iPod vs. Vista....Fight!

[stePH]

The war between Apple and Microsoft continues .... 

[Tango Alpha Delta]

The war between Apple and Microsoft continues .... 

Do you think if Microsoft bit into the Apple, they might obtain the "Knowledge of how to make stuff that doesn't suck"?

[Windup]

The war between Apple and Microsoft continues .... 

Do you think if Microsoft bit into the Apple, they might obtain the "Knowledge of how to make stuff that doesn't suck"?

No, I think Apple would start making ugly things that fail often, still cost too much and don't work with anything else.

As a former vice commander of mine was fond of saying: "Remember boys, Murphy's out there and he's waiting for you."

[wintermute]

The war between Apple and Microsoft continues .... 

Do you think if Microsoft bit into the Apple, they might obtain the "Knowledge of how to make stuff that doesn't suck"?

No, I think Apple would start making ugly things that fail often, still cost too much and don't work with anything else.

Well, I don't know about how often Apple products fail, but I'm in the apparently tiny minority of people who think everything they've built in the last 15 years is incredibly ugly; and they certainly have issues working with other companies products (anyone here using an iPod without iTunes?); and their prices are generally about 50% higher than comparatively speced PCs, or MP3 players, or whatever.

[CammoBlammo]

The war between Apple and Microsoft continues .... 

Do you think if Microsoft bit into the Apple, they might obtain the "Knowledge of how to make stuff that doesn't suck"?

No, I think Apple would start making ugly things that fail often, still cost too much and don't work with anything else.

Well, I don't know about how often Apple products fail, but I'm in the apparently tiny minority of people who think everything they've built in the last 15 years is incredibly ugly; and they certainly have issues working with other companies products (anyone here using an iPod without iTunes?); and their prices are generally about 50% higher than comparatively speced PCs, or MP3 players, or whatever.

I do --- I use hpodder to get my feeds and gnupod to load 'em on to my iPod. Failing that, I just use Amarok.

Heck, even if Apple ported iTunes to Linux, I'd have no reason to change.

[wintermute]

Sure, it's possible. But the insane random directory structure that iPods use is designed entirely to make it difficult to use an iPod with non-Apple managers. Windows products fail to talk to non-Windows products because they have sufficient hubris to forget that such products exist. Apple products fail to talk to non-Apple products because they deliberately try to use one product to lock you into a whole Apple environment.

There are third-party workarounds in both cases, it's true. But that doesn't excuse the problem.

[Heradel]

The directory structure employed is a result of legality, not technology. It's so that people can't copy music off iPods easily.

[wintermute]

So far as I'm aware, no law or court ruling in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world encourages DAP manufacturers to make life difficult for people wanting to make a backup of their music. If anyone has a legal right to decide how easy it is to copy your music from place to place, it's the copyright holder, and not Apple. And the copyright holder has marginally-effectve DRM at their disposal, if they want to take advantage of it.

[Russell Nash]

So far as I'm aware, no law or court ruling in any jurisdiction anywhere in the world encourages DAP manufacturers to make life difficult for people wanting to make a backup of their music. If anyone has a legal right to decide how easy it is to copy your music from place to place, it's the copyright holder, and not Apple. And the copyright holder has marginally-effectve DRM at their disposal, if they want to take advantage of it.

The music companies forced Apple to use DRM.  Otherwise they wouldn't agree to distribution through iTunes.  Steve Jobs announced about a year and a half ago that he thought DRM sucked.  It's why you can now buy some non-DRM music at iTunes.

[wintermute]

Steve Jobs is lying. Or he disagrees with the ITMS management team, and has surprisingly little input. Several indie labels wanted to unencrypted downloads available on iTunes, and their response was "sorry, but we DRM everything. If you don't want that, go elsewhere." And then the mean old record companies let Amazon sell unencrypted MP3's, and they didn't even put up much of a fight over it! Shortly after that, ITMS started offering DRM-free downloads, having apparently won some major coup against the record labels.

But this is all beside the point, when it comes to them obfuscating directory structures and filenames. That has nothing to do with the record companies or DRM at all.

