Fuck You, iTunes !!!

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Debaser

Yes. At least in older versions of the software. iTunes is famous for this.

User has a laptop with 1,000 songs on it. User has a new iPod that has one song on it. User syncs iPod to laptop and iTunes helpfully deletes all 1,000 songs from laptop and syncs the one song to both devices.

No it doesn’t. iTunes will not delete songs from your computer unless you tell it to. If you have it set to Sync automatically (though why oh why would you ever do this?) then iTunes will Sync the device to match up to the library on the computer. Not the other way around. I’ve been using iTunes since 2002. In no version of the software has it ever deleted files from my computer unless I told it to.

It also doesn’t move files nor does it rename them. Every single music file that I have put in iTunes remains in the exact same folder in Windows Explorer where they started, with the exact same file name. If that is not the case for you, then it is *you *who fucked something up.

[PunditLisa]

Yeah, I just bought a new computer because I still had XP, and my apps were starting to gripe at me. I guess after 10 years, it’s time. Anywho, I used a transfer cable to get most of my files and programs transferred to the new computer, but only after I packed away my old computer did I realize that iTunes only brought over the songs I purchased from them. All the stuff I’d imported from my personal CD collection was missing. Well, crap.

So I had to dig the old computer out of storage and fire it back up again. But instead of messing with the transfer cable, I just went ahead and paid the $25 for the iTunes match service. It took a few hours to match everything, and it sucks to pay $$ for music I already paid for, but frankly, I just didn’t want to jack around with it. At least now I have all my music downloaded to one folder, in a format that all my devices can read and will (I hope) last me until the day I die…or until the evil musical overlords come up with another way of making me pay for music I already own.

And that leads me to Issue #2. I recently had a sweet Sonos system installed in my new home, with some kickass speakers that allow the entire neighborhood to rock out with me. I added the iTunes folder to my Music Library, and assumed all was well with the world.

Then I went to put one particular song in the queue (“A Pirate Looks at 40” if you must know), and it wasn’t in the library. Strange. I check iTunes and sure enough, it’s there. Why isn’t it in Sonos?

Well, turns out that this particular song, which was downloaded directly from iTunes, is in .mpa format, or a protected format. Apparently some artists wanted their music in protected format. Since Sonos isn’t an Apple device, it doesn’t read them. iTunes does have a conversion tool, which in theory should allow me to convert them to mP3 or AAC, and that worked for a few, but not all.

Luckily iTunes has a fix for people who subscribe to their Match Service. Woot. And it involves deleting the file from my computer, then re-downloading the file from iTunes. All their music is now in iTunes PLUS format, a new and improved non-protected format (ha!) Sounds easy. Trouble is, I don’t know how to easily identify which songs are in protected format, short of doing a line by line comparison to the Sonos library. All the songs in my iTunes folder are stored in individual artist folders, and I have to click into that folder before getting to the actual song file, so that I can view the file extension.

What a PITA.

So, in short, I don’t know whether to be mad at iTunes or Sonos. Or should I be mad at both? Certainly, it can’t be ME!

[Debaser]

If you have it set to Sync automatically (though why oh why would you ever do this?) then iTunes will Sync the *device *to match up to the library on the computer. Not the other way around.

It’s funny that even people defending iTunes are forced to basically admit that it sucks.

So, iTunes (according to you) doesn’t delete files without asking you off your computer. It just deletes them off your devices. Tomato, tomAto.

[Cartooniverse]

What has me most upset is that Apple™® has decided to abandon a decades-long standard of backwards compatibility. Now, my iPad literally could not sync in any way unless I updated the iTunes app, AND the iPad Firmware. Without that, my MacBook Pro could not talk to it. Meanwhile, for a few years now, my MacBook Pro ( Running the same OS- 10.6.8 as always ) had always been able to talk to the iPad just fine.

With increased need for control comes this attitude. I bought my music once. I don’t need to buy my music all over again from Apple, nor do I need to be forced to abandon any music tracks that were not purchased from the Apple store.

Facists.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Cartooniverse

With increased need for control comes this attitude. I bought my music once. I don’t need to buy my music all over again from Apple, nor do I need to be forced to abandon any music tracks that were not purchased from the Apple store.

