It just keeps getting better...
iTunes crashed last night. Just froze, right out of the blue. Vista was perfectly functional underneath it, and I was able to use the desktop and the Start Menu like normal, but iTunes just sat there, frozen in time, eating 100% of my CPU when everything was idle. A process termination was in order. Just thought I'd throw that out...
Anyway, today, I start it back up? (Because it is the player I've organized my music for, sadly.) Up pops the good ol' 'A new version of iTunes (7.6) is available. Would you like to download it now?' I laugh at it and say 'heck, no! I'll take your little upgrade warning, but let you download it? You can't even do it properly!' So then I go 'you know, I want to read a changelog before I actually do any upgrading. With all the pointless iPhone crap and Leopard GUI updates you're rolling out, I probably don't want anything you have to offer.' I mean, I'm used to reading changelogs all the time... World of Warcraft pushes out a new patch? I read the entire thing because it's fun to do, and it's useful to know! Heck, even Windows Update tell you what it's patching and why, or at least gives you a link to a more in-depth discussion on it. What does Apple do? Absolutely nothing.
"Here's an update! Trust us, it's for your own good."
No changelog in the iTunes folder, no list of what's been changed on the website, nothing in About iTunes menu option or the file of the same name in the folder. Absolutely no reference to what they've done to their little piece of software that you rely on so much. Are they going to automatically detect whether or not you have an iPhone and disable the helper service accordingly? Are they going to give me some more control over how my playlists can be sorted? They're not going to tell me? Fool me twice, shame on me. There's some rudimentary changelog on Wikipedia, but it's nothing more than you can get off their site sometimes. "Improvement for the iPhone", sure... Yeah, I noticed that myself. I grew up playing Myst and Riven remember? I can notice the little Ringtones options that showed up during my last update. Precious little good it does me, though.
I think I'll pass... You know, I played with a latest generation Zune a few weeks ago and it was simply amazing. The interface was actually NOT annoying, with that inaccurate little spin-wheel that whizzes past whatever song entry you're trying to play, and the interface actually looks GOOD. (Have you seen the interfaces on the latest generation iPods? Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew... I certainly hope you can change the effect of having your screen split in half, showing song information on the left and album art on the right. That's just convoluted and distracting, I'm sorry.) Plus, and get this! The Zune/Windows Media Player/Windows Media Center combination works with my Xbox 360, with some of the coolest visualizations I've seen before. (Namely because all the visualizations on my computers are compromised by me always multitasking and robbing power from the rendering and slowing it down to being pointless...)
When my iPod dies... Hello, Microsoft Zune! I'm sick of Apple leading me around by the collar.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
I don't think you should abandon the iPod when it dies just yet. Believe me, I hate the new Classic iPod interface as much as you do; I've been using the REAL interface since 2002, darnit, this new thing is stupid. BUT the iPod Touch is really beautiful. I assume you have WiFi in the house, so you can use it to browse or check email anywhere, plus it does normal iPod-y music and video and pictures (I forget if you have a video one or not), plus it's touchscreen
I know I'm going for a Touch when this iPod dies, and I really think you should at least consider one, because they really are beautiful and have sooo many features.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I would almost agree... especially with the latest updates to the iPod Touch, it's a pretty sweet internet machine. But... until Apple can fit 60Gb in a quarter inch square, I don't see how it can compete for purely musical interests. Honestly, the Zune can hold 10 times more (I can't really remember the sizes), does have a cool interface (oooh, it's black!), and is in stores now.
It's ironic, though, that people would complain so loudly about the iPod and it's dependance on iTunes, while the Zune is, as I understand it, even more unforgiving in its media tyranny. Microsoft has also very pointedly left out Linux, Unix, and OS X support... the Zune is Windows only, so even if I think it's cool, there's no way I would get one. And that goes for many music lovers, and much (perhaps even most) of the artist crowd. And many of the issues people took with the first generation still lingers in the second (albeit still much better) update.
I know you're more comfortable supporting Microsoft, and I thought it was cool you gave Apple a try when you got your iPod (though iTunes clearly hates you something fierce). Go with whatever you want, obviously. But keep in mind... don't blind yourself to shortcomings just because you're in love with a company, or hate another one. And that said... I think the Zune still looks reasonably attractive.
Even to me. Haha.