I love my iPhone, I hate iTunes

sink

I'm heading into work without any music on my iPhone to listen to. Listening to new music is just transferred to my iPhone is one of my favourite parts of the day. iTunes however doesn't want that to happen and it will do everything in it's power to stop it.

First off it won't recognise the iPhone, so I'll restart the PC. Then it recognises the iPhone but refuses to sync because there is not enough space (I have 4GB free on the iPhone and over 200GB free on my PC), Then it will throw up a bunch of errors and I'll have to unplug and reconnect my iPhone. Eventually I will get it to start syncing, I'll leave it for a few hours to do it's business but when I come back 4 hours later it will be stuck "backing up iPhone" and won't even have gotten round to transferring anything. I'll have to cancel it and have to start again.

At this stage I've lost my patience and I'll just decide to do a full restore. It's getting late so I'll start the process and leave it overnight. The next morning I'll wake up to find it's stalled transferring Monkey Island all night; a game which I didn't even want transferred. It hasn't transferred 90% of the apps I do want and hasn't transferred any music. At this stage I'm tearing my hair our and I'm ready to break something.

So I'm left travelling into work with no music, no games and a bad temper. I love my iPhone but I fucking hate iTunes; with a passion!!!!

/rant

Anyone else with me?

phill106

sink wrote: »

I'm heading into work without any music on my iPhone to listen to. Listening to new music is just transferred to my iPhone is one of my favourite parts of the day. iTunes however doesn't want that to happen and it will do everything in it's power to stop it.

First off it won't recognise the iPhone, so I'll restart the PC. Then it recognises the iPhone but refuses to sync because there is not enough space (I have 4GB free on the iPhone and over 200GB free on my PC), Then it will throw up a bunch of errors and I'll have to unplug and reconnect my iPhone. Eventually I will get it to start syncing, I'll leave it for a few hours to do it's business but when I come back 4 hours later it will be stuck "backing up iPhone" and won't even have gotten round to transferring anything. I'll have to cancel it and have to start again.

At this stage I've lost my patience and I'll just decide to do a full restore. It's getting late so I'll start the process and leave it overnight. The next morning I'll wake up to find it's stalled transferring Monkey Island all night; a game which I didn't even want transferred. It hasn't transferred 90% of the apps I do want and hasn't transferred any music. At this stage I'm tearing my hair our and I'm ready to break something.

So I'm left travelling into work with no music, no games and a bad temper. I love my iPhone but I fucking hate iTunes; with a passion!!!!

/rant

Anyone else with me?

Sounds like some prompt was on screen, asking do you want to do x, happened to me a few times. Im not a huge fan of itunes either!

Gregor Samsa

It's Apple's secret strategy to make you buy a Mac . iTunes never gives issues on a Mac.

novarock

sounds like a PC issue to me. Ive been happily using Itunes with windows for several years, and with different versions for a long time!

chabsey

ITunes on the PC is a complete dog. Even when it does 'work', it likes to play little games with your music library like 'Hide the album art' or 'Ignore the Id3 tag info'.

It also does lovely things like sets podcasts to unlistened status despite them being weeks old and listened to.

It takes AGES to sync if you've downloaded podcasts on the iphone directly without using ITunes.

I've used ITunes on the Mac and it's like chalk and cheese, fast, clean and doesn't seem to have any of the PC problems. At least so far anyway.

banquo

iTunes on PC is pure bloatware. Awful. Great on a Mac.

henryporter

One word: MediaMonkey

Fat_Fingers

Yeah, Itunes on PC is apsolute rubbish. Apple just can't code it for PC ..

Like Steve Jobbs said : Whenever a Mac PC crashes more often than not it's because of Flash Itunes.

P.s. i use free software called SharePod. Good for movies\music .. no support for apps.

ucd.1985

sink wrote: »

I'm heading into work without any music on my iPhone to listen to. Listening to new music is just transferred to my iPhone is one of my favourite parts of the day. iTunes however doesn't want that to happen and it will do everything in it's power to stop it.

