I hate itunes, ipod, iphone

[bhampton]

Hi,

I bet I'm in a minority with this notion but... I hate itunes, ipods, and iphone.

I'm in the process of getting my wife an ipod for her b-day because that's what she wants. So... I'm importing all our CD's and reading about the various versions of ipod and iphone.

And.. it's all pissing my off. Sorry to vent but I hate just about all of the icrap.

Why settle for high quality music reproduction from a CD when you can have a Craptastic highly compressed MP3 that you can listen to on your phone? Who needs HD when you plan to watch "widescreen" movies on a 3" LCD screen?

Seems all of it places connivence first and quality last. I love my macbook but I'm beginning to hate Apple for the effect the icrap is having on entertainment.

Either way... most people are going to be happy with ringtone quality audio and youtube quality video so I think the battle is lost before it begins. I just regret the direction it's going.

-Brian

[Thegide]

Don't think you're so alone on this one. I hate all the iCrap too...

[Beta Man]

I found an iPod in the pocket of the seat in-front of me on an airplane, and went through it, and there was no contact info I could find (and the language was set to Chinese too.....) so either way, I kept the thing..... deleted off the previous owners music, and have since loaded a bunch of live shows on it........ and I never use the thing.... I just don't get it.... even though I don't have the best sound quality stuff on it (Live concert downloads) I just don't know when I'd ever listen to it...... I listen to Sirius while at work, and listen to SACDs and CDs at home.

My brother has an iPhone, and I always give him a hard time about it because it looks silly when he takes it out of his pocket, and it seems like the thing is designed to be a freakin' search and rescue light when taken out in a dark bar etc...... I take my crappy free-phone (with no camera, it doesn't "flip" etc...) and say.... "can your iPhone do this??" and then I just drop it on the floor........ It's got scratches, and cracks, etc.... but that thing has lasted 2 years or so, and I can still make/receive calls.... does what I need it to do. Work gave me a blackberry that's still in one of my desk drawers somewhere!

Also, my phone has been set to "Vibrate" for the past two years.... I can "hear" it vibrating on the couch, let-alone the table, from across the room.... no need for the Skee-Low ring-tone!

[bhampton]

Thank You.

I'm sorry to have vented.

-Brian

[BStecke]

You can import CD's with Apple's lossless codec, or just rip them at 320 AAC or mp3 . . . so you're not forced to use low quality crap. Just change a couple settings . . . not that big of a deal.

I'm with you people's acceptance of diminished quality, though. I've had an iPod for three years and just got an iPhone at the beginning of the the year and have purchased maybe two songs from iTunes, ever. Never watched a movie or a TV show on either device. The iPhone, IMO after working in the wireless industry for a bit and being a bit of a phone geek, is the best data phone available. If you're into that kind of thing.

At the same time though, I doubt the iPhone or iPod is the primary viewing source of movies for anyone. I think most people use them just to kill time.

[Chris Beveridge]

I adore my iphone. When I'm out and about in the summer and at various events where I'm doing a lot of walking (I walk a minimum of 10 miles a day), having a nice chunk of music to listen to is a godsend. Considering that I'm out and about I'm not looking for high quality music reproduction. When I want that, I settle into a proper place for it. Not down the bike trail or walking around a building while waiting for someone.

Having an iphone/ipod doesn't mean you don't care about quality.

[Beta Man]

Originally Posted by BStecke

You can import CD's with Apple's lossless codec, or just rip them at 320 AAC or mp3 . . . so you're not forced to use low quality crap. Just change a couple settings . . . not that big of a deal.

O.K. I guess the other thing I don't like about iPods, has to do with the fact that I'm technologically slooooooooowwwwww...... I come from simple-times........ haha!

[Aaron]

If you use some decent earbuds the quality is amazing. I have a pair of Shures and it was the best 80$ i've ever spent.

And it is pretty convient to watch video on. Just because it isn't HD doesn't mean it looks bad.

[The Don]

anything with an "i" in front of it gets a BOOO from me..

