Although I find it slightly non-user friendly I love my iPod. My first was a Nano. I loved it so much that the next year I got a classic. You can imagine as I've been collecting mp3's since Napster, ripping CDs I own and buying stuff off iTunes 3 gigs is not enough. 80 gigs was more like it. That and the fact that with iTunes if you like one song off and album you can buy the one song. Do you know how many records, tapes, and CDs I've bought in my lifetime only to find out I like only one song? Never again!
So when Apple unveiled the iPhone, while I wasn't one of those people standing in line for weeks at a time, I did get one as soon as I could afford one. After all, I used AT&T as my cell service, and it was exclusive to AT&T, I needed to upgrade my phone anyway, and I always carried with me, my iPod and my cell phone. I call that a no brainer. Wouldn't you?
That and I have to admit I'm a Google addict. Random thoughts and wonderings that hit me throughout the day are Googled. I'm in that conversation with someone who doesn't believe that there is such thing as a Barn Swallow that looks very similar to the blue birds that are nesting right outside their kitchen window and I Google it and show them.
I love carrying around my favorite videos or having the ability to YouTube some funny video and share with a friend on the go. Growing up through LPs, rotary phones and Black & White TVs, to it all being on a hand held device is great!
So after my mom got me an iPod touch for Christmas one year, and how much I loved that, it only made sense for me to get an iPhone. So when the 3GS came out and I had an upgrade available I spent the extra money and got it. I now have a 4S.
I've only ever had 2 problems. First, no matter what carrier you have my neighborhood is a cell phone dead zone. It's cool. You get 2 or 3 bars, until you actually want to make a call or text and then you have no signal. I don't feel bad, so far. Our one neighbor had been having problems with our cable service, and since it also provided phone service for our landlines, she had to drive 5 miles up the road to inform them of the issue. So far I haven't had that problem. Although before I got the 3GS they put a baffle on my cable service before there was noise coming from my old cable modem and I was without internet for 3 days. I had no idea how many times throughout the day I Google something. I almost pulled my hair out.
The second problem is, while I can't speak for Mac users, iTunes for Windows is not user friendly and every time they come out with a new version of it I hold my breathe. I just know something is going to go wrong and it will take me hours to fix it.
For instance, if you don't name a song exactly right, iTunes has no idea what it is and will not download artwork for it. Now I have this program for eBooks called calibre. Even when it does find the right book when searching for metadata, it still gives you a couple options to make sure it has the exact right book. iTunes, no way Jose'. You have to have the title, artist and album exactly the way it is in the iTunes music store or you can go look for your own artwork. Now maybe you're asking why I care. I just love cover flow.
The artwork issue is really a stickler for me. Especially with new version of iTunes. I've been using iTunes since version 3. So I load in all my mp3's and get them named correctly and have artwork for all of them and a new version of iTunes comes out or I have to change computers and I have to do it all over again. One thing I really don't get is ... well for instance. I recently got the "Better Off Dead" digitally remastered soundtrack. I put it in my cd drive, iTunes recognized the album even though it wasn't carried in the iTunes store, it recognized the tracks, but the album artwork I had to come up with myself. WTF?
Then there are things like soundtracks. You can list each song on the soundtrack album and who did it, but unless you list the album artist as "Various artists" when using coverflow or searching by album, that one album can show up as many times as there are artists in the album. Which makes it difficult to shuffle one album. This even happens when there is a duet in the middle of the album with some other artist. The one album appears twice and the second appearance is just that one song with the two people doing the duet. For instance, say you have a Prince album, and in that album he has 14 songs. One song is a duet with Sheila E. If you use cover flow or look for the album it will show up twice. Once for all the songs by Prince and the Revolution, and once for that one song by Prince and the Revolution with Sheila E. Is that not moronic? Is it just me?
Another thing, I hear with a Mac it's easy to move stuff around and delete music no longer in your library. Now this is important for me for one reason. I listen to spiritual retreat cds. These retreats are basically 6 hours, with a one hour lunch and 2 20 minute breaks. So we are talking about 4 hours of audio. Also they are done in "hotseat" fashion. A person has a question, they are invited to the "hotseat", they ask their question and the host of the retreat answers. Usually the cds are broken up into anywhere from 5-20 files per session of 1 hour. When I'm done listening to them I move them to another folder so I know I've listened to them. iTunes now doesn't know where the file is and it has a little "!" to let you know iTunes doesn't know where the file is. Now I don't want these hanging around in my iTunes library when I've listened to them so I delete the entry.