[Russell Nash]

Steve Jobs is lying. Or he disagrees with the ITMS management team, and has surprisingly little input. Several indie labels wanted to unencrypted downloads available on iTunes, and their response was "sorry, but we DRM everything. If you don't want that, go elsewhere." And then the mean old record companies let Amazon sell unencrypted MP3's, and they didn't even put up much of a fight over it! Shortly after that, ITMS started offering DRM-free downloads, having apparently won some major coup against the record labels.

But this is all beside the point, when it comes to them obfuscating directory structures and filenames. That has nothing to do with the record companies or DRM at all.

First, this.  itunes plus has the entire EMI catalogue DRM-free.  Also for quite a while they've had other labels music DRM-free at a slightly higher price (i think $1.29).  I don't know where you got the info about the indie labels, but I'd recheck it or get a better source.

Second, if I understand it correctly, you're pissed because you can't just take your iPod and download all of your music onto any computer you happen to come across.  You want it so that everytime a friend comes over you can just plug his iPod into your computer and steal his entire library.  And you wonder why companies are pushing DRM?

[wintermute]

I don't know where you got the info about the indie labels, but I'd recheck it or get a better source.

I got that (a couple of years ago) from a marketing manager at Inception Records, who claims that ITMS refused to carry their music unless they were allowed to add DRM to it. Possibly he was lying, but I assumed that he knew what he was talking about.

Second, if I understand it correctly, you're pissed because you can't just take your iPod and download all of your music onto any computer you happen to come across.  You want it so that everytime a friend comes over you can just plug his iPod into your computer and steal his entire library.  And you wonder why companies are pushing DRM?

First of all and once again: Randomising the file names does not constitute DRM. You can put an iPod into disk mode and copy the music off onto your friends computer, and play it perfectly happily, assuming there is no actual DRM. Of course, it might take a while to re-name everything sensibly, but it provides absolutely no copy protection whatsoever.

If those tracks are DRM'd, though, then the publishers can prevent them from playing on unauthorised hardware, and coping music between computers becomes futile.

Second: I do not have an iPod. The DAP I do have acts as a UMS device, and I can drag-and-drop directories on and off it as I see fit. I also have no DRM'd music, as almost all of it has been ripped from CDs, with a few titles bought from Amazon, or other DRM-free source. And yet, I've managed to avoid the temptation to "steal an entire library". I have no desire to steal music from anyone, and I don't want to infringe on the rights of the copyright holder, but I also want to be able to exercise my rights to the music without Apple (who after all, are not the copyright holder and do not represent them) telling me that I can't do it that way.

Do I wonder why companies want DRM? No, not particularly. But I do wonder why no-one has ever done any studies to find out if their DRM is actually doing any good, or just costing a lot of money and driving even more people to pirates. I suspect the latter, but we really don't know.

But this is irrelevant, because the issue wasn't about DRM. It was about a bizzare file structure system that does nothing to protect copyright, but is specifically in place to encourage people to use iTunes to manage their iPods.

The point is that you suggested that not being cross-compatible with other companies' products was a failing for Microsoft, but when Apple put deliberate roadblocks in place so that owning one product pretty much requires you to own other Apple products, you go into some bizarre tangent about DRM being forced on them by record labels.

The first couple of generations of iPods could only be connected to a computer via firewire. Is it just coincidence that firewire ports are standard issue on Macs, but not on PCs? Or was this also forced on them by the labels?

[Heradel]

The first couple of generations of iPods could only be connected to a computer via firewire. Is it just coincidence that firewire ports are standard issue on Macs, but not on PCs? Or was this also forced on them by the labels?

Unfortunately I don't have time to go into the whole post for a response other than to say that Apple is focused on a very specific experience and they have a lot of legal shackles placed on them by the contract they are forced to operate under.

On Firewire Vs. USB — USB was massively impractical to use as the port until USB 2.0 Hi Speed (they need better nomenclature) Firewire was several times quicker, and considering that it was a given that gigs of information would be moved at once at several points over the iPods lifetime, cutting down that move from something like four to eight hours to one or two was a technical decision, though there's probably some merit to them trying to push Firewire out onto the windows ecosystem.

