- Joined
- Jun 22, 2008
- Messages
- 3,343
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- Forest Hills, NYC
- Your Mac's Specs
- 15-inch Early 2008; Processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; Memory 4 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 10.7.5
[rant]
For the life of me, I just don't get it. I know that this is absolutely the last forum on earth that I should be venting this rant to, but w/e I suppose. I don't belong to any other Mac forums on the net. (Aren't you all so lucky ! )
iTunes. Ever the source of controversy. But it's not iTunes which deserves the real investigation. It's Apple. Why, I ask myself, is there ONLY iTunes to get the job done ? Sure, I've tried Cog and one other app with a small footprint, but seriously.. those apps just seem to fill the role of 'sabotage', and keep Apple users in good with their flagship media player, iTunes.
Why is this rant coming out *again* now ? Well I just upgraded to Snow Leopard last week, and am only now fulfilling my media player needs. I've NEVER liked iTunes for a couple of extremely valid reasons, but there's nothing else out there in Mac land which does the job much better.
I'm facing this issue again, because, as I had finished importing everything from my external HD to iTunes, I wanted to play some Interpol songs. But they were nowhere to be found in the library. I'm like, "hu ?" I don't get it.
Then it hits me. So I do a search for .ogg. Yay.. at least I have my answer now ! Then I also remember, that not only are all of my ogg files sitting lonely on my external HD, but so are my FLAC files ! Greeeeat.
Yes. I'm aware of Xiph. And yes, I'm aware of "Fluke", which imports FLAC files into iTunes, but I always get left with a feeling of incompleteness after having to resort to using these extensions in order to play what every other media player out there does, natively.
Apple still feels it needs to stick the big brother mentality to its users, and this bugs the heck out of me. It really is like 1984. Come to think of it, Apple's mentality is far different from what they claimed it to be back when the first Macintosh computer was released, which was that of being unique, and seeing individuals as being free from the tyranny imposed upon them by companies who employed the 'box' mentality.
But from what I've seen in the past year and a half of having owned two MacBook Pro's ( don't get me wrong, I love them) and having bought a friend's iPhone 3G, Apple is quite suited for an Orwellian reprise. Being tied down to one product/application is fine if you don't mind it, but what about people whom prefer options ?
What possible logical reasoning can there be for not seeing a suitable competitor to iTunes ? Guarantee you all, that if the iTunes store didn't exist, it wouldn't matter worth a snarf. But that's just one aspect of this. And I don't have the time for the rest of it.
That said, I've only seen ONE possible contender for the media player throne on the Mac side, but it too, leaves me feeling like I have to decide between stability (iTunes) or the inherent features which I crave so much.
ENTER SONGBIRD
Why Songbird, why ? Why do you tease me so, with your all so 'almost' perfect existence and then leave me hanging like a windsock on a day with no breeze ?
How can it be that the iTunes devs are able to make an extremely stable product (I'll give them that in spades) which consumes a more than reasonable amount of real memory while making music sound pretty fregin' good, while the Songbird devs on the other hand... Seem to fall flat on their faces ?
I LOVE almost everything about Songbird. The way it handles its library database (flawless with my external HD), the import methods and especially the watched folder feature, which iTunes is SORELY lacking. Songbird also handles my files in exactly the same way in which they are seen. Every tag is read properly and every album and song is listed in their proper order. I couldn't get iTunes to do that, even if I were holding a blow torch to its interface and told it that I was about to get Mid Evil on its little patooty !
But alas... Songbird has its flaws. The first flaw, is almost forgivable since I'm pretty sure that some good cleaning up of code will optimize things and iron the situation out. This situation being the 'occasional' short hiccup in audio playback. Now realize, that all of my music is being fetched from my external HD, so perhaps it's a deeper issue than I'm making it out to be. Could be hard to fix, I dunno.
The second issue on the other hand, is what kills me. This is a very well documented issue, and I believe that it has actually improved since Songbirds' last incarnation. Songbird, the memory hog !
From the moment it is opened, it jumps to using 65 MB of real memory without even playing anything, using its default skin, and only having one extension installed but not running. I have a feeling it is due to the nature of the built in Mozilla browser. They really need to either let go of that thing, or make it an option for the user to uninstall if they wish.
And that is the last piece of software (for now) which is keeping me from eternal bliss and enchantment with my Mac. Well, luckily for all of you, the wife needs me, and so I must march off and do whatever I'm asked, like a good lil' boy.
