I don’t believe it’s necessary to connect an iPhone to a PC either; you can set it up and use it without ever connecting to a PC.
This is great if true, can someone verify? The 3Gs had to be connected for updates and to transfer/backup anything, but that was a long time ago. If a 6 can be used without ever having to use iTunes, I would very possibly consider one as my next.
I did not find it possible. I’d say “no” and it would still change my defaults.
iTunes used to be fairly good. It was always a little resource-hoggy and a pain if you had a large collection with multiple users, but for your average user it was straightforward and good. Then each subsequent change in the last few years makes it harder and harder to use. Like it should not be so hard to add art to an album, but it only works about half the time for me. The old “get info” might have had a dated look, but gdi it WORKED and that should be what mattered.
What I found most irritating about that was the assumption that if I own an Apple product, then of course I must love U2.
How the fuck was I supposed to know that I had to look online to find instructions and follow a link and sign in to iTunes just to delete a file?
That said, I thank you sincerely. It appears to be gone now.
I’m no Apple hater. I’m madly in love with my 6. I worship my iPad. I try to stump Siri playing name-that-tune. I may replace my craptop with a Mac when the time comes. But iTunes is a clunky asinine counter-intuitive piece of crap.
During one of the updates, iTunes at a good number of items that I had ripped from my CD (which I no longer have) to my iPod. Oh, silly, naive me. I should’ve known to back the fuckers up elsewhere.
And now I can’t get to that iPod, either, because it’s considered too old.
I assume Apple wants us all to eventually move to AppleMusic and I would not be at all amazed if at some point, like it happened with their desktop OS, they decided to simply orphan the original iPod your-own-media-actually-recorded-on-your-storage function.
Yes, you can now operate iPhones as stand-alones, as my mother bears witness. You will have to use iCloud for backup, and do make sure you get one of the high memory capacity ones (64G or 128G) and leave yourself a hefty cushion, because iOS updates suck up wicked Gigs. A 16G iPhone is de facto still computer-dependent if you don’t keep it spare and spartan in apps and media content.
Of course on the iPhone itself the native music apps are still iTunes and AppleMusic, but you don’t have to put them into your computer.
Thanks for the info. I have a year or so to think about it, since I have everything native to Android including Drive for backup (and love my G6edge), but the music thing was never too big a deal since I’ve used Rhapsody since it was Napster. It’s everything else plus having iTunes on my computer at all that killed the deal. A friend has a 6Plus and we recently compared and contrasted our phones while out for coffee and came up pretty much a draw. 
Good rant. For a company that makes such easy to use intuitive products iTunes stands out like a sore thumb as one of Apples shittier products.
In addition to all the other complaints I love when I plug in my iPhone into my PC USB port for power or to transfer photos, iTunes pops up, freezes my computer and takes forever to shut down when I want to close it.
I too am disappointed that such a big company that has had made so many innovative products can’t overhaul one of their signature brands and make it so easy to use my 82 year old mom, who’s never touched a computer in her life but learned how to use an iPad in a few days, can use it.
Apple fanboi since Macintosh System 3 and the Macintosh Plus, but I detest iTunes.
Girlfriend’s PC is at least temporarily kaput, downstairs. She wants 3 CD’s worth of tunes to be ripped and placed on her iPod for a vacation trip next week. I rip them (using software other than iTunes I assure you) then launch iTunes to load the suckers onto her iPod.
Dialog pops up: Ya wanna synch what you’ve got in iTunes Library with this here iPod, which means erasing everything on it now? Or would you prefer to move all digital rights to current computer so that girlfriend’s computer won’t be able to play any of her iTunes Music Store purchases ever again? Or Cancel?
I hit Cancel. Yeesh. OK, I’m still in iTunes. OK it still “sees” the iPod. I open the appropriate playlist and drag songs. Nothing happens.
I call Apple tech support. They say this iPod is out of warranty and want to charge me $29 to explain what to do next. I say OK. Fifteen minutes with a person who seems unsure of the difference between an iPod and an iPad and doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do. Escalates to a senior tech, “John”.
John says yeah that’s impossible, what you’re trying to do, gotta protect digital copyright ya know, so this iPod can only sync with your computer or your girlfriend’s computer, not both.
