walled Garden since the original Mac (actually, the Lisa)” really what gardens were up then?
I am completely fine with it being a single app for lot of things and would hate to see podcast, audio books, tv shows, movies, music and … As seperate apps, I call that bloatware
My biggest problem with Apple’s new move is that it’s forcing Apple music and (before) iTunes Radio to people. On OS X and even more on iOS! Lots of people like me don’t have a decent internet connection and it also costs a lot and everytime I open music app I get a message that radio is not available because not connected to internet. All I need from music app on iPhone is in 1 tab! Just one tab! Even now that I have turned off Apple music ( after a lot of struggling with it), I still see connect! What the heck is that? I’m a “techie” and I couldn’t find a way to at-least follow my favorite artists and use the feature! All I wanted in new Music app for iOS was the Up Next feature and it is implemented the worst way possible! For deleting a song from that list I have to slide and tap delete , but for deleting an Email I can just do it with one slide? Are music of Up next really more important than emails that they need a confirmation to be deleted? Or should they be easily removed to make place for the songs I want to listen right now!
I actually like the way the syncing works ( no matter how complex it is) but I agree on the photos part. That is stupid that I have to choose only one master folder to sync or choose from Photos.
Also majority of people owning iOS devices own Windows ( think internationally) and separating parts as different apps would destroy their whole system.
Also one point on apple music, if you see the library file of iTunes, it has all the songs info there but it also contains lots of information like play count and even count! Apple should use this massive data from users to enhance their experience both for Apple music and in my case just for a shuffled playlist for choosing the order of tracks!
This story’s title is CLICK BAIT, but oh-so-true CLICKBAIT.
Here’s another thing. I have a 2011 MacBook Air. It has a 256 GB flash drive. There’s no conceivable way I can store my huge music library on my laptop, so I store it on an external drive.
I use iTunes Match, and with that, why does the music have to be on my computer to play it? Why can’t I stream from the cloud? Further, unless I am mistaken, if I’ve uploaded a track that I own to iTunes Match and that same track is available on Apple Music, I get an error that the “file could not be found.” If its in the Apple Music library, available for streaming, why not play from the cloud? This is extremely clunky. I don’t believe that iOS devices have this limitation. Apple is slowly making OS X work like iOS, and needs to make the music features work consistently as well.
I have over 200 movies and 60 GBs of music and none of it is stored on any of my devices. Music is streamed on demand as are movies to Apple TV. I’ve never had a problem with iTunes Match of streaming. I use iTunes on 2 macs every day to stream music it’s a single simple “there when you need it” app
The things you love about iTunes are probably the things that matter most to the people that still use iTunes to listen to music. The truth is that most people don’t. Most people no longer sync their devices. The younger you go, you’ll find that most teens and early 20-somethings have never bothered to build a music library and they’re certainly not sweating metadata. If they’re sitting at a PC or using a laptop to listen to music, they are most likely streaming it for free via YouTube.
The other media types? Edge cases at best. Podcasts are a commuter’s best friend and are generally consumed on a mobile device, where there’s a pretty darned good first party app installed. Movies? TV Shows? Again, edge cases.
Apple is a company that is unapologetically subscribed to the 80/20 principal. They’re not putting a bunch of energy into areas that don’t really matter to most of their users. This isn’t anything new. Remember how long AppleWorks languished in hospice care with no updates? Even iWork suffered about 4 years without a meaningful update. Why? Because there were more pressing matters that affected more users.
Honestly, if you dig into the “Apple Music is a mess” meme, you’ll generally find the core complaint to be about iTunes. The funny thing is that the only people I really hear complaining are on the internet. Most real life people I know are loving Apple Music on their iPhones and abandoned iTunes years ago.
