The iPod is a wonderful little toy. The latest model has great 3d graphics, a friendly touch screen interface, and can even play music. That’s all well and good, but with iTunes sucking so much… I doubt I’ll be buying one anytime soon.
I’m running Windows 7, 64 bit. I was very excited to see that the apple website had a 64 bit version of iTunes. I thought that maybe the performance issues I had noticed in the past would be less noticeable on the 64 bit version. I haven’t had the chance to check!
First, even though I specifically downloaded the link labeled “for 64 bit Windows”, I have a 32 bit version of iTunes installed. That’s fine, not a big deal I guess… but why label the download “for 64 bit Windows”, and not something more informative? Something like “32 bit iTunes for 32 and 64 bit Windows”. [edit: No. It wasn't an interpretation error on my part. The download file itself says "iTunes64Setup.exe". It does not install a 64 bit program, however.]
Okay, whatever. I’m not going to throw it away just for that. So, I drag and drop a couple folders of music to try it out. I listen to a couple of albums, close iTunes, and go on about my day. That was painless. The next day comes, and I have this insane urge to listen to Local H. I remember that I bought “As Good as Dead” on iTunes a couple years back, and get excited that I can actually listen to that protected music! (I haven’t used iTunes in a couple of years). I drag and drop my folder on to iTunes… and no surprise, i have to log in to authorize the music. I do so. I can’t play the music. It asks me to log in again. I do so. I still can’t play the music.
Wonderful. Good thing I depended on the “buy it once, keep it forever” idea. In the past, I’ve had huge books of CD’s stolen more than once (Over 200 CD’s stolen this way!). I rarely buy physical CD’s anymore, unless it’s a local artist or a special edition (Trent Reznor, I’m looking at you) that I just have to have. So now, I can’t play my music. Okay. whatever. It’s just one album. I’ll just torrent it. Hell, I’ve bought the CD twice now, I don’t feel bad about it.
Annoyed, I close iTunes and pull up Windows Media player 11. Much to my surprise, all of my music was already in there, even though I had never run the program. A quick type of “timberlake” in the top right corner, and bam, Justin was rockin out like crazy. I’ve hated Windows Media Player since version 7. I kinda love it now. MS is cleaning their act up, let me tell you.
I decided to give it one more shot. I open iTunes. This time I get an error message. “The registry settings used by the iTunes…… Please reinstall iTunes”. Apparently, because I installed a program to burn DVDs, iTunes is broken now. What? Close.
So why do I hate iTunes? Because they lied to me, won’t let me play the music I paid for, and hell, I can’t even open it now, anyway. I guess that’s what you get for using the one piece of software that Apple doesn’t charge for.
Funny, the whole “Buy it once, keep it forever” thing is why I buy physical CDs. I had always considered it a lot more secure than digital media (and with a much clearer legal framework governing what you own and how you can convert it, etc). I’ve never been comfortable with relying on a third-party DRM or auth server to be able to play my music. Though I don’t do a lot of taking my music places anymore and so I don’t have 60 cds in those cases sitting around in my car. That probably makes a big difference.