Itunes forces none of that. And forcing a software update after an important update has been common practice with iTunes ever since I’ve owned iDevices (about five years now).

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Debaser

It’s funny that even people defending iTunes are forced to basically admit that it sucks.

It’s not the best program and it does a lot that I dislike. But the complaints in this thread are based off of the user not doing something correctly:

@PunditLisa

Yeah, I just bought a new computer because I still had XP, and my apps were starting to gripe at me. I guess after 10 years, it’s time. Anywho, I used a transfer cable to get most of my files and programs transferred to the new computer, but only after I packed away my old computer did I realize that iTunes only brought over the songs I purchased from them. All the stuff I’d imported from my personal CD collection was missing. Well, crap.

iTunes is just a large playlist of all of your music. If you download files directly from them, it will put them in an iTunes folder. If you didn’t copy the other files over from their original folders, don’t be mad that iTunes didn’t, because that’s not what iTunes does.

@Debaser

So, iTunes (according to you) doesn’t delete files without asking you off your computer. It just deletes them off your devices. Tomato, tomAto.

**You **were the one who wrote:

@Debaser

User syncs iPod to laptop and iTunes helpfully deletes all 1,000 songs from laptop and syncs the one song to both devices.

iTunes deleting something from the computer and from the device are in no way the same thing. And again, it only deletes things when you tell it to.

@Cartooniverse

I bought my music once. I don’t need to buy my music all over again from Apple,

You don’t need to.

@Cartooniverse

nor do I need to be forced to abandon any music tracks that were not purchased from the Apple store.

You don’t need to.

Let’s see, I have bought a total of **two **songs from iTunes. Ever. All of my music is stuff that I have imported myself. And yet somehow I never run into these problems…

[Kelevra]

This is a pitting that I can get behind! Trying to run Itunes on Windows was an exercise in frustration. I had my nephew - an avowed Apple fanboy- come work on it and even he was frustrated. He suggested I switch to a Mac so I could run it. Right.

[Debaser]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

**You **were the one who wrote:

I know what I wrote. Why don’t you try reading it?

I also wrote this, in the same post:

“I don’t use iTunes, for obvious reasons. But I’ve known several people who have all had basically that scenario happen to them in one form or another.”

I’m not a QA Engineer working for Apple. I don’t have exact steps to recreate every detail of every issue of their craptastic software. However, I do have plenty of people who’ve told me how iTunes randomly deletes their stuff, as evidenced by the posters in this thread. Which is why I went out of my way to not be specific in my post.

If iTunes deletes all the songs off your laptop without you wanting it to that is a flaw and a very bad user experience.

If iTunes deletes all the songs off your iPod without you wanting it to that is also a flaw and a very bad user experience.

I don’t know what kind of point you are trying to prove by distinguishing between these two things but I can assure you it doesn’t matter to the users who are annoyed by it.

It’s like defending a malfunctioning lawnmower by stating that it only chops off people’s feet and not their hands so everything is fine.

iTunes has a well known reputation and history of deleting data when syncing across devices and with updates. There’s no point in denying it.

[nate]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

It also doesn’t move files nor does it rename them. Every single music file that I have put in iTunes remains in the exact same folder in Windows Explorer where they started, with the exact same file name. If that is not the case for you, then it is *you *who fucked something up.

I admit I may be mis-remembering, but it seems like the first several versions of Windows iTunes did default to organizing your mp3 files for you by moving them into a special itunes folder and renaming them. Later on they changed it to where it wasn’t enabled by default, but at one time it was and caused a lot of frustration.

[Justin_Bailey]

@nate

I admit I may be mis-remembering, but it seems like the first several versions of Windows iTunes did default to organizing your mp3 files for you by moving them into a special itunes folder and renaming them. Later on they changed it to where it wasn’t enabled by default, but at one time it was and caused a lot of frustration.

It’s still enabled by default and it still does that… BUT ONLY if you edit the ID tags of the MP3.

[woodstockbirdybird]

@Cartooniverse

Facists.

People who discriminate based on faces are the worst.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Debaser

iTunes has a well known reputation and history of deleting data when syncing across devices and with updates. There’s no point in denying it.

No, it doesn’t, anymore than the iPhone 4 dropped calls because of where the antenna is or anymore than Toyota cars will suddenly accelerate and be unable to slow down or anymore than Bubble Yum is made with spider eggs.