This is so true and it actually surprises me nobody seems to know this. I’m mid-20’s and I can count on my fingers the number of people who actually maintain a proper iTunes library. It’s an older person thing. Buying movies and TV shows from them? Honestly can’t think of a single one… For most people I know it’s just YouTube to stream music & flash websites to watch movies/TV (unless it’s on Netflix now). Apple Music is the first time I’ve seen (for example) seen my own brother put some actual music is his iPhone (and he’s had them happily since iPhone 4 in 2010). Now you can argue it’s because of this exact interface issue, but my guess is the services just have never been as easy value oriented as techies who *want* to use computers think. (For the record I’ve had a continually managed/migrated iTunes library since I was about 13, but it’s definitely not been what I would call easy)
Good lord I wish I could edit my comment. I was writing this hastily while on the bus and the typos I’m spotting just now are making my skin crawl. Double seen before and after paranthesese, easy *and value oriented, *in his iPhone, I’m better than this- I swear!! Anyways these bizarre moments where reality doesn’t stack up to the rhetoric of the offerings are the exact moments I wish Steve was still around for to yell at people about. I love this company but sometimes I wonder if their size & success made them blind to their missteps (of course iTunes was arguably a mess then too, but he died while they could still say things like “we unfortunately don’t always have the money to do everything we would like”).. And that’s from my view… within the fold without getting too specific. /end rant.
I honestly wish apple would combine apps in iOS and make it more like iTunes. It’s so annoying to have an app where I buy things then I have to swap to a different app to play the things I’ve just purchased its clumsy and very in-apple-like.
iTunes it a very easy way to access your music and films and TV. Shop, download, play all in one place.
The complaints about syncing…. Really? I haven’t plugged an iOS device into my mac since before my iPhone 5. The syncing bit should be removed or moved but everything else is just where you need it. It would be nice for a fresh look but let’s hope apple keeps the same great functionality and applied it finally to iOS.
I honestly have to problem using iTunes idk why u guys are complaining. A lot of people just don’t know how to use iTunes.
Let me tell you what they should do: They should give an IOS interface to Itune. Itune should be divided in several apps all in the same permanent folder in OSX and IOS.
I think Apple deliberately makes iTunes difficult to follow for fear of someone finding an easy way to bypass DRM and thus they’ll lose sales.
I’ve been saying it needs to be divided into separate apps for years, but it’s only since Apple Music launched that minds have been focused.
Plugins work with Safari, so why not with iTunes?
DRM?? What features do you need for plugins? iTunes had plugins in the past and they all sucked. Same with the plugins for any Windows Media player.
As good as the idea might sound, and I do think separate apps could offer a better experience, I think a problem with the way you will sync your devices will then be present. Unless they build an app that’s ties all those together with one sync button it will mean hopping between apps to sync music, photos, apps etc.
I know most things are moving to iCloud sync and will probably sync automatically but for me personally, iCloud sync doesn’t really work the way it’s supposed to. If they separated the apps and allowed you to remove the ones you don’t use on both iOS and OS X then I’d be happy about it. I don’t use iTunes U, Podcasts, Find my Friends etc so I’d prefer to just remove them completely.
My experiences with iPhoto and its conversion to Photo make it clear Apple doesn’t just work. Months after the switch, it’s impossible to view photos in albums by their titles/names. It is by date only.
Similarly, iTunes has cost me money by losing tv shows and songs. Not a lot, but enough to make me suspicious of any so-called improvement they make.
For the sake of change – the appearance of always changing things for the better – Apple has made their systems unattractive. I have as little to do with their cloud services as possible.
Meanwhile, Apple keeps charging into the future with the Apple Watch. I guess if you’re one of the hotshot software developers, you get to work on the hot new projects. If you’re in the bottom half, they keep you in the iTunes office.
Meanwhile, Apple has the ungodly amount of 200 billion dollars in cash? Spend a few bucks, Apple, and make your software work as promised.
“iTunes is a total mess – about as far from an It Just Works experience as you could possibly get, and an utter embarrassment for a company which prides itself on simple, intuitive user interfaces. It needs to die, and be replaced with individual OS X apps which each do one job, and do it well.”
Utterly agree…. I too get frustrated with this bloated app, and I’m a techie too.
ITS FINE JUST AS IT IS?! WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?! iTunes is a last decade bloated abomination. A few light weight apps, named appropriately have been proven to be INCREDIBLY successful on iOS. Its time to port that over here.
