Please… somebody… anybody… tell me something reassuring. ITunes is very important to me and my enjoyment of life! Laugh if you want! Laugh at the guy with 3 iPod Classics. Aaaaargh!
One of the things I dislike about Apple is their tendency to try and use the purpose of a piece of software as the name of the software.
About the only thing I use iTunes for is ripping mp3s and loading them into my iPhone and iPad, so I don’t expect this to affect me much.
The “shutting down” in the headline seems like hyperbole to me.
It just sounds like they are reorganizing it into 3 apps. And surely there will be continuity with what the iTunes app does now, the app will just be called something else. I very much doubt that your iPods will be useless bricks next year.
Yeah, I’m always the guy defending iTunes. Or rather saying “Well, it’s always worked for me…” Since my beloved 4GB iPod Mini. iTunes has helped me organize hundreds of audiobooks, podcasts and oh yeah, some music, too.
Not sure I’ll find anything that works as effortlessly. I’m assuming whatever Apple comes up with to replace it will have Issues-with-a-Capital I for a while.
Anyone have recommendations for other app(s) that’ll play mp3s and AACs, and where I can make and edit playlists?
Arghhhh! I just realized, my whole phone is backed up to iTunes! Okay, iCLoud would cost $$, so looks like I’ll also need alternatives for backup that I can restore an iPhone from.
Do you really think that Apple are planning to do away with the ability to back up your iPhone? Come on.
Not at all. I think they want me to back it up to iCloud, and since it’s more than 5GB, pay for Additional Storage every month.
For years I’ve gotten prompts and emails suggesting I do that. So it’s safe to say that’s their preference. I just don’t want to pay… or trust Apple with All My Stuff.
Ok, but you’re getting mad at them for something that they haven’t actually indicated they plan to do yet. I think that article is a clickbait headline. It doesn’t appear that they have said they plan to do away with any of the actual functionality. Just to reorganize into separate apps, so it won’t be called iTunes.
One reason it was called iTunes in the first place was an agreement with the Beatles over “Apple” and the computer company wasn’t supposed to go into the music business. IIRC, a more recent update finally got Beatles songs onto iTunes, and it looks like they don’t have to use a separate brand anymore.
Detest iTunes with extreme prejudice.
I know some of their design decisions were made with content producers’ intellectual-property concerns in mind, but I am not going to use an application for the management of music files that hides from me the location of those same goddam music files.
Likewise for iPhoto / Photos / etc the location of my image files.
Everyone I know who uses iTunes sooner or later begins whimpering, “I queued up The Grey Album but three of the tracks don’t play, it says it can’t find them. I don’t know where they are either, I don’t know where any of my MP3 files are, iTunes doesn’t tell me…”.
^^I don’t know anyone who has whimpered like that.
I always assumed that the reason it was a bloated horrorshow of effed-uppery was that they were trying to convince people to go elsewhere. Maybe they finally realized that the True Believers would never realize what’s going on so time to make it official.
I am an Apple fan generally but am slowly falling out of love.
Recent example, iTunes. I have a very old (10+ years?) iMac. I have TONS of music on it. Last year I bought a new iMac. I use them both. When I set it up somehow it gave the iTunes on the new computer a different password.
Basically creating a new account (I guess). So I have money/credit on the old computer. I tried to buy some music on it (it has a CD burner - new computer doesn’t) and it informs me the password is no good. Hmm. So I try the new computer password. Nope. OK, I’ll create a new password. Go through all of that hassle and… nope. It changed the password on my new computer.
I’m not computer savvy but I’ve tried everything I can think of short of paying Apple to help me.
Arggggg.
Itunes served its purpose years ago … Itunes was specifically created to get people used to paying for digital music and help shut down the file-sharing servers like the original Napster Kazaa WINmx and such and it worked beyond anyone’s wildest dreams …
ITunes was written on top of QuickTime, and was the only thing keeping QT alive internally at Apple. Nuking iTunes is Apple is finally pulling the plug on that venerable piece of crapware that QuickTime became (though it was quite innovative a very long time ago). Good riddance.
oh and something else that was pointed out :
until valve started the steam gaming service iTunes was the largest DRM scheme accepted by the world (and still might be )
I don’t have my wife’s computer (where my iTunes lives) with me right now but I recall there being a setting where you specify the location for the iTunes music folder.
ETA: In Music, edit, preferences, advanced preferences. Dialog box for “iTunes Media folder location.”
Further, that you can select and it will store your music library by artist/album/song.
ETA: right under that, “Keep iTunes Media folder organized”.
I will add that I haven’t updated since 12.3.3.17 so I hope this stayed fairly constant.
I’m not a big fan of it, but it works well enough for me and I’m not looking forward to having to juggle new things to manage my music and podcasts,
Right click on song > Show in Finder.
This seems absolutely insane.
Music shifted from CD’s to ITunes and Amazon Music Unlimited.
Now these bastards want to end ITunes?
Are we supposed to revert back to CD music distribution?
Thank goodness for Amazon and Spotify.
The idiots at Apple can pucker up and kiss my ass.
ITunes is/was a valuable resource for self publishing musicians.
Aimee Nolte is a very accomplished Jazz Musician. She released a album a couple months ago. She had the top number of Jazz sales for several days. But never got Featured on ITunes Jazz page.
Turns out there’s some back room deals between the digital distributor and ITunes. Aimee used CDBaby. A well respected indie label that distributes on Spotify and ITunes.
Aimee talks about the frustration of releasing music on ITunes.
Apple isn’t getting out of the music business, it’s just killing iTunes as a standalone app (replacing it with other apps) and possibly the iTunes brand itself.