Could iTunes be any worse? (rant)

[LannyC]

Well, of course it could. As bad as the last "update" was, Apple surely had to leave room to degrade the app further in the future. It's The Apple Way. One shudders to think...

Anyway. As the primary impedi...er...interface between our iPads and our desires to do useful things with them, the vagaries, limitations, and just-plain-bugs of iTunes are maddening. When I launch iTunes on my iMac, it only sees and mounts the iPad via wifi about 20% of the time, even though it's sitting 4' from the router. Generally, if I quit and relaunch iTunes enough times, eventually it will find the iPad. Sometimes, it will even mount both my 3 and my wife's Mini at the same time. Glory Hallelujah, praise Steve! But why can't it Just Work, all the time?

Once mounted, there are persistent unwanted items in iTunes that I can't get rid of. Let's take free movies downloaded from the iTunes Store, which I will never want to watch again. If I delete them, iTunes starts re-downloading them next session, unbidden. It's clutter that won't go away. Similarly, there are books in iBooks that cannot be deleted from iTunes. Unchecked, at least they stay off the iPad, but why is there no way to remove them entirely? The Help screen says to press the Delete key, but it's lying--that does nothing. In the Edit menu, "Delete" is grayed out. Why can't the solution be obvious? I hate treasure-hunt navigation as much as mystery-meat navigation.

Apple's interface and usability expertise has fallen a long, long way since the demise of OS 9.

milliHelen: amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

 

[MoonlitSonata]

I never understand these iTunes rants. I could understand ranting about, say Windows Media Player (which I have despised for years) but iTunes has always been a smooth and pleasant experience for me. That being said, I'm sorry you're having issues, ad I hope there's an easy solution. (There typically is in my experience with iTunes)

 

[KevinJS]

Have to say, I find a similar experience. I was once prepared to put it down to Windows, but I find exactly the same on my MBP. I can have four iDevices on the same network, and iTunes may, or may not, find one, none or all if them, and there is no logic to it. If it simply refused to find anything, I'd just live with it and sync via USB, but when it sometimes finds a device and syncs it flawlessly, in spite of the fact that it should not, since the device is supposed to be plugged into mains power, it leaves me with an itch I can't scratch.

You have my sympathy, Lanny.

 

[Blue92]

I agree with the hit / miss WiFi device connectivity. It seems to come and go at random.

Let's not forget to mention the Apple Mobile device service that frequently eats up 30% or more of your CPU's process....

 

[col.bris]

I did have issues with wif Nd iTunes with a couple of devices but since Telstra changed my cable modem all works fine. One must have iDevices on power to guarantee auto connect for back up

 

[Kaykaykay]

I use iTunes as little as possible. It used to crash all the time for no reason, despite my husband and I doing the same things and having the same setups on all our computers. It stopped crashing several years ago because they've apparently improved it on PCs, but we'd already developed bad associations with it. When we had iPods only, we used alternative software altogether and never used iTunes.

In the longer run, I'm glad iTunes sucked, because it trained us to not buy content from Apple. As a result, our paid content comes from other places, including Amazon, which has made it really easy to access, download and redownload our purchases on multiple platforms, so we're not locked into Apple devices. That's worked in Amazon's favor, because we've spent a lot of money on content.

 

[LannyC]

One must have iDevices on power to guarantee auto connect for back up

That's no guarantee, unless you mean plugged into your Mac/PC's USB port instead of using wifi, which sidesteps the issue. Sometimes, plugging and unplugging the iPad repeatedly into the wall wart will get iTunes' attention, but not always.

Has anyone figured out how to delete those recalcitrant books and movies?

milliHelen: amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

 

[Kaykaykay]

Has anyone figured out how to delete those recalcitrant books and movies?

Do yours synch even if you have them toggled off not to? I've not had problems with that. The synching has worked fine for me on various iDevices, even with diff profiles for each of them.