Android/Google Music handles some of this pretty nicely. I use iTunes on my desktop itself for managing the actual local files, which Google Music Manager syncs automatically to their cloud. I use their browser player when on the desktop (to get access to the subscription service) and their app on my phone.
From the phone app, you can select anything to download to the device (subscription music, playlists, radio, etc) and toggle between all music or downloaded only.
Apple usually has the upper-hand on UI, but this is one case where Google makes it so much easier than iTunes, and why ultimately I didn’t consider the Apple offering when it was announced.
Has anyone tried anything else on Mac that will work? My iTunes is 60k plus, and every year or so, the main iTunes file .itl corrupts and I have to reload.. It cant handle all of that AND the 600 movies I have in there. I am having to use two different libraries now. one for music and one for movies. I am testing Wondershare TuneGo right now, but no opinion quite yet. My files have been loading forever. Plus, TunesGo still uses iTunes in the background. I really wish Media Monkey would do a Apple version. Id pay full retail for that.
My only disagree would be syncing. Apple should resurrect iSync. I don’t want to open 4 or 5 different apps to sync my devices (assuming you still do that). Better to have it all in 1.
Voted yes. iTunes was great in 2007, now it is the single most infuriating piece of crapware residing on my Macs.
Apple never did cloud and sync stuff well, they need to double down on that.
Oh my god, man, you’re so right about iTunes! I share every single piece of your thoughts when it comes to that horrible hell of a mess that iTunes now is! I’m not going anywhere from Apple’s ecosystem, but damn, let’s let them know we need decent services on our devices!
Ben I can agree with you on many points, but please stop talking like a yank. The Americanism “gotten” isn’t a real word in English, and favourite has a “u” in it. I’m quite sure American readers will understand you if you just use English. After all, it’s what every English speaking country, bar America, uses, so I dare say our American friends are used to it.
Actually, gotten is an old English word. :-)
I agree with everything you say except that iBooks does not sync very well either. Yes, it’s a separate app but iBooks for the Mac needs a lot of work, it feels like a complete afterthought to me.
Separate apps? What’s the problem, having an app with more than one feature too complicated? iTunes should actually have more functionality than it does.
Here’s some of the things it SHOULD have (whether or not it already has these features)
1. A database for any music format. it should support DSD, Flac files, which it doesn’t currently.
2. It should be able to support 24 Bit resolutions on the fly. Right now, if you want to play a 24 bit file, you have to manually switch the Audio Midi settings, but with third party player apps like Amarra, Pure Music, etc., they do it automatically when they sense a 24 bit file and you have a 24 bit DAC. Plus many of them also support DSD, which is starting to become available. yeah, Sony, Blue Coast Music, and others are releasing DSD files (which you can convert to PCM if you wish) and there are more and more DSD capable DACs (starting in the $200 price range). It’s actually getting more affordable to have access to a decent stereo or good headphones.
3. A mono button. Yes, there are some older recordings that actually do sound better in mono. and having a on/off button would be nice (even if it was added as a menubar customization)
4. it would be nice if we could have it connected to ANY music streaming service or app store. I think they should make ITunes extensible to other services. I download lots of content through other sources and it would be nice if they could be added within the iTunes app rather than I have to download them using another app and then drop them into iTunes. The whole process sometimes takes a few steps and any step they can remove would be great.
5. I would like an ABX feature where I can compare different tracks that are the same song but different versions so I can AB compare to see which one I prefer.
I think Apple should be looking at other music players like Foobar, Media Server by JRiver and look at the various player apps like Amarra, Pure Music, Audirvana, and start bringing in more functionality and making it a truly functional music player, music server and be able to connect to streaming services, etc. Even if it’s a iTunes Pro upgrade that we pay a little extra for. It would also be nice if it was a little more colorful. The thin fonts and block diagram stuff is getting really stupid looking. In some ways, I think bringing back skeumorphism is better. This app qualifies.
More *music* functionality in a music app is fine; I’m arguing only that having one app try to do more than half a dozen different jobs is why it’s such a mess.