Evidently for Mac users there is a simple way to do this. Not for PC users. You have to select and delete each file individually, or control select for multiple files. It doesn't even let you click drag a group of files. So with these spiritual retreats we are talking anywhere from 20-80 files. I usually have a play list of 3 retreats, with each session broken up by songs. So before I add the next 3 retreats I have to delete the previous 3 retreats and this can be up to 240 files. There is just no easy way to do this.
A couple years ago I did find and easy way, thanx to a blogger named Paul Mayne and his blog entry, How to Remove Broken or Dead Tracks from iTunes Now this no longer works as play lists are only available in the iPhone/iPod window. As with all things that make the iTunes experience more simple for Windows uses, Apple has figured a way to get rid of this easy fix.
So even though it takes me days to get my iTunes library just the way I like it and a couple hours a week, I was still a dedicated iTunes fan. Last year they came up with iCloud (free 5 gigs of storage you can add your iPhone/iPod back up to and up to 5 gigs of music) and iTunes Match, (any song you have, whether you bought it from iTunes or not, as long as it's for sale in the iTunes store, if you lose it due to say a HDD crash, you can download it for free, for a small fee of I think it was like $20-$30 dollars a year). They also came up with syncing via a home wireless network, which I love! I don't charge my iPhone via usb to my computer. I use to the wall adapter. Now every time I plug it into the wall and have iTunes up on my computer, it will sync via my home wireless network. That is so convenient. AND!! best thing ever! You no longer have to upgrade the software that way either. New upgrades to the iOS software install over your wireless network. This is still slightly annoying but getting so much better. Well except for music I've had for years is suddenly disappearing off my iPhone. It's not like I don't have room. I have a 64 gig 4S and I've never actually filled it up, though believe me I could.
So last night the Apple update software says new version 11 is available. I should have known better. See they've added this nice new feature which is a great idea for those of us that have videos and music beyond the capacity of our iPhone/iPod. It combines iTunes Match, iCloud, and your wireless/cellular network allowing you to play any song in your library. Sounds great right? I mean I have over 120 gigs of music, videos, TV shows, podcasts beyond the 64 gigs that were currently on my phone. So again, sounds great! Except for a few small things. One, it's on by default. Two, you don't actually have music, and videos on your phone. Which leads us to three, if you have no wireless signal or cellular signal, guess what? There is nothing on your phone. Oh and the best is number four, you have to leave iTunes open on your computer for it to work as well. Really? Considering iTunes 10 would randomly lock up and stop working on my i5 laptop, I'm not filled with confidence. Now I just figured this out tonight. Remember how I said I didn't get great reception in my neighborhood?
So I synced my iPhone last night, and was listening to it and everything was fine. Then I ran to 7-Eleven and as I left my block, the song I was listening to stopped in the middle, and I kept hearing parts of songs. So when I stop at a stop sign I take a look and my phone is fast forwarding through my music, and I can't stop it. I get home and everything is fine again. I go for my evening walk this evening, and get out of range of my wireless signal and it does it again. I hit back to my songs list and it's scrolling through all the titles. When it finally stops I try to play the song I had been playing and it does the same exact thing. I'm seeing album artwork go by and every now and again I heard the beginning of a song before it skips to the next one, and skips and skips and skips.
Finally I get a clue to what is going on, and I look at my phone capacity and usage. I have less than a gig of usage. So of my 64 gigs I have 63 free. I don't have any music or videos on my phone.
I come home from my walk, completely peeved and ready for this to be the end of my relationship with Apple as it takes me the next 2 hours to actually get stuff back on my phone. I sync, it takes all of a minute and no I still have nothing on my phone, just lists of songs and artwork. The songs will now play but that doesn't do me any goodFinally I turn off iTunes Match, uncheck all my music to clear my phone and recheck it and sync. Almost an hour later I have my music and videos back on my iPhone. Really?? Really?? This is supposed to help? I mean it's a good idea but taking everything off my phone so if I don't have a signal I don't have music? Isn't that why people have iPhones?
So I'm thoroughly convinced that even though the iPod is the #1 portable music player and the iPhone the #1 selling phone, that Apple is still ticked at Bill Gates and is taking it out on me. As I once again find album artwork for 193 songs, and try to find an easy way to delete what I no longer have in my library, I'm starting to wonder if it's worth it. Like I said I've been doing this since 2005, so my investment in iTunes is huge. Is it however worth the aggravation?
Subsurdity: Vignettes from Jasper Lane by Eric Arvin
