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Comment by paxtonab | Hacker News Reader

...[Mossberg] fingered iTunes for the desktop "I dread opening the thing"

This is so spot on. It feels like they rearrange iTunes every month, especially the mobile version.

Recently I noticed that I'd be searching for a song (that I have on my phone) and it would default to their streaming service.... Why would I want to use my data to stream a song that I already have on my phone?

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The purpose of the new iTunes is to steer you away from listening to music and towards purchasing music or social features, or whatever other part of their ecosystem they're trying to push.

You think iTunes is bad on Mac? Try it on PC. iTunes has always, always been horrible. I think anyone suggesting it was ever "good" is rewriting history.

It's a dodge-the-purchase-button game. Any player (in my case Spotify) has a better UI. In iTunes it has become incredibly hard to search for music!

I've just gone through some pain to downgrade from iTunes 12 to iTunes 10 and can't believe I've been putting up with such crap for so long. iTunes 10 is so much better and so much easier it's ridiculous.

>Recently I noticed that I'd be searching for a song (that I have on my phone) and it would default to their streaming service.

It gets worse: this is now also the default behavior on the ipod touch.

If Steve were alive, people would be getting fired after comments from Walt such as these.

>> If Steve were alive...

Well, if he was alive, a lot of weird design choices would not have been made. Like the pencil sticking out of the iPad, that weird battery pack, the magic mouse with the charging port on the bottom, etc.

Can we grow up and get over the stupid fucking "pencil sticking out of the iPad" meme? The thing charges enough for several days' usage in ONE MINUTE. Get over it, people.

Same thing for Magic Mouse. You think you can design it better? You have a better place for that port? The damn thing needs a few MINUTES of charge time per month. It's a non-issue. The port is exactly where it should be.

You might be willing to give them a mulligan on their recent design choices, but I'm not. Apple has historically had smart, sensible designs -- even Apple haters can't deny that.

The amount of time required to charge doesn't change the fact that no reasonable person would consider the pencil or the mouse charging method a good design.

>> Same thing for Magic Mouse. You think you can design it better? You have a better place for that port?

Well, there are already mice with charging ports where a cord would normally go. It's a solved problem.

Nope. If you look at the actual design, there is not space for a port there. It's only a solved problem if you're content to bulk up the mouse in that particular area, for something that, again, takes a few minutes a month.

"Apple has historically had smart, sensible designs"

the puck?

http://www.applegazette.com/mac/apple-puck-mouse-named-one-o...

iTunes started getting shittier and shittier even when Jobs was alive. I doubt people would get fired.

I think his solution to that problem was to move away from iTunes as the central hub towards iCloud as the central hub. That vision has mostly been achieved, at least from my perspective. I only use iTunes on OS X to listen to music or podcasts, very rarely for any syncing or direct interaction with my phone.

There need to be distinct apps:

- device management - content management - audio - video - photos

I've got a large music library, iTunes is horrible with it, trying to copy to device in iTunes is even worse.

Already photos (and camera taken videos) are treated differently (Photos app) than music/commercial videos.

iTunes is a frankenapp that really doesn't do anything well, aside from maybe be an avenue to buy things.

Really? I installed iTunes on Windows in 2005 to load songs onto my first-gen iPod shuffle, and it sucked back then too, despite the fact Steve was very much alive.

Walt saying this publicly is the trigger, not the fact that it's sucked for years.

I'm not sure about that... iTunes has always been awful.

I agree. Apple bought Soundjam MP [1] and turned it into iTunes, ruining it in the process.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundJam_MP

iTunes was terrible long before Steve died.

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