Having to use iTunes is the worst part of using a Mac. It is just plain embarrassing. It follows none of the Apple UI guidelines. It does not multithread well and often hangs up my system while doing things (beachballs galore). Apple needs to start from scratch. iTunes cannot be saved with tweaks and fixes.
I was just having a bad experience with iTunes the other and day and realized how bad it has become over time. I will add music to a playlist and then sync my phone. Sometimes it works and sometimes it does not. It is so frustrating to plug up my phone and sync it before running out the door and realize once on the road that nothing has copied over. Just so frustrating. This has become such an annoyance I have had thoughts of switching away from apple.
The best thing about iTunes is that I rarely have to use it anymore. Everything is through iTunes Match or the cloud. The few exceptions – syncing audio/print books from other accounts – typically seem to be smooth. I don’t bother with WiFi Sync, as it’s just as buggy as it was way back when it was a jailbreak hack.
While you accurately state the various issues with syncing, there are many more issues with iTunes, especially as a music manager. I’m a collector who does internet radio shows, and every “upgrade” is actually a downgrade. I understand that having a library of over 100,000 songs is not typical at all, but even on the laptops featuring smaller libraries it’s next to impossible to do any kind of reasonable searches for songs, artists, key words, etc.
Here’s the main reason I hate iTunes. It happens intermittently (in conditions I haven’t fathomed) in OSX and iOS:
Select a tune in a playlist
Click on it twice. It doesn’t play. Nor does it explain *why* it’s not playing.
iTunes tells me I can ‘Play it next’ or various other options – but I can’t play it.
This breaks a reply established rule in the Apple User Interface. Since the earliest Macs, select then double click = open or launch. If you can’t open or launch from a double click, then you should not be allowed to select it.
iTunes has been an unholy mess for years. Before Apple start farting about with cars (or even music subscription services) they should fix this.
No excuses, conditions, exemptions or yes, buts. Rebuild it from the ground up, and release it (or its several replacements) when finished, not as some half-arsed ‘public beta’.
iTunes is currently blundering blindly on under its own momentum. The passengers are too sacred to jump off and the driver doesn’t know where he’s going or how to stop. Eventually, it’s going to crash.
I got no problems with iTunes.
Just coming across a few bugs here and there but clunky? Not so much for me actually.
I like using it and think it is pretty smart to use. But it seems I am the minority here. How discriminating!
I couldn’t agree more…I sync multiple devises for all of my family…there is nothing user friendly about it; right down to where it is always hiding toolbars and changing my settings…
In my opinion, going to desktop to mobile to cloud has not been easy for Apple. But it is progressing.
Sync iPods and iPhones was done with iTunes… now is OTA.
After the ‘me’ disaster, things were a little better.
In the developers’ side, CoreData could not jump on cloud… but CloudKit is saving the day.
Then, Apple went from iPhoto to (a fully iCloud) Photo app (with all its nuances).
So, maybe, Apple will go from iTunes to (a fully iCloud) Tunes app…
Apple will go from iTunes Store to (a fully independent) Store app…
And so on…
Such a refreshing headline. Yes, iTunes is being managed by absolute UI monkeys. Massive UI changes that bring no visible refinement or ease of use. The latest version no longer recognizes my iPod. Great! Invisible scrollbars that you have to hunt for in order to see what you’re doing. Steve has definitely left the building.
I don’t use Apple Music or iTunes Match BUT I recently purchased a 6th generation iPod Touch (128 GB) and I have 2100 songs in iTunes which includes 600 songs I downloaded from CD. When I went to setup my new iPod using iTunes 12.2 I found that my 600 downloaded songs had been deleted from iTunes (I still had them in a saved file on my desktop hard drive and had to manually drag and drop each one back into iTunes) THEN I went into the iTunes Media Folder on my hard drive and found that each and every one of my song files purchased and downloaded from iTunes Store had duplicated themselves. I had to manually delete 1500 individual duplicated song files.
For my “trouble” iTunes support gave me 8 song credits in the iTunes Store and no answers. I’m not a happy camper.