[RitterSport]

@Debaser

…
iTunes has a well known reputation and history of deleting data when syncing across devices and with updates. There’s no point in denying it.

Yeah, this definitely happened to my uncle a few years back. He had ripped his music collection. His son copied the music onto his (the son’s) iDevice. Then, his son deleted the music directly on the iDevice. His son had his device set to sync and when he reconnected to the computer, the files were deleted from the computer.

It’s possible that iTunes asked whether to delete the files from the computer and the son just clicked through. ITunes is always throwing up confusing dialogs, though – after just backing up a device, I go to upgrade the operating system and it tells me I should back it up.

I can’t stand that software and feel like I’m always battling it. Unfortunately, everyone in my family but me has iDevices, so it’s a necessary evil. Accent on the evil.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Debaser

If iTunes deletes all the songs off your laptop without you wanting it to that is a flaw and a very bad user experience.

You are absolutely correct. Good thing it doesn’t do that.

iTunes has a well known reputation and history of deleting data when syncing across devices and with updates. There’s no point in denying it.

From the device. Not from the computer.

I simply do not believe you when you say that someone deleted songs from their phone and and when synced with the computer iTunes automatically deleted them from the hard drive. An actual legitimate gripe with iTunes is that they do not provide a way to transfer songs from the device back to the computer. That has to be done using a 3rd party program. Which pretty much makes your claim of iTunes deleting songs on the computer to match the device impossible.

[Bozuit]

As someone who generally dislikes Apple and all it stands for, I’ve got to say that I’ve been using iTunes for a long time, and have no complaints except that they keep trying to get me to update it, and when I finally do I find they’ve changed the layout of everything.

It has never deleted anything I didn’t want it to. You can delete files from iTunes, but in my experience, only if you tell it to. The way it syncs your computer’s library with another device can be confusing for someone who isn’t used to it, but it’s not overly complicated if you spend 5 minutes working it out.

[RitterSport]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

You are absolutely correct. Good thing it doesn’t do that.
From the device. Not from the computer.

I simply do not believe you when you say that someone deleted songs from their phone and and when synced with the computer iTunes automatically deleted them from the hard drive. An actual legitimate gripe with iTunes is that they do not provide a way to transfer songs from the device back to the computer. That has to be done using a 3rd party program. Which pretty much makes your claim of iTunes deleting songs on the computer to match the device impossible.

It definitely happened to my uncle. Maybe iTunes changed the way it works in the last few years, but it certainly used to have that problem.

And, back to the OP, my kids’ iPhones lost all their songs when they upgraded recently; I think it was the IOS 6 upgrade last year, but I’m not sure. They had to reload the songs from the computer.

[Nonsuch]

@RitterSport

Yeah, this definitely happened to my uncle a few years back. He had ripped his music collection. His son copied the music onto his (the son’s) iDevice. Then, his son deleted the music directly on the iDevice. His son had his device set to sync and when he reconnected to the computer, the files were deleted from the computer.

It’s impossible to delete music directly off an iDevice without using a) iTunes or b) a third-party browser that exposes the device’s hidden directories. There is no “Delete Music Files” function on any iDevice.

What can happen is the opposite. You sync your iDevice with music from iTunes. You then delete all the music from iTunes. The next time you sync, iTunes would sync the device with its own now-empty library — but even then, I’m pretty sure the system warns you you’re about to delete files off the device.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@Nonsuch

It’s impossible to delete music directly off an iDevice without using a) iTunes or b) a third-party browser that exposes the device’s hidden directories. There is no “Delete Music Files” function on any iDevice.

What can happen is the opposite. You sync your iDevice with music from iTunes. You then delete all the music from iTunes. The next time you sync, iTunes would sync the device with its own now-empty library — but even then, I’m pretty sure the system warns you you’re about to delete files off the device.

This is actually incorrect. Since iOS 5 there has been the ability to delete files directly on the iPhone itself.

[Nonsuch]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

This is actually incorrect. Since iOS 5 there has been the ability to delete files directly on the iPhone itself.

Ignorance fought. Thanks.

[Gatopescado]

Why do you have to import photos? Can’t you just get them developed at the local supermarket?