I had previously checked a checkbox that said “manually manage your tunes” or some such thing, and while on the phone with John, noticed it was now unchecked. WTF? I recheck it and only then notice a new button at bottom, below the “Sync” button, labeled “Apply”. Hmm, I didn’t hit “Apply” before. Hit it now. Popup warns me that I must unmount then reconnect iPod for this to take effect, so I do.
Now it lets me do it. Lets me drag-copy files into playlists on the iPod without erasing stuff. The very thing Mr Apple Genius John just finished telling me can’t be done and for which info I was charged $29.
I still use Audion on my 10.6.8 Mac. I also have a home-grown FileMaker-based MP3 player I made that I may switch to (although of course it won’t encode CD tracks as MP3 files). Be damned if I’ll ever use iTunes. Hate it.
iTunes is the resulting diarrhea when a monkey eats diseased elephant shit.
That said, some of these problems are your own fault.
The photos are in the Photos app. Photos is an Apple app and can’t be deleted, so it is there on the phone, you just don’t see it. You can also search for “photos.”
You can drag and drop all you want. Connect the iPhone to your computer, go to the iPhone set up section in iTunes and check the “Manually manage music and videos” box.
Your playlist problem doesn’t make much sense. It sounds like maybe you’ve just taken your cousins phone as is without setting it up as your own. You can’t really do that, you’ll have to wipe it first and then put on your own music, movies, etc.
I agree that iTunes was never a great program, but it used to be a hell of a lot better. I think I’ve mentioned before that Apple has pretty much lost me as a customer. They’ve discontinued the iPod Classic, I have no interest in an iPhone (I’m happy with my Nexus 5), don’t want an iPad, and all the decisions made regarding the MacBook lines means that I’m not going to buy another one of those once the two I have finally die for good. It’s always been the case that you didn’t have all the customization and choice with Apple that you did with their competition, starting as far back as the IBM PC, but now it feels like Apple has simply gone take it or leave it. It shows in their hardware, it shows in their software, and frankly I’m surprised they’re still doing as well as they are.
I have to say, I honestly don’t know how you all have so much trouble. I can burn disks, manage multiple devices. I’ve got movies, podcasts, audiobooks, ripped music, purchased music (both from Apple Store and Amazon). And I never have ANY of the problems people describe in these threads.
Do I think iTunes is perfect? Am I an Apple fanboi? Not at all. What’s the difference for me? I dunno, maybe I RTFM first.
I hated i-tunes,
Back when I still had the demonic fruit, I used to record meetings.
Without fail, trying to find the file and get it onto my desktop was a nightmare.
Not to mention drag and drop of images,
Syncing issues
Whatever else
I flat out refuse to use an Apple phone of any description.
I loved my Galaxy and was very happy with Android. I recently switched to an iPhone, just to see how iOS on a phone compared. Yes, a draw is a great description of the two.
Yeah, by now the systems are pretty much at parity for most users’ purposes.
Oh, and for a few generations now this is something else that can be chosen to NOT happen. Been years since plugging in my iPhones or iPods has triggered an iTunes launch.
Like I said, iTunes’ deteriorating user-friendliness seems to me a plot to make us welcome whatever Apple brings next. At the same time, sure, some of the complaints do sound more like “why is the way* I* (would/want to) do it, not the preset default?”… But as AHunter3 describes, even when there IS an easy way to change it, Apple does not exactly do much to point it out and would rather refer you to the complicated way if you will not just submit to letting the system make the choices for you.
Not to derail this thread (I have never used itunes), but I’d thoroughly endorse that pitting.
The joke here is that people have been upset with iTunes since forever, just like the Office ribbon (now 8 years old). Pittings of such are as useful and timely as shaking your fist at the rain.
Here you go, though:
I used to love iTunes, but not I despise it. Somewhere along the line it converted all my playlists into one single folder full of thumbnails which can’t be viewed as lists. Moreover, I can’t figure out how to unmark the songs I’ve already listened to. Whenever I click on a new song, it plays the list instead and appends the song I selected to the last of the list. Why, oh why, does it do that? Does Apple WANT to alienate its user base again? Why can’t I just group select the songs I want to listen to LIKE I USED TO? Even Windows Media Player is better. Never ever thought I would recommend anything Windows over Apple.