[dangus]

Mentioning "iTunes is bad" is like a trigger word for me because it's so misinformed at this point.

For one thing, the iTunes name doesn't technically exist anymore except on Windows. And anyone complaining about it being bad on Windows...I mean, that's like complaining that Microsoft Remote Desktop (Now called the Windows app for some reason) sucks on Mac, right? Like, can we just put the Windows version aside please? Even then, I'm not really sure what specific thing iTunes for Windows sucks at besides not looking like a Windows app. People just say that because they were saying it in 2005.

On Mac, the Music app (not to be confused with the streaming service) is fantastic and has supported Apple's "classic" digital music workflow longer than anyone else has been willing to support their users. The Apple TV app (again, not to be confused with TV+ subsciption service) is now the home for the music/TV show store/rental place and the home of your TV/movie library, which is a big improvement from shoving that functionality in iTunes. in that sense, Apple has cleanly separated use cases and functionality in a way that iTunes didn't previously, which is one reason why a lot of people said "iTunes sucks."

I have a family member who recently switched to Android because of frustration with Apple as a whole. They are a big digital music collector, they don't believe in streaming or "renting" their content.

I tried to help them with their music collection on Android. Theoretically it should be easier right? No weird restrictions on sync direction, basically dump your stuff on an SD card/transfer over USB-C and you're off to the races.

But still, they switched back to Apple secondarily because it's the only place left that actually makes that "purchased digital music" experience user-friendly, or possible at all. (Primarily they switched back to iPhone because the modem in their Google Pixel sucks and/or is poorly tested with their major US carrier and would drop international calls every 15 minutes exactly for no reason)

Google Play's music store doesn't exist anymore. Every jukebox app on Android depends on 100% manual file management. None of them have the polish of the Music app (the app not the service). Almost none of them have decent jukebox companion apps available on desktop computers. A whole bunch of other digital music stores have closed entirely.

Apple's system for synchronizing content is actually pretty amazing for continuing to support an offline cloudless workflow. You still just hit one button/plug in your device to sync your music, movies, audiobooks, ebooks, and photos content. It also supports WiFi syncing, and it furthermore supports every iPod that ever existed so long as you have the right cable/adapter.

You can back up your iPhone's full image to your computer if you don't want to use iCloud backups just like it was an iPod. You can synchronize your Photos library and avoid iCloud storage fees, deleting synchronized photos from your phone to free up space to take new photos and videos. It works just like you were using a digital camera in 2005. Yep, you can still rip and burn CDs!

Furthermore, the way Apple moved device synchronization functions to Finder and split out Music from Podcasts and Audiobooks is helpful for organizing the whole process. It used to be that iTunes was the home for all this synchronizing of non-music-related content, but now it more sensibly exists in Finder.

I think a lot of people don't realize that Apple basically still allows you to send over personally owned non-DRMed or even pirated content to Apple's own modern apps very easily this way, you just have to be willing to synchronize using "the old way" like your iPhone is an iPod. They've even kept ancient hosted services like iTunes Match going just in case you still need that sort of thing (it essentially allows you to sync music to your iPhone that is either pirated or not part of a known label music catalog via a cloud service rather than having to do a local sync via cable or WiFi).

And this workflow is very simple for non-technical users who don't really know how to traverse complicated file management structures. Yes, I would really like if apps like Photos was more flexible on file management, but on the other hand if you follow the prescribed workflow the results are quite user friendly for someone who really doesn't want the cloud but also can't handle setting up a home NAS. In this use case you have a reasonable photo storage system by syncing your device and then backing up your computer in a relatively hands-off manner using Time Machine.

One final point here is that Apple Music the subscription service can be hidden entirely from the app. Apple will just give you a 100% owned music jukebox app. Google doesn't do that, and with Microsoft you're probably using a legacy app like Windows Media Player that looks like it belongs on Windows Vista.

[PaulHoule]

Microsoft Remote Desktop is 100% great on iOS (if not MacOS) in my opinion. I never feel so stylish as when I show up at a hackathon with a tablet + $20 bluetooth mouse and $30 bluetooth keyboard (how did they convince people to spend a few hundred on a special keyboard or to buy a 'hybrid' computer that will leave the airline stewardess at a loss to know if you can stuff it in the pouch in front of you?) and the mac books and gaming laptops look clunky in comparison. And that's backed with a 16 core machine with 128GB of RAM and a 4080 if it's my home machine and I can rent something much larger for a few $ an hour in the cloud. My only beef is they want to call it the "Windows App" now.

(At the least the Apple AAC encoder is good. That plus a Python script can copy music files to a USB stick in the right order so they display properly in the music app for my car... And that's what a good music app is to me, not something that wants to push me to buy a $1000 phone and $100 a month plan so I can crash my car screwing around with my phone.)

[skydhash]

That tablet is $500+. I bought a 2019 dell latitude for 140$. Not as nice, but I don’t have to remote for anything. And it’s fully supported by Linux.

[musicale]

> That tablet is $500+

$279 US at various retailers (discounted 2022 model which is likely to be replaced this year.)

The main compromise in the otherwise excellent entry-level iPad is a paltry 64GB of storage (sadly there is no 128GB model/pricing tier atm.)

