Is it more commonplace for people to not listen to their whole library all the time? I have all 55GB or so of my music on my iPod so I can listen to anything any time. It spends most of the time on random in my library, so I can hear all my music. I also have a smart playlist for unplayed music that I often go through (in iTunes anyway) to make sure i hear it all. I have some songs that I listen to more than others, obviously, but is it normal for people to have a bunch of music they don't hear often?
It depends on the size of your iPod and the size of your music library. I got an 8GB iTouch when 8GB was enough for me but my library has since grown to 14.5GB.
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Is it more commonplace for people to not listen to their whole library all the time? I have all 55GB or so of my music on my iPod so I can listen to anything any time. It spends most of the time on random in my library, so I can hear all my music. I also have a smart playlist for unplayed music that I often go through (in iTunes anyway) to make sure i hear it all. I have some songs that I listen to more than others, obviously, but is it normal for people to have a bunch of music they don't hear often?
To me, that's the whole appeal of MP3 players. Sure tiny iPods like the Shuffle are good for specialized tasks like workouts, but when I'm driving, on vacation or at work, I want my whole library with me. This way I can safely pack away all of my CDs and never have to worry about them getting damaged or stolen. I do exactly the same thing as you, I keep it on shuffle most of the time and in this way, it's like having my own personal radio station with only music that I like.
Is it more commonplace for people to not listen to their whole library all the time? I have all 55GB or so of my music on my iPod so I can listen to anything any time. It spends most of the time on random in my library, so I can hear all my music. I also have a smart playlist for unplayed music that I often go through (in iTunes anyway) to make sure i hear it all. I have some songs that I listen to more than others, obviously, but is it normal for people to have a bunch of music they don't hear often?
I always had harddrive based iPods (from the 2nd gen. up to the video I owned every large model at some point thanks to work) and couldn't imagine ever using a device with less than 10 gigs.
Until I got my iPhone. Now I get by just fine with ~7.3GBs. On the go I still have my favorite tracks and to be honest I usually listen to Podcasts anyway.
So I guess to each his own and you use what you have
Mac Specs: Black Macbook C2D 2GHz 3GB RAM 250GB HD
Quote:
Originally Posted by cwa107
To me, that's the whole appeal of MP3 players. Sure tiny iPods like the Shuffle are good for specialized tasks like workouts, but when I'm driving, on vacation or at work, I want my whole library with me. This way I can safely pack away all of my CDs and never have to worry about them getting damaged or stolen. I do exactly the same thing as you, I keep it on shuffle most of the time and in this way, it's like having my own personal radio station with only music that I like.
That's essentially my philosophy. I have my 4G iPod to hold the bulk of my collection and I have my iPhone for more select music for workouts and such. I need to get a bigger iPod since 20GB hasn't been enough in a long time.
My main beef with the iPod is its lack of support for free audio/video formats such as Vorbis, FLAC and Theora. I'm not crazy about iTunes either, but I can put up with it. Songbird is alright, but it doesn't run on PPC and being a pseudo-native XUL application that dares to double as a web browser, it's a bit of a resource hog. I would love it if there was something like Exaile for Mac OS X, something native and lightweight with a nice interface.
My main beef with the iPod is its lack of support for free audio/video formats such as Vorbis, FLAC and Theora.
Why encode in obscure formats? I understand they're open source, but AAC lossless does a fine job if you're worried about integrity, and MP3 is ubiquitous if you need compressing. To me those formats are answers in search of a question.
Why encode in obscure formats? I understand they're open source, but AAC lossless does a fine job if you're worried about integrity, and MP3 is ubiquitous if you need compressing. To me those formats are answers in search of a question.
I'm primarily a GNU/Linux user and as a matter of principle, I prefer to use formats that aren't patent-encumbered.
My main beef with the iPod is its lack of support for free audio/video formats such as Vorbis, FLAC and Theora. I'm not crazy about iTunes either, but I can put up with it. Songbird is alright, but it doesn't run on PPC and being a pseudo-native XUL application that dares to double as a web browser, it's a bit of a resource hog. I would love it if there was something like Exaile for Mac OS X, something native and lightweight with a nice interface.
Have you tried Cog? I don't think it will sync iPods but it will play the free formats.
Songbird PPC build here. You could also build it yourself too . Actually, you would be better to go to the builder's blog here.
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"It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience." - Immanuel Kant Website : Twitter
M-F MotM - April 2009.
Why in the world would I care what software you use to manage your digital library or what your choice of PMP is? Use what works for you, I'll use what works for me, pretty simple.
What I don't get is why you chose to come to an Apple based (and biased) forum and post a long winded, and ultimately pointless, thread about why you dislike the iPod and iTunes. It seems to me that your intent was one of two things:
1) Stir up trouble.
2) Get attention.
It seems you have succeeded at #2 but failed at #1. Use what you want, but why do we care? There are much better places out there to post this sort of thing than here.
I think his post is a good thing, and it appears to have done what it was intended, and that was to get us into a discussion of our overall likes and dislikes. Hey, maybe he is an Apple employee in disguise trying to get some feedback for new products (it could happen).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Strukt
I had a hard time accepting iTunes when I switched from Windows. I was used to Winamp and to organize my music myself into folders that made sense for me. It actually took a while until I really switched to iTunes. I realized it was a lot better to organize the music the iTunes way ... and now I cant live without it.
