iTunes - not complex enough for developers?
I love this post from Winer about iTunes and the iPod - he's off criticizing its usability:
The user interface on iTunes is awful. It's the worst piece of crap I've ever used. People would tell me when I was a Windows user that it was because the Windows version of iTunes is crap but the Mac version is easy. Well, both programs are head-up-butt impossible to figure out. The user model makes no sense. When is something on the iPod? How many copies of the music do I have? Where the fcuk are they? How do you delete something? Is it really gone? Why does it wipe out the contents of the iPod when I don't say it's okay to?
I have no idea how he managed to get an iPod to delete files - I've hooked it up to systems that don't have my library, and it prompts about synching - all I can figure is that he went and hit the wrong option in a dialog box without paying attention. And hard to use? Please. I asked my Dad about that - he's a former teacher, not a developer. His comment was unprintable, but more or less, he questioned the sanity and intelligence of anyone who finds the iTunes software hard to use.
Now, having said that, Rex Hammock makes some good points on how (and why) you should back up - and Apple should let you re-download stuff you've bought.
Comments
well...
[Bill Mill] December 24, 2005 12:43:17.294
My girlfriend is as non-developer as you can get, and she has had serious issues with iTunes. She's never quite sure what's on her ipod and what's not. Just thought I'd present a balancing story.
[Carl Gundel] December 24, 2005 14:10:38.666
I wouldn't say that iTunes is exactly hard to use, but it can delete songs from your iPod. When I bought my daughter her own Mac and she connected her iPod to it, iTunes wiped out everything on her iPod because the copy of iTunes on her Mac didn't have any music in it. This was very frustrating to say the least. Why didn't it offer to copy the songs into iTunes from her iPod? Once I had time actually spend on this issue (months later), we managed to get her library all transported over to her Mac.
Simple...
[Byron] December 24, 2005 17:19:27.730
Apple's default use case for iPod/iTunes interaction is that the iPod is an exact replica of your iTunes library. There are two and exactly two copies of your songs (assuming iTunes is set up to consolidate your library), but one of those copies (the iPod) is in a write-only space to appease RIAA members (for the other commenter, this is why iTunes doesn't offer to copy songs back. Its not that they overlooked it, they chose not to offer that option). Apple is pretty up front about it and puts up dialogs about what's about to happen to the contents of your iPod. In all cases, the iTunes Library is your definitive copy while the iPod is a satellite (as it should be). Its just like when you made mixtapes from CDs for your car.
However, unlike Winer, Apple is also aware that not everyone LIKES the default use case and as a result there's a checkbox in the Preferences labeled, basically, "leave iPods alone. I'll take care of it." Apple's engineers are EVEN bright enough to figure out that you might want to handle podcasts differently from music so you can set it up separately. It takes about 10 seconds to figure this out unless, of course, you're too busy making a fool of yourself in public.
[Carl Gundel] December 24, 2005 23:36:51.675
I don't understand why copying from an iPod to iTunes is considered a problem since each computer that plays these files must be authorized. Doesn't make any sense to me.
[Reinout Heeck] December 25, 2005 2:08:21.501
The user interface on iTunes is awful.
I second that, everything feels different and the UI is confusing. Drag and drop is inconsistent, buttons change their face in fancy ways not hinting to their use. Controls appear and disappear and the whole thing does not play well with desktop switchers. The navigation metaphor is not complete allowing only a couple of useful navigators, selected items are often scrolled out of view and so on and so on... iTunes cannot handle what I use it for: knowing what is on my iPod is a mental excercise time and again.
My previous mp3 stick was much friendlier: it offered no software, it simply appeared as a disk drive. Both navigating and manipulating the songs were easier on my mp3 stick than on my iPod+iTunes.
iTunes Interface
[Johan] December 25, 2005 4:17:00.923
To Reinout: >>iTunes cannot handle what I use it for: knowing what is on my iPod is a mental >>excercise time and again. Yeah... clicking on your iPod icon in iTunes is really hard... I couldn't make much sense of your other complaints. I never have: selected items scrolled out of view... maybe because I have no clue what you are talking about...