[scarface74]

No you don’t.

With iTunes you could have smart playlists like “create a list of all of the songs I haven’t played in X days”.

Normal people didn’t want to tag songs and use the filesystem.

Do I really need to bring up the “No Wireless. Less Space than a Nomad. Lame.” Meme and how geeks didn’t get the iPod?

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

[asveikau]

I think you may be envisioning two extremes when the parent comment wants a happy medium. I.e. files on disk in any way the customer wants, but add a db on the side to do things like play counts and tags. With reasonable defaults for most people who don't care about filesystem layout.

[klodolph]

> files on disk in any way the customer wants, but add a db on the side to do things like play counts and tags

Literally iTunes does this, by default, without changing its configuration.

[asveikau]

When you open a file, it copies it, renaming it in the process.

You can manage the files yourself and point it at that, but the default, eg. if you choose to open a file from any old place, is to copy into its own naming and organization scheme.

[scarface74]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/1845699

That is not the default when you install iTunes it asks you whether you want it to “manage your music”. This is not a new behavior - note the date on the above post.

[dwaite]

That is how I always use iTunes, since the music was stored on my NAS. There is/was no requirement for iTunes to manage the storage and filesystem organization of your music - that was just the default.

[mixmastamyk]

The problem wasn't really at the iTunes end, that's just a symptom. It was at the iPod end. You'd go to a friends house and want to copy a few songs over from a Windows box and couldn't do it without installing a hundred gig monstrosity.

[scarface74]

The filesystem is strictly hierarchal. How do you have one song in multiple playlists without duplicating the songs? How do you propose to make that usable for the average person. History kind of proves that Apple took the right approach in the iPod era. The simple drag files to an attached device MP3 players failed to become successful.

[asveikau]

Putting aside what has been mentioned elsewhere on the thread (m3u playlists, hardlinks) or similar technical solutions...

You really think the iTunes filesystem layout is what made iPod successful?

Not, say, the fact that it was solid hardware, good UI, etc., from a desirable brand?

The comment was saying, my read of it anyway, is they didn't appreciate that it would slurp up and rename the files you give it.

[scarface74]

You want normal people to use hard links?

But iTunes didn’t “slurp up and rename files” unless you enabled the option for it to manage your underlying file.

[asveikau]

> You want normal people to use hard links?

You miss the point with this question. A media player managing playlists certainly can. Or it can manage m3u files. Or it can put them in an sqlite db. Or ...

You posed as an intractable problem unless we adopt iTunes thinking.

[scarface74]

What magical thing do you think iTunes is doing besides managing playlists and syncing?

[benj111]

Just have the playlist be a list of links to files?

A la M3u files.

[saurik]

> Do I really need to bring up the “No Wireless. Less Space than a Nomad. Lame.” Meme and how geeks didn’t get the iPod?

People love to bring this up... but that product (pretty much) did fail, in no small part because it had less space than a Nomad. The iPod wasn't successful until a couple revisions later and after the introduction of iTunes (which led to an end-to-end rethink of how you loaded music on these devices). No matter how hard Apple-acolytes want it to be true, if I come out with a bad product, and then later come out with a good product, it doesn't make the bad product retroactively awesome.

[corobo]

On the other hand I know what an iPod is, only ever heard of a Nomad through the quoted quote

There was a winner

[saurik]

Yes... a _company_ (Apple) won under a cohesive brand (iPod), but _that product which was being reviewed at the time_ did not. Nothing about what happened with later products retroactively changes whether the physical product that people had in their hands was good or not, or whether their review _of that specific product_ was fair.

[scarface74]

The product at the time had iPod+iTunes+smaller form factor+faster charging+interface.

What part changed during the iPod era.

[macintux]

As pointed out, iTunes predates the iPod.

The major things that changed after the iPod was released: adding online music sales, switching from FireWire to USB for all the people stuck with the slower Windows hardware interface, and iTunes for Windows.

None of those changed the core iPod design; I don’t think the first one failed in any meaningful way.

[saurik]

Sorry: I specifically meant "the iTunes Music Store", which was where I was going with "end-to-end rethink". iTunes existed as a music player, but it wasn't until they provided a way to buy songs using it as part of a cohesive service that it was game changing for the industry, and that wasn't until the third-generation iPod came out.

[scarface74]

According to Steve Jobs “Thoughts on Music” essay posted in 2007, only 3% of music on the typical iPod was bought on iTunes. This was original posted on Apple’s home page. So it wasn’t the music store that made that much difference.

https://macdailynews.com/2007/02/06/apple_ceo_steve_jobs_pos...

Through the end of 2006, customers purchased a total of 90 million iPods and 2 billion songs from the iTunes store. On average, that’s 22 songs purchased from the iTunes store for each iPod ever sold.

Today’s most popular iPod holds 1000 songs, and research tells us that the average iPod is nearly full. This means that only 22 out of 1000 songs, or under 3% of the music on the average iPod, is purchased from the iTunes store and protected with a DRM.

[the_jeremy]

iTunes was already out when the iPod was announced.

[saurik]

Sorry: I specifically meant "the iTunes Music Store", which was where I was going with "end-to-end rethink". iTunes existed as a music player, but it wasn't until they provided a way to buy songs using it as part of a cohesive service that it was game changing for the industry, and that wasn't until the third-generation iPod came out.

[scarface74]

And still only 3% of Music on the iPod was bought from the music store according to Steve Jobs himself - 4 years after the store came online. That didn’t make much of a difference.

https://macdailynews.com/2007/02/06/apple_ceo_steve_jobs_pos...

[scarface74]

The nomad used a 3.5” inch hard drive so was much bigger and used USB1.1 which was much slower than FireWire.

[altmind]

“create a list of all of the songs I haven’t played in X days” - this can easily be done in winamp. they got full query language that can be saved as a playlist. i even think they got this as one of pre-sets.

[scarface74]

Yes because giving users “a full query language” is appropriate for the masses....

[altmind]

Well, I only measure the things how they work for me. And these smart playlist were the default - you can press "edit" and see how they did it to learn and customize.

"?playedLast < 30d" is not a hard query filter

[ken]

Since 10.4, the Finder has had Smart Folders for this. (I believe Windows got a similar feature in Vista.) Apple even bragged that it worked "Just like iTunes" when they introduced it.

This geek doesn't understand why we need two nearly-identical systems. Once you make the more-general form, refactor the prototype to use it!

Normal people wouldn't need to "use the filesystem" any more than they do with iTunes now. Just make iTunes use these features internally so we don't have two incompatible sets of tools, and two separate sets of bugs.

[scarface74]

Where are these smart folders in native Windows? The closest I see is a “saved searched” and this is really more obtuse than creating a playlist.

[manigandham]

Windows 10 calls them Libraries. Open your explorer and it's in the left sidebar. You can create new ones to group files and folders together regardless of where they physically reside.

They are already used by Windows to provide the major Documents, Music, Pictures, Videos, etc. locations.

[scarface74]

So this is what you’re going to have to tell users to do to enable them in Windows 10.

https://windowsreport.com/enable-libraries-windows-10-file-e...

And another how to article.

https://windowsreport.com/enable-libraries-windows-10-file-e...

This is why geeks end up designing Homermobile type solutions and wonder why the common person is confused.