[Russell Nash]

The point is that you suggested that not being cross-compatible with other companies' products was a failing for Microsoft,

I never said anything about microsoft not being cross compatible.  I do and will continue to saay that nothing from microsoft ever works without being messed around with. 

I like Apple because it works straight out of the box.  iTunes is a wonderful jukebox program that does everything I need.  Nobody has been able to show me any one program for any DAP that can do everything I need as easily as iTunes does.

disclaimer:  I don't use the iTunes store, because MP3 (and AAC) files sound like shit. 

[wintermute]

The point is that you suggested that not being cross-compatible with other companies' products was a failing for Microsoft,

I never said anything about microsoft not being cross compatible.  I do and will continue to saay that nothing from microsoft ever works without being messed around with.

Ah, my apologies. It was windup who said that MS products "don't work with anything else". But anyway. That was my point.

On Firewire Vs. USB — USB was massively impractical to use as the port until USB 2.0 Hi Speed (they need better nomenclature) Firewire was several times quicker, and considering that it was a given that gigs of information would be moved at once at several points over the iPods lifetime, cutting down that move from something like four to eight hours to one or two was a technical decision, though there's probably some merit to them trying to push Firewire out onto the windows ecosystem.

When the first iPod came out (October 2001), the transfer rate of USB 2.0 (which had been built into pretty much all computers made in the previous year) was 480Mb/s, and the transfer rate of Firewire was 400Mb/s. So the speed argument doesn't hold up as well as you might imagine.

True, since then, Firewire has increased to 800Mb/s, but at the time, they seem to have chosen the slower interface that was only available on Macs, rather than the faster interface that was on almost every computer.

[wintermute]

Nobody has been able to show me any one program for any DAP that can do everything I need as easily as iTunes does.

A file explorer does everything I need for my DAP, which is basically: move files on and off it. The idea of adding extra software to manage it has never made much sense to me, but I know many people find it very useful.

[stePH]

Nobody has been able to show me any one program for any DAP that can do everything I need as easily as iTunes does.

A file explorer does everything I need for my DAP, which is basically: move files on and off it. The idea of adding extra software to manage it has never made much sense to me, but I know many people find it very useful.

iTunes has ripping and transcoding functionality built-in, which I find convenient.  What I find inconvenient is the way it manages podcasts on my iPod.  It orders them with the newest ones at the top of the list and won't play them in sequence unless I take the trouble to put them in a playlist.

I agree that all you really need is a file explorer, as there are other rippers and transcoders available.

[wintermute]

I agree that all you really need is a file explorer, as there are other rippers and transcoders available.

Hrm. I see "ripping CDs" and "putting stuff on my DAP" as two completely unrelated tasks. Possibly because I had my CD collection ripped before I ever got a DAP, and used to listen to music via my computer while I worked. But if you think of them as a single task of "get music from CD to my DAP", then it makes sense to use a tool that can do both transparently. I suppose you could rip directly to the DAP, but does anyone really not have their library on their computer?

Nowadays, I buy maybe one physical CD a month, tops. So streamlining that particular path isn't terribly important to me. But there's some food for thought, there. Thanks.

[birdless]

It orders them with the newest ones at the top of the list and won't play them in sequence unless I take the trouble to put them in a playlist.

This limitation is inconvenient because I'd thought how nice it would be to be able to start a pod of casts and it play through all episodes rather than me having to navigate all the way back through the menus to start the next one (it's also frustrating that the iPod takes you all the way back to the starting menu when an episode ends instead of just going back to that particular show's menu of episodes). Anyway, I'd never really thought about the playlist option, though. I just played around with the SmartList option... It didn't order them in the newest first, but I couldn't figure out how it ordered them. May be something you may want to play around with, though.

disclaimer:  I don't use the iTunes store, because MP3 (and AAC) files sound like shit. 

Showing my ignorance, perhaps, but I thought iTunes used MP4.

[stePH]

It orders them with the newest ones at the top of the list and won't play them in sequence unless I take the trouble to put them in a playlist.