Apple has done a good job with Apple Music and I love the fact that I can combine my own music with Apple Music using iCloud. Have a bunch of songs that are not available on Apple Music (or any other streaming service for that matter). Apple solves that perfectly and having access to my own music and Apple’s Music library from all my devices is awesome.
But I agree, Ben. iTunes is a disaster.
On a different topic: iCloud Match/Apple Music integration is great. Would love for Apple to someday do the same with full length videos. Own video recordings and perhaps even DVDs. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Everything has always worked fine on both Windows and Mac for iPods, iPads and iphones. Maybe the problem is not with iTunes. Just sayin…
I’m on Windows and it generally works fine for me EXCEPT wireless sync just doesn’t, Manually managing podcasts sort of works but quite often you get entries shown in iTunes as being on the phone when they are not etc. A couple of updates ago all my TV shows (actually Oreilly Videos) ended up in a single folder on the phone and it turns out to get the grouping that previously worked the Director name had to be set ??? So there ARE plenty of bugs. Maybe we use it in different ways.
Funny, iTunes is the very reason I switched back from android. I hate that on android I had to use 20 different apps and find 20 different folders for my media content. With iTunes, everything is in one place, organized, and simple to add to my phone. I’m no novice to technology, but I value my time and prefer not to waste it trying to sync my media.
Gotta agree. It’s become a most un-Apple like app.
I agree with the divide and conquer approach, but maybe not to the granular level. It almost feels like iTunes could become a set of linked apps (almost like an app folder) – each completely separate, but launched and run and with a similar UI. That way it would be less intense for those of us still with a main computer not in the mac ecosystem (i.e. a windows computer).
I totally agree! There should just have iTunes, with the iTunes Store and iTunes Music and other media. Then they should have a separate app for Apple Music and a separate app for syncing.
Unfortunately I have to agree. 12 months ago I bought myself a new Retina 27″ iMac and a new iPad for my wife. I have yet to be able to have a guaranteed Sync between them, yet this was one of Apples selling points. I have owned Apple computers for more years than I care to remember, but on the whole “It just works” has gone from my vocabulary for many of Apples apps and system changes since the sad demise of Steve Jobs. I no longer have confidence in Apple.
“It just works” wasn’t a completely honest statement when Jobs was around, and pretending it was when he was; isn’t.
Things used to ‘just work’ a damned sight more often than they do now. You don’t have to look far to find long-term Apple users apoplectic at the declining standards of Apple’s software. When even die-hard fans like myself are posting complaints like this, then Apple have major problem. iTunes has been in serious decline since about v10: if I could find another way of interacting with my music library, I would use it.
The response that ’but the software was so much simpler then’ doesn’t wash: today’s hardware is massively more powerful that it was even when OS X came out, and can handle anything Apple’s programmers throw at it.
I think the problem is complacency, smugness and poor management at Apple. Given Apple’s near infinite resources these things could be made to work. More to the point: what exactly is there to STOP Apple making iTunes et al work intuitively, and address all the problems listed in response to this article ? Lack of money ? Lack of decent software designers ? Will ? Interest ? Apple’s top brass must use iTunes on a daily basis and know it’s a bag of w*nk: they must also remember the days when thing ‘just worked’.
We all know the problem is not confined to iTunes. Other applications have deliberately been hobbled in order to make the iOS/OS X versions converge (Pages is a good example of a great programme now that’s now near-useless; conversely the final iOS version of iPhoto was streets ahead of the current Photo).
I don’t subscribe to the Apple = Jobs theory, but didn’t he used to publicly bollock senior managers when things didn’t work ? Apple needs to open a dialogue over user concerns like those expressed here: bolting on ever-more complex crap while ignoring fundamental flaws in applications can only end badly.
I would just like to tell people that I have been messing with computers (Microsoft) for 25 years, and itunes made me want to KILL somebody! GRRRR! That sign that comes up saying that some file could not be synced because THEY CANNOT BE FOUND! And I look at my library, and those songs are right in front of me. It could be so much simpler. Once I had got real, real lucky and most of the songs and vids did sync (I have no idea as to how they did that) I decided to just leave itunes alone before it again wipes all of my stuff including contacts, all apps — everything was wiped out just because of itunes being so STUPID!!
