Friday, November 30, 2012

Bunk iTunes


iTunes 11 came out.  Really altered the view albums by cover art feature and it's really annoying.

As a child of vinyl culture, the album cover is the way I identify my music and, well, this doesn't quite seem to fit.  Maybe it's in there but it's the whole total revamp thing that is annoying.  They impose, we are forced to follow.

Also tired of the imposition of their media player inundating me at every turn with trying to sell me something and the sheer dependency on their whims.  

Can't even go back and re-upload older versions, gives me error messages all over the place.

They've become a big, lumbering behemoth.  The party is over.

Always remember: larger entities have crumbled.

Makes sense.  An entity as large as Apple makes a change and it affects everybody.  There is no personal, there is only control.

The true innovator provides a platform that allows the freedom to make it more personal with no need to own.  

So, done with iTunes.  

Based on suggestions below, I'm working on Foobar2000.   

Aside from having to reorganize my music files and troubles with the artwork, this looks to be the way to go. May take a while but it's the future.

Thanks for the recommendations.

You'll smile as soon as you get it:


6 comments:

  1. I'm partial to Foobar 2000. With Add ons. Columns UI, http control...

    Its free. Plays everything after you grab a couple more add ons (monkey's audio decoder and tta audio decoder).

    Some screenshots here:
    http://www.head-fi.org/t/450700/foobar-2000-screenshot-thread/15

    Good luck.

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  2. Open source, why didn't I think of that?

    Customizable, the anti-iTunes. Perfect. Will give it a whirl.

    Thanks for the tip!

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  3. Foobar is great - but only for windoes :-(

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  4. Here are my recommendations:

    Jajuk
    http://jajuk.info/index.php/Main_Page

    JRiver Media Center (Commercial)
    http://www.jriver.com/

    ATunes:
    http://www.atunes.org/

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  5. 'Songbird' looks like the old, familiar itunes.

    What I will add about iTunes is simply to paraphrase Pete Townshend, 'meet the new boss, same as the old boss'. Itunes is simply a new media 'major label' in my opinion, throwing s*** at us in terms of Rihanna albums and boy bands. In a digital world, the playing field should be more level. But what we've got is a continuation of old media in a digital environment, with labels still heavily promoting the same old drivel as before.

    We still need to actively seek out interesting stuff while the Top 40 is paralysed by formulae. No different than previously, certainly, when we all used to troop off to independently owned record stores to buy obscure gems. Now, the likes of HTCIS is our independently owned record store, with an informed store owner -Aorto- nudging us this way or that.

    I put out my own stuff, but I'd prefer to have it as a standalone on sound cloud or via my web page rather than get into bed with bloody itunes, as nasty a manifestation of 'record company values' as, say, Casablanca was in a blizzard of cocaine and excess back in the 70s.

    Ultimately, what I'm trying to say is that I warmly welcome ANY drift away from these new media behemoths, be it itunes or Facebook (another 'social media' giant I loathe to have associated with my music).

    Jim

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  6. Snap I went through the same thing as you a couple of days ago. Foolishly I updated itunes to find they'd made it worse again, using search is a nightmare and I still can't find a way to delete whole albums off my ipod. I'm sure i could but I can no longer be bothered to deal with itunes. So I'm looking for a new media player as well. so these recommendations have come at the right time. I'll keep checking to see what you decide to use

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