This limitation is inconvenient because I'd thought how nice it would be to be able to start a pod of casts and it play through all episodes rather than me having to navigate all the way back through the menus to start the next one (it's also frustrating that the iPod takes you all the way back to the starting menu when an episode ends instead of just going back to that particular show's menu of episodes). Anyway, I'd never really thought about the playlist option, though. I just played around with the SmartList option... It didn't order them in the newest first, but I couldn't figure out how it ordered them. May be something you may want to play around with, though.

I've been hitherto unaware of "Smart Playlists" but I just set one up for "Genre= Podcast" and "Album= Snark Infested Waters", and it seems to have ordered them oldest-to-newest.  But it won't remove them as I listen, as I have podcasts currently set up to do.

[Heradel]

It orders them with the newest ones at the top of the list and won't play them in sequence unless I take the trouble to put them in a playlist.

This limitation is inconvenient because I'd thought how nice it would be to be able to start a pod of casts and it play through all episodes rather than me having to navigate all the way back through the menus to start the next one (it's also frustrating that the iPod takes you all the way back to the starting menu when an episode ends instead of just going back to that particular show's menu of episodes). Anyway, I'd never really thought about the playlist option, though. I just played around with the SmartList option... It didn't order them in the newest first, but I couldn't figure out how it ordered them. May be something you may want to play around with, though.

I've been hitherto unaware of "Smart Playlists" but I just set one up for "Genre= Podcast" and "Album= Snark Infested Waters", and it seems to have ordered them oldest-to-newest.  But it won't remove them as I listen, as I have podcasts currently set up to do.

See below.

[Russell Nash]

I suppose you could rip directly to the DAP, but does anyone really not have their library on their computer?

I think where we're mis-communicating here has to do with your moving of playlists.  When you say "take playlists off" I thought you meant remove the music and put it on a computer that didn't already have it.  I have twenty or thirty different playlists and I add a few to my iPod or take some off all of the time.  I just go to the proper screen and check the playlists I want on my iPod and uncheck the ones I want removed.  Takes about as long as it does to read the playlist titles.  I hit "apply" and walk away.  When I come back, it's done.  It also updates my playlists if I made any changes to a list since the last time it was plugged in.  I don't play with the files.

Anyway my point is simply there's no reason for me to be mad at Apple for making it hard for me to do things in a more difficult way when they have given me this program that works so easily.

disclaimer:  I don't use the iTunes store, because MP3 (and AAC) files sound like shit. 

Showing my ignorance, perhaps, but I thought iTunes used MP4.

Itunes uses mp4.  Their name for it is AAC (or ACC I forget).  Anyway it muddies the music.  It's fine in the car or when I'm running around, but when I want to really hear music, I still listen to CDs.  I'd listen to LPs, but I'm do damn lazy.

[Windup]

Ah, my apologies. It was windup who said that MS products "don't work with anything else". But anyway. That was my point.

My intended implication was that Apple products don't work particularly well with anything else.

The larger point was that a combination of Apple and Microsoft would result in the worst of both companies -- Apple's interoperablility (or lack therof) and Microsoft's style and stability (or lack thereof).  That's seems to be the outcome of large corporate mergers. 

[stePH]

Nobody has been able to show me any one program for any DAP that can do everything I need as easily as iTunes does.

A file explorer does everything I need for my DAP, which is basically: move files on and off it. The idea of adding extra software to manage it has never made much sense to me, but I know many people find it very useful.

A Google search has turned up some alternatives to iTunes.  Most seem to be for pay, but Poddox is free.  I'm inclined to give it a try.

http://www.poddox.com/ 

[Windup]

This limitation is inconvenient because I'd thought how nice it would be to be able to start a pod of casts and it play through all episodes rather than me having to navigate all the way back through the menus to start the next one (it's also frustrating that the iPod takes you all the way back to the starting menu when an episode ends instead of just going back to that particular show's menu of episodes). Anyway, I'd never really thought about the playlist option, though. I just played around with the SmartList option... It didn't order them in the newest first, but I couldn't figure out how it ordered them. May be something you may want to play around with, though.

As far as I can tell, a Smart Playlist's default sort is the field used for Limit To, if that feature is turned on.  If it isn't, I'm not sure what it does.  

If you fiddle with the sort -- either by selecting a field or manually moving podcasts around -- and want it to play in that order, <right-click> on the playlist and select Copy to Play Order.