OK – so it is agreed – iTunes is bad. Doesn’t work. What program, then can I load my (personally owned) MP3’s on to listen to them on my computer and my phone? What can I replace iTunes with?
I too hate the devices disappearing from iTunes.
Also, there used to be a neat feature that kept the search when you switched between playlists. Now when you switch it removes your search phrase. Why on earth did they get rid of that?!
Other than that, it’s still the best music platform.
It is truly time for a complete revamp. When I got my first original click wheel iPod many years ago I thought iTunes was a joy. And for sometime there after it continued to mature and get on with the job of managing my music library. But increasingly, I now am frustrated by a monstrosity that no longer delivers on any of the inherent virtues of Apple hardware and software – it just works and is simply better – none of that is true for iTunes. It is time that Apple deals with the elephant in the room before it drives me to question my loyalty to a brand that has had virtually all of my hardware, software, music, TV show and movie purchases for the last 15 years. Its time Apple. It truly is time.
The last thing I want is for iTunes to be broken up into half a dozen or more separate apps to clutter up my dock.
Yes, the need to do some serious work on syncing, but otherwise iTunes is still the best media manager I know.
In some ways, I find iTunes difficult to work with now because it feels like several apps crammed into one window. The views when I’m syncing or working with various media keep changing as I interact with the program. I’d like to see iTunes have a lot LESS apps and paradigms for interaction and much more of a streamlined, easy to use interface. I plug my phone in, a little picture of my phone appears in the playlists, I drag my media over, it syncs on its own, done. Not all the hoops that we have now.
My theory is that iTunes would have been re-engineered, simplified and fixed years ago.
Were it not for something called “The Windows Version”
This is not an excuse for Apple. But having to maintain two parallel versions in lock-step, ties the development down and makes every change more expensive.
I think Apple should diverge the products. Even if it means one version lags behind.
Please turn this into a public petition/poll and share with other mac sites to send people to.
When Apple Music was announced, it took me a little while to discover that it would still use iTunes on the desktop. I was expecting, just like what they did with Apple Photos, that they’d kill iTunes and give me a new app, but Ben, you’re right, iTunes has become a bit of a unwieldy beast, doing lots of things and for the past few years I haven’t understood why (while also still being called “iTunes”).
You haven’t noted my issues with Apple Music – including not easily changing to Offline mode for in-car listening of my offline streams, for some reason pressing play on my iPhone can either play my original library or my last played Apple Music song and probably my biggest problem – the user has to know whether to search their own library or Apple Music – just seems crazy.You do think they could have ironed this all out!?
I hope they rapidly iterate upon it, because the vision of having an awesome music experience is challenged from the original app, iTunes, doing way too much.
Apple Music should have become iTunes. And the iTunes Store should be combined with the App Store, iBooks Store and Apple Store apps to become simply Apple Store.
I agreed that the sync is terrible – has been for two years – not sure if its now fixed but I got sick of adding a new album to find iTunes/ios strip all my album art from 90% of the music on my iPhone – not everytime, just sometimes.and often. Then, for a few months, that wouldn’t be enough. It upped the ante and stripped all audio content from my iPhone because i had the nerve to add a new album. Don’t think this has happened since 12.2 launched but it did happen in those few hour between iOS 8.4 and iTunes 12.2 becoming available.
I disagree with splitting audiobook and podcasts out of the app – to me it makes sense to have all my audio content in one app If I’m listening to music and decide i want to switch to an audiobook or podcast i don’t want to have to switch to a different program.
In fact, I wish they hadn’t split podcasts off on iOS – i like dirt as a tab. Audiobooks under 8.4 inside iBooks is a terrible decision and badly implemented. It seems however they had to go to free up a tab on the tab bar controller for stuff apple want to have us pay money for
Odd. The overwhelming majority of the poll want separate apps but in the comments it seems much less clear cut. The other thing is we seem to be talking about the same few problems mostly about syncing and if they fixed those I think the whole thing would be a non issue
I think it may be cynicism vs optimism. If I believed Apple could produce a version of iTunes that Just Worked, I’d probably be happy to see it all done in one app. But I suspect that separate apps is the only way to guarantee that Apple starts from scratch when it comes to creating the UI rather than just trying yet more tinkering with the existing app.
