tonygoodson

I Hate iTunes Part 2

I’m can’t decide if it’s iTunes or Apple I hate!

I updated my iPhone to the latest software release yesterday.  The first issue is iTunes updates, which seem to load the whole software of 100MB+ every bloody time, except it doesn’t always complete the download or complete the update, so I burn several hundred MB attempting to update iTunes several times.  If only iTunes updated through a browser just like every other bit of software that actually does work.  But, NO, Steve knows best.

And then we have the actual iPhone update software which is 200MB+.  I didn’t have time to download all of the update, so I paused it.  Dream on. Why bother pausing a software download when it won’t let me complete the download, but keeps starting from the beginning.

Next complaint.  You’re never quite sure what iTunes is doing, or if it’s doing anything.  There’s complete confusion and inconsistency with feedback on what’s happening.  Sometimes it in the grey window at the top, sometime it’s a pop-up, and sometimes not at all.  And iTunes is so damn slow.  I’m never quite sure if clicking on the menu options  on the left column is actually achieving anything.

And then to cap it all, whilst updating my iPhone, the phone froze.  That pathetic screen with iTunes and a USB cable.  No matter what I tried, nothing would work.  iTunes wouldn’t recognise the iPhone, my laptops wouldn’t recognise the iPhone, and the iPhone was completely locked and wouldn’t restore.

Called Vodafone. They just got me to try what I’d already tried.  They told me to go to a Vodafone store.  Went there, and bizarrely my laptop suddenly decided to recognise the iPhone, but couldn’t revive it.  So I was sent to the Apple Store.  Daunting.  100+ sheep all fingering various white objects in some kind of hypnotised marketing trance!  If you’re going to buy a PC, laptop, Mac, or bike, I think you probably need to take the thing home for a week.  Fingering the keyboard, clicking a mouse, or staring at a screen doesn’t quite cut it for my road test.  It’s a bit like buyers who squeeze the brakes in a bike shop, to get the measure of the bike they’re buying!!

In spite of the 100+ people I was guided to my Apple queue, and after a short while my iPhone was plugged in and reset.  The great thing about queuing is meeting someone there with exactly the same problem i.e iTunes took several times to update, iTunes froze the iPhone so it wouldn’t work, the only solution is to queue at the Apple store. I wasn’t alone.

The good bits are, Chris at the Apple store got my iPhone working again, and though I lost all my data, iTunes did manage to upload everything back to normal.

Jeez Steve Jobs, if iTunes is a measure of what Apple and Macs are like, then I’m not going there.  Software can be messy, so I don’t need an application to pretend it isn’t messy by telling me what to do all time, or not telling me anything that’s happening.  Most of the iPhone users are PC and not Mac aren’t they?  So I for one am losing confidence with Apple, even though I love my iPhone.  I really dread the next software upgrade on my iPhone.

Now, having said all that, the iPhone freeze might have been my fault.  I started the iPhone upload and popped out for 20mins.  My laptop might have gone into standby, which stuffed the Synch.  So I wonder if Bill could get his software to recognise something more than a keyboard or mouse movement, before going to sleep.  You’d think a software upload or a sync would count as keeping the laptop awake. No.

I Hate iTunes Part 1

iPhone great.  iTunes shit.  Or at least that’s how iTunes seems to have been designed, to make the great iPhone experience miserable. I’ve started using a new laptop.  It’s not unreasonable is it Mr Jobs to at some point to replace my old laptop with new laptop, Steve?

So why is it such a miserable experience filled with fear, trying to then connect my iPhone to iTunes on a new laptop?  Why did I live in fear for weeks, with connecting my iPhone to a new laptop and risk losing all my data?  Why does iTunes run so pathetically slow on XP?

Why do the messages on iTunes tell me you’re going to lose everything.  So here was my biggest fear.  My iPhone is synched with Google Contacts.  If a new iTunes which has no contacts, then wipes my contacts on my iPhone, won’t that then synch with Google and wipe all my contacts in Gmail?  No one could tell me the answer and I couldn’t seem to find out much by googleing it.  The best I could do was back up my contacts from Gmail, and hope for the best.  I can’t remember which bits I clicked in iTunes, but everything seemed ok with my contacts and they were safe and sound on both my iPhone and Gmail.

However!!  Half my apps stopped working.  The icons remained on the iPhone but just as each app was loading, it stopped working.  This gave me hope, because it seemed that the software was all there on the iPhone, and it just need something to tell it to work again….iTunes!

I think what I should have done before anything else on a new laptop with iTunes, is to click on “Store” and then “Authorize Computer”.  But nobody tells you that when you connect your iPhone to your new laptop with iTunes.  I must have synched before I authorized the laptop, and hence lost some of my apps, let alone all the music and audiobooks, which I was expecting anyway.

So why Mr Steve Jobs, does iTunes not take a lead from the iPhone?  Surely, I want to keep what’s on my iPhone, and not have it destroyed by iTunes.  You’ll learn your lesson soon Steve, because unless you change your ways, Google and others will kick your ass with mobiles that don’t need an intermediary such as iTunes, and will update direct from the Internet or mobile network.  I knew what I was taking on with an iPhone and iTunes, but I think the timing is good, to sit and wait for 2 years to see what Apple comes up with and what Google will compete with.  If Android/Nexus improves over the next 2 years, I’ll switch.

Why do Apple fan boys put up with this, and it hardly encourages me to “Get a Mac”.  The iPhone in isolation and when kept away from iTunes is fantastic, but I’m sick of Steve telling me how I want my music and podcasts to be stored, and what’s the obsession with album covers?  If I wanted album covers I’d go buy the vinyl!!