[ryandrake]

> Every jukebox app on Android depends on 100% manual file management.

You've got some great points in there, but as for this one, file management is one of Apple Music's weaker points. I absolutely hate apps that graft their own "library" over top of my already-working filesystem. As someone who's meticulously laid out the directory structure for all of my movies and music, I'm paranoid that some opinionated software is going to just go run roughshod over it, moving things around the way they think files should be organized. I already have a "library". It's an NFS mount on my NAS.

Fortunately, Apple Music still allows you disable this misfeature, but to do it you have to go into Settings and uncheck a bunch of things. Easy to forget.

[int_19h]

> that's like complaining that Microsoft Remote Desktop (Now called the Windows app for some reason) sucks on Mac, right

Well, not quite, since RDP on Mac still works better than the native (VNC-based) desktop sharing feature.

[sillywalk]

> On Mac, the Music app (not to be confused with the streaming service) is fantastic

Strong disagree. I find Apple Music (the app) on MacOS to be terrible.

A good 1/2 of the main screen is taken up by a view with a random mix of artwork from the playlist. I find it useless, and it can't be hidden. . Also, there is no way to set the default view to just show songs, instead of the crappy "playlist view".

Search. It's hidden on the sidebar of playlists/sources and you have to scroll to the top to get to it. And then, the choice of whether to search local/Apple Music is on a toggle button on the other side of the screen.

Lyrics - you can't change the font, or adjust the size in normal mode, and when played in fullscreen, the background colours often obscure the lyrics so they're unreadable.

And finally Apple can't seem to decide between a Heart or a Star for songs that you love.

[jiveturkey]

yep. Music is bad on all fronts. It's designed to push you into an Apple Music subscription and that's it.

[dangus]

You can entirely turn off the subscription service being visible in the UI.

[dcrazy]

FWIW iTunes on Windows has finally been replaced by a true Apple Music app.

[Clamchop]

The iTunes functionality carried over to Apple Music is just as slow and confusing and non-portable as it ever was, now with added cloud sync that will mysteriously tell you that anything it doesn't recognize isn't available in your region.

The streaming bit may be good but the rest is not.

[Sebguer]

My favorite is that for ~8 years after they killed their theater movie showings service at movies.google.com, that subdomain still pointed to the deprecation notice. They finally must have noticed earlier this year, because it changed to a hacky redirect to https://www.google.com/search?q=movies and now much more sanely points to the Youtube movie storefront. (This drove me crazy for years because I'd always instinctively type in movies.google.com thinking it'd intuitively take me to the Play Store... I was so excited when it finally changed off the deprecation notice.)

[conradfr]

There's something I must not understand about the Music app because when I drag & drop files on it (or let's get crazy, a folder), it does not read them or even add them to the current playlist?

Also, flac?

[dangus]

You have to drag them into your library.

[BlueTemplar]

> People just say that because they were saying it in 2005.

I can confirm that QuickTime works wonders on Windows !

Source : me being amazed by it on Windows 3.11

[BLKNSLVR]

The severe bad-ness of itunes on windows halted any momentum I may have had in migration from a windows ecosystem towards apple.

It was just so horribly bad. Apple's disrespect for the dominant competing operating system made apple look incompetent. I liked the ipads until I had to work out how to transfer files on and off them to and from my existing infrastructure. It was goddamn painful, like going back to a previous era of esoteric computer usability.

[Cockbrand]

> On Mac, the Music app (not to be confused with the streaming service) is fantastic

I’d love to live in your alternate reality, not in mine where Music.app is slow, doesn’t do filtering to find specific content very well, doesn’t let you view album covers in a reasonable size, and shortcuts and buttons are inconsistent with the rest of the OS.

Also, syncing (about 350GB of) content to my iPhone has been hit and miss for at least 9 years now, where consistently the same tracks just disappear from the phone and maybe - just maybe - eventually get synced again, taking a few hours in the process. This has been going on across at least three Macs and about six iPhones.

I understand that streaming via Apple Music is the thing now, and us users from the “Rip, Mix, Burn” era are considered legacy now. I’d love to switch to something better, but haven’t found anything yet.

[fiddlerwoaroof]

I love the Apple Music app too but the trick is to mainly use the songs tab and playlists and enable the column browser. Also, of the current widely-used options, Apple Music is second to none at this point: old apps like Amarok were nicer but they practically don’t exist anymore. Spotify, Tidal, Qobuz, etc. are all much more annoying than Apple Music (in part because they are Electron Apps).

[Cockbrand]

I do use Music.app like this already, and while it's definitely okay-ish due to lack of alternatives, it's still lacking a lot.

It has also been stagnating for at least 10 years without any changes - apart from making the UI less consistent with the rest of the OS (e.g. "Reveal in Finder" being ⇧⌘R instead of ⌘R everywhere else [0], or the dialog asking whether I really want to edit metadata for several files defaulting to "Cancel" on hitting "Enter", while "OK" is displayed as the default button).

I agree that it's better than the rest, but that's easy :) It's hard for any 3rd party app to compete, as us nerds with large, well curated libraries are a determined and dedicated bunch, but still a quite small market.

[0] I'm aware that this is a relic of the short-lived iTunes Ping network, where ⌘R did something there