[/rant]
Doug
For the life of me, I just don't get it. I know that this is absolutely the last forum on earth that I should be venting this rant to, but w/e I suppose. I don't belong to any other Mac forums on the net. (Aren't you all so lucky ! )
iTunes. Ever the source of controversy. But it's not iTunes which deserves the real investigation. It's Apple. Why, I ask myself, is there ONLY iTunes to get the job done ? Sure, I've tried Cog and one other app with a small footprint, but seriously.. those apps just seem to fill the role of 'sabotage', and keep Apple users in good with their flagship media player, iTunes.
Why is this rant coming out *again* now ? Well I just upgraded to Snow Leopard last week, and am only now fulfilling my media player needs. I've NEVER liked iTunes for a couple of extremely valid reasons, but there's nothing else out there in Mac land which does the job much better.
I'm facing this issue again, because, as I had finished importing everything from my external HD to iTunes, I wanted to play some Interpol songs. But they were nowhere to be found in the library. I'm like, "hu ?" I don't get it.
Then it hits me. So I do a search for .ogg. Yay.. at least I have my answer now ! Then I also remember, that not only are all of my ogg files sitting lonely on my external HD, but so are my FLAC files ! Greeeeat.
Yes. I'm aware of Xiph. And yes, I'm aware of "Fluke", which imports FLAC files into iTunes, but I always get left with a feeling of incompleteness after having to resort to using these extensions in order to play what every other media player out there does, natively.
Apple still feels it needs to stick the big brother mentality to its users, and this bugs the heck out of me. It really is like 1984. Come to think of it, Apple's mentality is far different from what they claimed it to be back when the first Macintosh computer was released, which was that of being unique, and seeing individuals as being free from the tyranny imposed upon them by companies who employed the 'box' mentality.
But from what I've seen in the past year and a half of having owned two MacBook Pro's ( don't get me wrong, I love them) and having bought a friend's iPhone 3G, Apple is quite suited for an Orwellian reprise. Being tied down to one product/application is fine if you don't mind it, but what about people whom prefer options ?
What possible logical reasoning can there be for not seeing a suitable competitor to iTunes ? Guarantee you all, that if the iTunes store didn't exist, it wouldn't matter worth a snarf. But that's just one aspect of this. And I don't have the time for the rest of it.
That said, I've only seen ONE possible contender for the media player throne on the Mac side, but it too, leaves me feeling like I have to decide between stability (iTunes) or the inherent features which I crave so much.
ENTER SONGBIRD
Why Songbird, why ? Why do you tease me so, with your all so 'almost' perfect existence and then leave me hanging like a windsock on a day with no breeze ?
How can it be that the iTunes devs are able to make an extremely stable product (I'll give them that in spades) which consumes a more than reasonable amount of real memory while making music sound pretty fregin' good, while the Songbird devs on the other hand... Seem to fall flat on their faces ?
I LOVE almost everything about Songbird. The way it handles its library database (flawless with my external HD), the import methods and especially the watched folder feature, which iTunes is SORELY lacking. Songbird also handles my files in exactly the same way in which they are seen. Every tag is read properly and every album and song is listed in their proper order. I couldn't get iTunes to do that, even if I were holding a blow torch to its interface and told it that I was about to get Mid Evil on its little patooty !
But alas... Songbird has its flaws. The first flaw, is almost forgivable since I'm pretty sure that some good cleaning up of code will optimize things and iron the situation out. This situation being the 'occasional' short hiccup in audio playback. Now realize, that all of my music is being fetched from my external HD, so perhaps it's a deeper issue than I'm making it out to be. Could be hard to fix, I dunno.
The second issue on the other hand, is what kills me. This is a very well documented issue, and I believe that it has actually improved since Songbirds' last incarnation. Songbird, the memory hog !
From the moment it is opened, it jumps to using 65 MB of real memory without even playing anything, using its default skin, and only having one extension installed but not running. I have a feeling it is due to the nature of the built in Mozilla browser. They really need to either let go of that thing, or make it an option for the user to uninstall if they wish.
And that is the last piece of software (for now) which is keeping me from eternal bliss and enchantment with my Mac. Well, luckily for all of you, the wife needs me, and so I must march off and do whatever I'm asked, like a good lil' boy.
[/rant]
Doug