First off it won't recognise the iPhone, so I'll restart the PC. Then it recognises the iPhone but refuses to sync because there is not enough space (I have 4GB free on the iPhone and over 200GB free on my PC), Then it will throw up a bunch of errors and I'll have to unplug and reconnect my iPhone. Eventually I will get it to start syncing, I'll leave it for a few hours to do it's business but when I come back 4 hours later it will be stuck "backing up iPhone" and won't even have gotten round to transferring anything. I'll have to cancel it and have to start again.

At this stage I've lost my patience and I'll just decide to do a full restore. It's getting late so I'll start the process and leave it overnight. The next morning I'll wake up to find it's stalled transferring Monkey Island all night; a game which I didn't even want transferred. It hasn't transferred 90% of the apps I do want and hasn't transferred any music. At this stage I'm tearing my hair our and I'm ready to break something.

So I'm left travelling into work with no music, no games and a bad temper. I love my iPhone but I fucking hate iTunes; with a passion!!!!

/rant

Anyone else with me?

Get a Mac

sink

ucd.1985 wrote: »

Get a Mac

I wonder if this was Apples plan all along. I won't give them the satisfaction.

I can live with the apple straight jacket on my phone, but I want the versatility of a PC.

Fat_Fingers

ucd.1985 wrote: »

Get a Mac

Now was that helpful ? be honest.

ucd.1985

Fat_Fingers wrote: »

Now was that helpful ? be honest.

I think so considering I have a Mac and have never experienced any of the problems outlined above.

Gregor Samsa

sink wrote: »

I can live with the apple straight jacket on my phone, but I want the versatility of a PC.

Obviously you're not going to buy a new computer and switch operating systems just to run iTunes, and I and others are being facicous in suggesting buying a Mac, but you can run Windows on a Mac, so you wouldn't lose the versatility.

sink

phutyle wrote: »

Obviously you're not going to buy a new computer and switch operating systems just to run iTunes, and I and others are being facicous in suggesting buying a Mac, but you can run Windows on a Mac, so you wouldn't lose the versatility.

Yes I would as I build and upgrade my own PC's and overclock.

Sad Professor

Before my piece of crap Dell died, I used iTunes on Windows for over a year and never experienced the amount of problems people report here. I also provide tech support to my uncle's Vista-running, piece of crap Dell and never any problems with iTunes there either.

But there's no doubt it performs much better on a Mac. However, most Windows-ported Mac applications are crap as well. Firefox and Office, for example. So it's tit for tat, I guess.

Apple do need to do something about iTunes though and soon. They can't keep adding features like ebooking reading, facebook integration, etc to an application that started life as an mp3 player called SoundJam.

mad muffin

I have been using iTunes for years on my PC with my iPhone, never had a problem with it.

Eoin_Sheehy

Anyone else find that Apple is EXTREMLY slow to open when you start first and that it's very slow anyway?! (or is that just my rubbish computer?)

banquo

Sad Professor wrote: »

providing tech support for my uncle's Vista-running, piece of crap Dell.

You just summed up my home tech life.

mad muffin

Eoin_Sheehy wrote: »

Anyone else find that Apple is EXTREMLY slow to open when you start first and that it's very slow anyway?! (or is that just my rubbish computer?)

Well it does have to load your hole library. If you have a lot of music and Apps and movies it will take longer.

Then it has to connect to iTunes and if you have Genius enabled it has to connect to that too.

Dont be at yourself

Apple do need to do something about iTunes though and soon. They can't keep adding features like ebooking reading, facebook integration, etc to an application that started life as an mp3 player called SoundJam.

I wouldn't be surprised if Finder took over from iTunes for media management. The Snow Leopard Finder took huge steps in terms of layout, so it wouldn't be a big leap to directly implement the playback, syncing and even iTunes Store functionality into Finder.

TrueDub

I use iTunes on a PC, and have had practically no issues with it. It's not the most intuitive piece of software, and it is slow & clunky, but it does the job for me, without any of the issues reported above.

