I haven’t read past here, so maybe the complete void of any rational thought in this series of posts from you has already been pointed out. If not–iPods and iTunes are sold as a package. That’s how it works. If you want to buy an MP3 player but don’t want to use iTunes, you are perfectly able to do so. Saying that an MP3 player “should” not come with special software is not an exceptionally intelligent thing to say.
Users of the iPod are not forced to install iTunes–they chose to install iTunes by purchasing an iPod in the first place.
I think the point is that you’re stuck with software that doesn’t work. The number of programs available for non-Ipod users is substantial. This goes back to the expectations of “I paid a premium price so give me what a want” .
Ipods were/are a leader of premium personal sound/video systems and people expect the same options of lesser units.
Firstly, what the fuck is with the personal insults?
Secondly, MP3 players shouldn’t come with special software that’s required to make them work because there are alternatives (Sony and Creative being the big two, although they’re getting harder and harder to find so “perfectly able to do so” isn’t as true as it once was) that work just fine without special software. And if they can do it, so can Apple. Like I’ve said a couple of times, if people want special software to organise their music or whatever, then by all means have it as an official option.
But someone who has spent $200 on an MP3 player should reasonably expect it to do pretty much whatever they want, and if that involves just copying all their music onto it and not needing to install special software, then that seems more than reasonable to me.
You can argue that iTunes and iPods are sold as a package, but they’re not really. In my professional experience, a significant proportion of the people purchasing iPods are actually parents and grandparents, who’ve just been told that their teenage child/grandchild “wants an iPod”. It was a regular enough occurrence for people to try and return them a week later saying “We don’t have broadband and can’t download the special programme [the one we did tell them about] to make it work” that we used to have a printed notice on the MP3 cabinet warning people about it.
Or, as I’ve said before, the world as it is and the world SDMB members live in are two very, very different places. You (generic you as an SDMB member) might be well aware that an iPod requires a programme called iTunes to make it work, and you might further think that iTunes is the most awesome programme in the universe, but that doesn’t mean that opposition viewpoints are “wrong” or without merit or stupid, as you say.
You keep saying this, and this is what strikes me as strange in the turn this thread has taken. I understand that you, Martini Enfield, and others here, expect your mp3 players to have drag-and-drop functionality. I get that. You don’t want to pay a lot of money for a device that doesn’t have the functionality you expect it to have. I TOTALLY get that. You shouldn’t. If you’re spending cold hard cash on something, it should have the features you expect. Of course, without a question, absolutely.
What I don’t get is the attitude you’ve displayed here, that the way Apple has designed the iPod functionality is somehow inherently ‘wrong’, like it’s some sort of Talmudic law that an mp3 player should have drag and drop functionality. Like it’s an affront to all mankind that it doesn’t.
Apple designed the iPod with the file system they did, that requires external software to maintain it. Why did they design it that way, I don’t know. I don’t really care, because it’s not a big deal to me. I like the way it works. And with some 70+% share of the mp3 player market, clearly, quite a number of people are, if not in love with it, and least not as disgusted as you expect them to be.
YOU expect drag and drop functionality to be a basic part of any mp3 player. That doesn’t mean it’s ‘wrong’ if it’s not. It’s just not the device for you.
Do you not realize that when you say things like this, and
earlier in the thread, you are doing EXACTLY what you’re decrying here, acting as if people who disagree with you are the crazy ones? If that’s not you intention, that’s sure how it’s coming across.
Your right of course, but this thread was started to discuss whether Macs are just image. It isn’t the Mac users that are claiming the other viewpoint is “‘wrong’ or without merit or stupid”, it’s the PC users. Macs work well precisely because their software is so strictly controlled. In my experience, Windows machines are prone to being buggy. If that’s not your experience, then that is fine with me, but I have direct experience with recent Windows machines driving me mad with normally simple tasks. You can’t tell me it’s not a problem, because I’ve seen it.
I’m going to strongly disagree with you on this. Control over your own music and the ability to drag and drop is the most basic of expectations. I lose my music I have it backed up 3 or 4 times. Click click, back in business.