However we people are not alike, if that Sony player works best for you so why not? It is not like you are FORCED to use the iPod if you are taking part in this forum
How boring the world would be if everyone liked the same things.
Like Strukt, all of my music (some 50gb or so) is organized in folders by genre, then artist, then album. On my Winsux machine I prefer WinAmp for the ability to browse my collection and only play what I want. Because I keep all of my music well organized, I don't like that iTunes lumps everything it imports into a single massive list.
As such, I typically only import music I listen to on a regular basis (the 3gb or so that I keep on my iPod) and use Audion when I want to make a non-regular playlist to listen to for a couple of days.
To the OP, when it comes to the hardware, different strokes for different folks, and I mean that in a non-sarcastic way. The iPod is an awesome and ingenius, long lasting, quality solution that most other brands cannot compare to. That being said.....I do have some qualms of my own.
I like to go bike riding a lot (no, I am not part of the Spandex regime, thank God), and when walking through the Devil's lair...er...Wal-Mart...recently, I was browsing PMP's. I recently lost my iPod Shuffle and was in the market for a new player. Sanso, RCA, and the others all had the same crappy and short lived players they have been peddling for some time in different flavors, but then something caught my eye. And oddly enough, it was a Sony product.
Yes, Sony has been evil numerous times, like with the above mentioned DRM, but remember....Sony is in a way responsible for the iPod's creation. Anyone remember the Walkman that played tapes before we had MP3's? It got people hooked on portable personal media players. As technology evolved, so did the players, and Apple brought their A-game and brought forth the iPod.
Back to the Sony that caught my eye. I forget the model number, or what Walman flavor it was called, but it appealed to me because it looked like a pair of BT headsets tethered by a short cord. 2gb of storage, multi-format including AAC (got to love packing almost 3gb of mp3's onto a 2gb player), 12plus hours of battery life, and no cords to dangle. Perfect for a guy on his bike. Only 60 dollars USD. So I started saving, but in the end, just before I was going to go buy it, I saw a 30gb iPod on LEMSWAP for 50 and just couldn't say no.
I can always get a BT adapter for my iPod to use a wireless headset, and an armstrap to hold my iPod when cycling, and for sure I wouldn't be able to plug in and control the Sony from my buddy's car stereo like I can with my iPod.
Even though I bought an iPod I'm still going to say that Sony won this round. Apple didn't take proper advantage of a market niche. On the other hand, there is a company that makes headphones with an iPod shuffle (2nd gen) cradle built smack into the middle of the band that goes around the back of your head, but why didn't Apple come up with this on their own?
And in getting back to the root reason for this posting, when iTunes upset me, I can always plug my old Winsux laptop back in and use WinAmp to sync my iPod
Do people not understand that you turn off iTunes management for your music/video files and do it manually? I have done this since before iTunes was iTunes and find it works just fine with a 120,000+ track music library.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OnlyTimeWillTel
I think his post is a good thing, and it appears to have done what it was intended, and that was to get us into a discussion of our overall likes and dislikes. Hey, maybe he is an Apple employee in disguise trying to get some feedback for new products (it could happen).
Perhaps. What it has done is exposed a fair amount of ignorance about iTunes if nothing else.
Do people not understand that you turn off iTunes management for your music/video files and do it manually? I have done this since before iTunes was iTunes and find it works just fine with a 120,000+ track music library.
Agreed completely. I along with you and XStep am wondering just how iTunes fails? Like you just said, you can have it completely manage your music or turn it off and do it your way.
I was a large WinAmp fan and still like it on a Windows system. One day iTunes was released for Windows so I figured I would give it a try. This was maybe 2 years before I owned a Mac that would run OSX. I fell in love with iTunes and never looked back. Then when I was able to afford a Mac with OSX, it was even nicer. I have tried pretty much every player since that day on both Windows and OSX and have never ran into a thing that would make me switch from iTunes.
I take my music very seriously and iTunes works like a part of me. Not much more I can say.
I'm wondering that too. And I let iTunes manage all of mine.
Tried managing all that myself but I've just gotten lazy since I got my Mac. It seems like a waste of time to me now, having to go set up a new folder and move the songs where I want them. Don't really see any benefit to micro-managing this aspect whatsoever.
Don't find myself ever wanting to go browse the folder structure to locate a song. It's all right there in iTunes. I can single click to organize by genre, track name, artist name or album title. Scroll to the one I want and hit play. There's no difference than going and browsing a folder structure in Explorer or Finder except you have a better looking interface.
Now in baggss case, where his iTunes library spans across multiple disks, there's probably not much choice but to manually manage all your music and video. I'm rapidly approaching that myself with the amount of video I have. Still don't see any issue.
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Now in baggss case, where his iTunes library spans across multiple disks, there's probably not much choice but to manually manage all your music and video. I'm rapidly approaching that myself with the amount of video I have. Still don't see any issue.
I normally let itunes manage things except on my one Mac with many drives and music on all of them. There I manage it all. That older Mac is also my music server and I can access it from anywhere on any system on my network, both Windows and OSX systems.
Otherwise I am with you Bob. Getting too confusing lately to try and do it myself! iTunes does it just fine for me!
. Actually, you would be better to go to the builder's blog 