IamMetaldave

I would have to say I too use it without many problems. The only one I can complain about was when I went to restore from a backup and there was nothing there.. Major fail, but got around it eventually.

hshortt

If you don't want certain applications installed remove them from the applications folder to somewhere else for safekeeping. Something sounds wrong in the setup too with so many errors. If you are using a hub to connect, then try going directly to the PC, that might also help.

I'm no fan of iTunes, but it works ok for me.
Cheers

mad muffin

hshortt wrote: »

If you don't want certain applications installed remove them from the applications folder to somewhere else for safekeeping. Something sounds wrong in the setup too with so many errors. If you are using a hub to connect, then try going directly to the PC, that might also help.

I'm no fan of iTunes, but it works ok for me.
Cheers

You see, you don't have to go to such extremes with iTunes.

Simply untick anything you don't want to sync and tick what you do want to sync.

hshortt

mad muffin wrote: »

You see, you don't have to go to such extremes with iTunes.

Simply untick anything you don't want to sync and tick what you do want to sync.

Yes, but the op needs the iPhone connected to be able to untick them.

mad muffin

hshortt wrote: »

Yes, but the op needs the iPhone connected to be able to untick them.

True :pac:

garlad

Why cant I manually add music from two different XP Machines? Iphone authorized on both, but when I try to click the option to manually add music on the second pc, it wants to wipe the music on my phone and start again !!

whiterebel

garlad wrote: »

Why cant I manually add music from two different XP Machines? Iphone authorized on both, but when I try to click the option to manually add music on the second pc, it wants to wipe the music on my phone and start again !!

That's the way it is designed. Presumably to stop loading songs from different computers onto one iphone/ipod, then copying them onto another machine.

ED E

Yep, every sync starts with a wipe. Get mgtek dopisp.

Gregor Samsa

garlad wrote: »

Why cant I manually add music from two different XP Machines? Iphone authorized on both, but when I try to click the option to manually add music on the second pc, it wants to wipe the music on my phone and start again !!

Because you've set it to sync on the first PC. Think about it - sync means the same content that is on the PC is on the iPhone. If you were to add content form a second PC, the content isn't the same as on the first PC, and can't be made so, since iTunes doesn't let you copy (non iTunes purchased) music off your iPhone back to the first PC.

The solution is to manually manage music on both PCs. First time it will wipe your music on the iPhone, but after that, you can manually copy music from any authorised PC.

garlad

But I havent set it to sync.
Manually manage on PC1.
Tried to do same on PC2, but wanted to wipe etc

kjl

I hate it too.

Fat_Fingers

yea, Itune on PC is rubbish, bloated junk. I dont use it anymore. I transfer and manage my music and video files via SharePod software.

Auvers

Fat_Fingers wrote: »

I transfer and manage my music and video files via SharePod software.

aye another thumbs up for sharepod, ahh the simplicity of drag&drop

John_Mc

OP I had problems like this before and I eventually tracked it down to insufficient power on the USB bus. The iPhone will consume quite a lot of power because it charges as well, so try using a powered USB hub and see if that does anything for your problems. It did for me!

LiamMc26

Hi. I bought an album last night via itunes on my iphone. When I sync my iphone with itunes on my PC the album is not being added to my itunes library. My apps, photos, contact etc are all synced onto my PC but the album won't transfer. Is there anything I can do? Apologies if it's a basic question - not much of a techie! Thanks!

hi_im_fil

Right click on the iphone on the left toolbar in itunes and click "transfer purchases"

abouttobebanned

My biggest pet peeve with iTunes is sometimes, when you want to play a song, you have to click it about 20 times before the bloody thing will play.

Encoder1970

It is my biggest pain using Apples products.
Heart iphone, hate itunes

3DataModem

chabsey wrote: »

It takes AGES to sync if you've downloaded podcasts on the iphone directly without using ITunes.

Now that is an epic pain in the Swiss.

LiamMc26

hi_im_fil wrote: »

Right click on the iphone on the left toolbar in itunes and click "transfer purchases"

Worked perfectly - thanks a million.