From what I’ve seen PC’s and MACS use basically the same hardware on the inside. Is there any hardware in a MAC that you can’t find in a PC? And this to me begs the question: Why isn’t Apple getting filthy rich by just liscensing their OS in the US without having to buy their hardware? I guess I just don’t get it. I’ve seen people try to explain it but the bottom line is that it just makes no sense to me.
Yes, you can do it two ways. You can choose the backup option in the menu bar, or you can go into your library folder and drag and drop exactly like you would on Windows. It’s not like the iTunes library is encrypted some way.
What makes you think I can’t do this with an iPod/iTunes? I have my music backed up on 2 drives, in addition to the iPod. If I lose any of those places, I can get back in business just as easy as you.
The hardware on all PC’s is not the same. There is no way for Microsoft to control the video card or processor and what not in each computer. The hardware on all Apples is the same. It is all controlled. IMO this is why Macs have fewer bugs than PC’s, but that is just my anecdotal experience. If they licensed their software they would lose this edge.
And, let me add… in what way do you think I don’t have “control” over my music? Short of being able to literally drag and drop directly from the OS to the mp3 player, I’m willing to bet that there’s nothing I can’t do with iTunes that you can do with any other mp3 player. The sticking point is clearly that those with an iPod need to use software to do it, and you want to be able to do it straight in the OS. Other than the application issue, what exactly is it you think makes me not “in control” of my music collection?
That’s precisely it. You DON’T have control over your music because you HAVE to use a particular program. (My earlier post notwithstanding). You take your iPod to a computer without iTunes, and you can’t do anything with it without installing something. Complete control over music would mean I could deal with it on any computer that has the appropriate plugs.
But even if you don’t think that’s a big deal, you’re still locked in to using a program that has features you may not like. You see another program that does it better than iTunes? Tough. You have to use their software. You’re locked in.
And, I don’t know about now, but I know that iTunes was extremely bloated, and was the slowest media player on my system. I shouldn’t have to install a program that slows my computer down just to use a certain product.
BTW: one thing that iTunes would not let me do was copy the music off my iPod back to my computer. Granted, with disk access, finding the hidden folders, copying the music files into a folder where I then ran an MP3 renamer got them all back, but man was that a hassle.
Oh, and have you ever bought, say, a thumb drive, and found out you couldn’t just plug it into any computer you wanted? And you guys whined about having to set up a printer on Windows.
None of those capabilities are anything I’m interested in. If I want, I can use my iPod as a thumb drive even to transport my music. If you don’t want an iPod, then don’t buy one.
There’s not a lot of readily available alternatives anymore, though- you’ve either got el cheapo jobs from discount stores and bargain bins of department stores, or you’ve got iPods and maybe (if you want 4Gb or bigger) a Sony Walkman or possibly an iRiver.
So it’s not as simple as saying “If you don’t want an iPod, don’t buy one” because it’s just not that easy unless you’re shopping online, which most people (at least in this part of the world) don’t do.
Macs are said to “just work” because they are held to a lower standard than Windows or Linux, i.e., they’re only expected to work on certain extremely restricted sets of hardware. Just look up the thread a bit. The notion that the OSX should work on computer that has identical hardware to an Apple is considered as absurd as trying to get a Playstation 3 game to run on a three decade old computer.
What I hate about Macs is that they’re sooooo counter intuitive. I remember when I first got one back in the 1992 I was playing around with it and got hungry. I clicked on the Apple icon, and no snack appeared! You have no idea how much this confused me, I spent at least ten hours trying to get this feature to work.
Luckily enough last month I upgraded from my 1992 Apple computer to a $4000 dollar Thinkpad. IT’S SUCH A HUGE IMPROVEMENT!!! You Apple users really don’t know what you’re missing. I mean, if you’re the type of person to geek out on computers, I’m sure Macbooks are fine. But for the regular user? PCs all the way.
Hell, Apples don’t even have a right click! How stupid is that???