I don't understand iTunes at all! (a rant, and plea for help)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I seriously hate this program with the fiery passion of a thousand sun orgy.

Alright, so I picked up an iPhone a couple months ago and have been pretty happy with it so far, except for one problem: Fucking iTunes. This bloated piece of shit has to be one of the most user-unfriendly programs I’ve ever used. I thought Apple was supposed to make things “easy,” but this crap pile rivals even the worst Windows programs.

I consider myself fairly well informed when it comes to hardware/software, and yet iTunes makes the simple task of adding, say, a podcast a fucking chore. What should be drag + drop turns out to be some add to playlist bullshit, then I have to sync it, which takes way longer than it should because of all the other bullshit it has to sync (partially rectified with the recent update, but still god damn annoying).

Is there any reason I need to backup all of my applications, for instance? And why is it that when I uncheck the “sync applications” box, it says “all exiting applications and their data on the iPhone will be removed.” Why? WHY?! I don’t want to remove them from the iPhone, I just want you to stop backing them up every god damn time I want to do something!

ARGHGHGHGHGGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGHGH!

So what am I not getting here? Can I stop it from syncing apps without uninstalling them all? And how can I easily add music/podcasts to my iphone with a minimum mount of bullshit?

2

iTunes is not a music player, it is a library manager. What that means is that all of your files are stored in a central library. iTunes is the mothership. All devices receive data from iTunes. In some cases, the two will synchronize (playcount, ratings, etc), but for the most part, iTunes matches your device to iTunes. This one-way synchronization is a bit easier for it to manage. Your iPhone is one step below in the hierarchy.

For iTunes to know what songs to load onto your iPhone, you need to tell it which ones. If your music library is larger than the capacity on your phone, you need to narrow down the list. This is the function of the playlist.

There should be an option in iTunes to sync all your podcasts, or at least all unplayed ones. That’s how mine is set up, no playlist required.