# What is so scary and mysterious about iTunes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2010, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293 "2010-06-15T13:58:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/161 "2011-06-20T10:15:04Z")
My problem is that it’s slow, and I have other programs that do most of its functions faster. The only thing I needed it for was connecting my iDevice with my computer. And it’s annoying to install software that runs so slow for just one function. And now that my iPod died and I mostly avoid iDevices, I don’t need it at all. And my computer starts up two minutes faster. (I don’t know why it slowed my boot down, but it did.) ---
**Author:** ![Martiju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Martiju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martiju)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/162 "2011-06-20T13:21:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think my problem with iTunes is that it isn’t what I want. It’s a program for organizing my music, and I don’t need a program for organizing my music; what I want is a program for interfacing with my iPhone. > > That’s all I need: a simple interface. Something to tell me what’s on my device and what isn’t, and to help me transfer files to and from my computer. Anything more than that is superfluous. I wonder, having read most of the thread, whether this is the key difference in opinion here. Like you, I want a program that allowed me to put music on my iPod - all the management, metadata, etc. I wanted to do myself. Basically, I knew how I wanted everything structured and managed, and I didn’t like my view to be overridden by software. Others on here have said that they were happy for iTunes to take over that function, and that they’ve adapted their music management preferences accordingly. That’s fine - I just prefer software that I don’t have to argue with to get it to do what I want - that’s why I use Floola, which does exactly what I want in the way I want it, nice and simple! ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/163 "2011-06-20T13:33:13Z")
Just out of curiosity, I checked out Floola’s page and I looked at the screenshots. It’s not obvious to me how it’s any different from Itunes. In fact, it almost looks like a clone. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/164 "2011-06-20T13:42:58Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > This has only ever happened to me when the music was stored on an external device. My guess is that when it loads up it has issues finding the device and then permanently flags it as missing. All of my files on are on the primary internal hard drive. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/165 "2011-06-20T17:37:26Z")
> [@Martiju](#): > > I wonder, having read most of the thread, whether this is the key difference in opinion here. Like you, I want a program that allowed me to put music on my iPod - all the management, metadata, etc. I wanted to do myself. Basically, I knew how I wanted everything structured and managed, and I didn’t like my view to be overridden by software. > > Others on here have said that they were happy for iTunes to take over that function, and that they’ve adapted their music management preferences accordingly. That’s fine - I just prefer software that I don’t have to argue with to get it to do what I want - that’s why I use Floola, which does exactly what I want in the way I want it, nice and simple! I suspect this is also a big distinction between Mac users and PC users. Im perfectly happy to have Apple manage all the nuanced details as long as my computer doess what I want when I want. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2011, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/166 "2011-06-20T19:25:36Z")
> [@WildCard](#): > > I installed itunes 10 on my main laptop (win7 64 tosh) and pointed the library to my mp3 directory. > I have always stored my mp3’s on an internal 2 tb sata drive installed on an XP pro tower (never has had itunes installed on it). > > Once itunes has been installed on laptop, I now have **NO** access, by any means, other than itunes show file in explorer… > at first I thought it deleted all my files, the directories where there > with any jgp’s and such, just no mp3’s.. :eek: > I finally right clicked the main mp3 folder/ properties, > to find files size 100+ gb’s still in the mp3 directory. I’m not understanding you. Why don’t you just open Windows Explorer and access your files through that? Unless you told iTunes to move your music somewhere else, it should all be where you originally had it. I have never had iTunes move a song from one folder to another. If you right click a song in iTunes and hit Get Info, where does it say the file is located? ---