Multiply the apps, multiply the bitching.
I understand the iPhone brought Apple to the forefront in hardware quality and people expect everything Apple to be at this level but on the software side it’s rarely been the case throughout their history. iTunes may be below their average quality level over all but not by much. Still, try whatever software does the same job on other platforms and let me know what kind of experience you get. I think over all iTunes is a very small price to pay to be able to enjoy the multiple benefits of Apple’s ecosystem.
It’s total shit.
Guys, I think you are all being a bit extreme in your comments. iTunes isn’t great, no argument there, but why hold Apple to a higher degree of perfection than the others? Have you worked with a Windows 7 or even Windows 8 computer recently? Or any MS Office software? They are all crap compared to iTunes. I understand you may have a few issues of your own with iTunes but personally, I have been bug free on iTunes for almost a year now. I used to have issues with wi-fi sync, I no longer have them. I used to lose some of my Airplay speakers or my Apple TV, it is no longer the case. I used to hate creating playlists, the newer interface is much easier to use. I used to have issues with Home Sharing, specificly finding my iTunes libraries with the Remote app: all gone. Is iTunes bloated ? Yes. Could it be better? Well, obviously, yes. Is it complete crap? No. Not even close.
I hate Apple Music and I hate what it did to iTunes. I’ve canceled my 3 month trial (turned auto renewal off) and just turned off the icloud music library.
I’ve got a playlist called “iPhone – Misc”. If I found some random mp3 I downloaded that I wanted to listen to from my phone, I’d just drag it into that playlist, sync, and boom I had it. Just spent 30 minutes trying to get that to work yesterday with two MP3s and I still couldn’t get it to work. They’re in the playlist in iTunes but won’t come over via sync. It’s a mess.
I’m going to stick with Spotify’s premium service for this feature. Apple Music had little appeal to me. The “For You” recommendations were terrible. Half of ’em were already in my library. Seriously, you can’t write the code to search my library before recommending something? Lame. And it recommended stuff I never clicked off that I was remotely interested in. A bunch of country music, wtf?
Spotify has better organizational capabilities, the radio service works just fine, works great from my mac or my phone in the car, I just don’t need iTunes to be Spotify, especially at the cost of completely mucking up native iTunes functionality.
This is a swing and a big miss by Apple.
Would you have a separate Sync app as well? Or would that be handled through separate apps, which could be a tedious experience!
Only use iTunes to Home Share content to my Apple TV since Airplay from desktop sucks.
You missed one or two. Songs being somehow duplicated on iOS devices. Somehow 80% of my library on my phone was duplicated – apparently one locally resident, one in the cloud. Trying to play an album through meant listening to each song twice. Arguably worse is the fact that I went to the Apple store, and the helper fixed it quickly, but (here is the worse part) I can’t remember how she did it. This is the antithesis of an intuitive interface.
And then there are the indecipherable icons showing status. For a long time I couldn’t find the document that described what these were, then I did find it, and read it and still didn’t understand what they meant.
One other factor unmentioned is that Apple (and the rest of the tech industry, to be fair), is pushing hard to have me store my stuff on their servers. I don’t want to. I am then dependent on having a connection, and so when I want to listen to music on a plane, for example, I have nothing. And of course, there are the times when the connection fails, either due to local problems, or because Apple’s servers are down.
I haven’t investigated iCloud for my documents, I use dropbox, which works perfectly well, I don’t want to risk using iCloud.
Yes, I think the dupes are different versions – most differ in length by a few seconds – but it is indeed annoying.
Frankly I only use iTunes because of my iPod classic which still runs like a beast. I upgraded to 12.5 from 12.4 and the album art and layout changed dramatically. Why is it that iTunes has to be the all in one program for iOS devices is beyond me. The programs name should be enough “iTunes”. Not sync your phone with everything here. Tablets and other iOS devices should have their own program for sync management. But I may be odd that way.