But purchased books do stay, without permanent way to delete from iTunes (though they can be removed from devices) from my experience. I've not explored that much, because all the iBooks I have have been freebies. For the overwhelming number of my books, I use Kindle, which allows permanent deletion on devices and from your Kindle cloud account. I love that I also can easily access my entire Kindle library via non-Apple devices, and easily manage my digital library from any device.

 

[BocataDeChoped]

I had my own share of frustration with iTunes but never because of connectivity issues. I guess I just got lucky.

 

[KevinJS]

I had my own share of frustration with iTunes but never because of connectivity issues. I guess I just got lucky.

And that is the frustration part. Yes, a device should be plugged into an outlet for this to work, but my experience is that quite often it will sync while it's in my pocket, while another device that it plugged in will not. I've seen four devices, my iPhone and iPad and my son's iPad and iPod all connect wirelessly, and I've seen every permutation of devices refusing to connect. Everything connects through USB every time so it's not a practical issue. It's just frustrating, partly because I want an answer to be able to give to the forum, and so far I don't have one.

 

[iJamesH]

I've never been a fan of iTunes. I always found the interface clunky and a big pain in the wazoo.

 

[LannyC]

I've never been a fan of iTunes. I always found the interface clunky and a big pain in the wazoo.

Agreed. But what alternative is there for backing up an iPad? I don't use it for anything else.

As for the persistent books, two obsolete user guides appear in both Books and Purchased Books in iBooks. I don't know if they're actually on my iPad or not, but they will not go away. I can select them in Edit mode, but pressing the red Delete button does nothing. What moron is responsible for this interface? Why is there a button that does nothing? Apple used to be the world leader in this area, but now they're hopelessly lost. It's very sad. And shameful. And maddening.

milliHelen: amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

 

[scifan57]

Items cannot be deleted from your iBooks purchased list.

 

[Kaykaykay]

Agreed. But what alternative is there for backing up an iPad? I don't use it for anything else.

As for the persistent books, two obsolete user guides appear in both Books and Purchased Books in iBooks. I don't know if they're actually on my iPad or not, but they will not go away. I can select them in Edit mode, but pressing the red Delete button does nothing. What moron is responsible for this interface? Why is there a button that does nothing? Apple used to be the world leader in this area, but now they're hopelessly lost. It's very sad. And shameful. And maddening.

In past, I likened Apple and iTunes to a well turned out guy cluelessly walking around with his fly unzipped all the time. Embarrassing to say the least, lol.

In past, I've also had the experience of previously purchased books simply disappearing permanently from iBooks and my iTunes account a bunch of firmware upgrades back. I never bothered pursuing them, because all the books were free, since I refuse to buy any books tied to one hardware maker's devices. If I had paid for the books, I would've been steamed. About the same time, two songs I never purchased popped up in my iTunes account. I knew they didn't belong, because I'd never purchased iTunes music, lol. Thanks, crappy iTunes!

I checked what you mean about the deleting of books. Yes, the interface is nutty. Yet another reason for me not to use iBooks. But I find no need to use it when Kindle offers a superior service, including permanent deletion as I choose.

I just use iTunes to back up mostly. (I also back up my stuff separately from iTunes, because I don't trust it.) I've even stopped using iTunes to add photos and movies, because it's easier on my Android devices, which let me drag and drop, and use SD cards. I use Apple's cruddy photo app for limited photo needs, because I can't be bothered to compensate for it otherwise.

I also stopped using Apple's Notes app after a set of notes kept refusing to save properly and then disappeared altogether. That sent me over to Evernote.

Basically, I find Apple unreliable for content and interface, and when there are better alternatives, I use those. Luckily, there are alternatives.

 

[petermillard]

But what alternative is there for backing up an iPad? I don't use it for anything else.

I've found iCloud backup to be pretty much bulletproof - fast, reliable, painless, and it happens every time you put your device on charge. I was never happy with wifi syncing via iTunes so I stopped using it; perhaps you should too?? Life's too short to get all vexed about this stuff. If it doesn't do what you want, dump it and move on - there are alternative apps for just about everything; I was only syncing regularly for podcasts, and I use Downcast app for that now. I never used iBooks because Kiindle had/has a much better selection where I live, etc..etc..