**Author:** ![cordylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dc4da7/32.png) [@cordylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cordylus)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/167 "2011-06-21T01:12:05Z")
> [@amanset](#): > > Sounds like someone decided to just move the files using explorer or finder rather than using the built in support for moving the library. And then were amazed that iTunes wasn’t sure where things were anymore. > > As others have pointed out, this thread is littered with people claiming iTunes doesn’t do some thing when in fact it does, they just haven’t got off their arse to find out about it. Moaning is much easier. Te classic example is ‘iTunes insists on organising my files for me, copying them into it’s own directory structure when I have spent years organising it myself in directories’. This is not only not true but hasn’t been true for years and years. The options are clear as day, there in the preferences. > … Someone actually renamed a directory and then moved it to a new drive. Yes I used my operating system to move the files. Pure madness I know. For example, when I need to move a text file I use iText which indexes all my text files, accesses the internet so I can learn about all the text files from the hottest new text file artists, verifies the permissions on all my text files, checks that I am on an IText registered computer and when its finished I can move that recipe I copied off the web to my recipe directory. I wasn’t amazed that iTunes had lost track of the files but I certainly expected there to be an option to specify a new path to use as the root. To me that would be a common sense feature that “just worked”. My real issue was the fact that there was no simple method to remove the dead listings. Keep in mind this was over 5 years ago. I think the poster above who said this is really a question of differing expectations nailed it. My expectation was that I would manage the files on my system and iTunes would index them and transfer them to my ipod. I certainly didn’t expect it to even have the capacity to move or rename files. I can see how some users, especially those who were introduced to digital audio with the ipod, would find this convenient but for me it was annoying and overly intrusive. I really hated that the alternatives to itunes at the time were sparse and extremely cumbersome. Right or wrong I saw my experience as being emblematic of the apple experience. For those who like it I think its great but it doesn’t work for me. I wanted an ipad like everyone else but there is no way I would ever drop that kind of money on an apple product again. Not because they’re bad or evil but just because I prefer a more open environment and find some of the apple conventions overly restrictive. It has nothing to do with apple or itunes being scary or mysterious just annoying to me. ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/168 "2011-06-21T03:28:03Z")
My experience has been that Apple makes it trivially easy to do what they think you want to do, but if you want to do something that’s even slightly different from that, you got problems. Feel free to work out your problems while they work on getting your computer to do what they think you should want it to. For the record, I feel the same way about my car locking the doors when I put it in gear. Dear Technology: I’ll tell you what I want you to do, and then you do it, not the other way around. Please keep in mind that I own 11 different kinds of hammers. Yes, you read that right, not 11 hammers, 11 DIFFERENT KINDS of hammers. The actual number of hammers is much larger. You are, while globally redundant, locally crunchable. Thanks in advance for believing this time that I really, really, really don’t want to update Quicktime. Yours with hammers from toffee to post maul, 3trew ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 10:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/169 "2011-06-21T10:53:53Z")
I hate itunes! It keeps deleting the songs from my home computer when I want to add the songs from my work computer. And this whole bullshit about having to select circa 2000 songs that I want to sync and blah de blah drives me crazy. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/170 "2011-06-21T11:15:14Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I think my problem with iTunes is that it isn’t what I want. It’s a program for organizing my music, and I don’t need a program for organizing my music; what I want is a program for interfacing with my iPhone. > > That’s all I need: a simple interface. Something to tell me what’s on my device and what isn’t, and to help me transfer files to and from my computer. Anything more than that is superfluous. This. And if anyone knows of such a program, links would be appreciated. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/171 "2011-06-21T11:16:15Z")
My biggest complaint about iTunes is that every week or so, I get this popup nagging me to install Safari. If there is a way to make Apple stop spamming me, I don’t know it. Other than that, I just use it to put songs on my iPod. If I want to listen to music, I just use Winamp. Actually, I know I could put songs on my iPod Nano (2nd gen) with Winamp. Can I still use it for that purpose with the 4th gen iPod Touch? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2011, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293/172 "2011-06-21T12:04:46Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > It keeps deleting the songs from my home computer when I want to add the songs from my work computer. That’s because you have it set to “automatically sync” rather than “manage my own music”. That setting alone is the cause of 80% of the iTunes threads on this board. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-so-scary-and-mysterious-about-itunes/543293.md?page=8)