[Wreck]

ipods are cool, and ifyou dont like them its because you dont like the somewhat not friendly user interface... understandable... but is that apples problem? haha yea.

My only complain is how they are not user friendly to pc owners and there is not 64bit vista patch

You can complain about compressed music but when its coming from headphones and blaring in your ear its hard to tell the difference, my ears have years of trained experience as I used to be a recording engineer and that complaint is just lame.

Why? Here's why ... if your saying its better in your car.. not vaild, at your home, probably not valid.

The only thing that makes it valid is if you listen to your music on STUDIO REFERENCE MONITORS... that is what music is mixed by before mastered. Its all based on high end studio ref. monitors... listening to music on anything else is already sub-par.

So complain its not user friendly... or that you dont understand it or are technically limited, but nothing else.

[Entertainment72]

After numurous smartphones (blackberries, palms etc) no phone can do it better than the iphone.. just the facts, it is what it is. If it didn't Id say so I could care less. People don't dislike i products.. people dislike popularity and conformity ala "i" products.

Another reason why some dislike some apple products is well because they can't afford them, I've seen this countless times first hand. Apple products aren't the cheapest things compared to their competitors.

I had a friend who dissed the iphone to no end .. um.. until he got one for x-mas.. then it was God's gift to earth.... HMMMMMMMM... LMAO!

BTW: The iPhone has the best resolution and screen out of any phone out.. period! I didn't purchase the iphone to watch my blu-ray movies.. or to hear my sacd's dvd-a or truehd.. at the end of the day its just a phone..

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by BigBLUballz

Why? Here's why ... if your saying its better in your car.. not vaild, at your home, probably not valid.

I have to disagree, especially if you have any kind of aftermarket stereo components in said car. Anything less than 320kbps and at fairly loud levels, to me, is pretty hard to listen to for any extended period of time. When I had my Diamond HEX's in my last car, I would always lose the Apple Lossless codec, as anything less was a bit harsh.

[bhampton]

Hey,

Perhaps I was being unfair adding iphone to the list. I don't know much about it but the thought of people watching movies on it turns my tummy.

I think I'm in the "I can afford it" catagory but I don't like cell phones in general. I have kids and drive in wintery roads and feel I should carry one but I just about never use it. That's why my plan in only $15/month,... it's pretty much for emergencies that never happen.

It may indeed be the worlds greatest phone and from what I hear no one that owns one is less then thrilled with it.

I just hate the thought of youtube quality video collections.

Another thing that's starting to bother me is it seems most of the icrap stuff does not have replace-able batteries. I suppose you recycle the whole device when the battery go bad. But the world flooded with peoples dead ipods isn't a pretty picture in my mind. I'm not the greenest fella but this seems about the least eco-friendly thing there is.

-Brian

[JadedRaverLA]

Originally Posted by BigBLUballz

My only complain is how they are not user friendly to pc owners and there is not 64bit vista patch

There was a simple fix for CD burning in Windows x64... but it isn't needed any more, as there is now a version of iTunes designed specifically for Vista-64. Just go to Apple's site and download iTunes -- you'll see two options now -- standard and 64-bit.

[BStecke]

The iPhone has a replaceable battery, it's just not user replaceable. Not sure about the iPod to be honest, but somebody put the thing together, so I'm sure you could get a new battery for it.

[camper]

I love my Zune (iPod-like device) but I travel a lot and spend hours in my car, so it really meets my needs to play my music and podcasts. It's nice taking a movie with me now and then if I'm in a hotel room for the weekend and I get bored. I haven't really used it much for that, but I like the option. Mainly it's a music player, with pics of the kids on it. Sure beats burning MP3's to CD to play in my portable CD player that reads MP3's.

The iPod & iPhone as a status symbol annoys the crap out of me, as does anyone who looks at cell phones the same way.

~Camper

[Ferris]

It took me a long time to get in on the iRevolution. Finally, I bought an iPod for my wife, and one for myself (just a pair of 4 GB 3rd-gen nanos). It's way better then the mp3 players we had... but, that's ALL we use it for, is listening to music. As for iWorld.... I am not buying into it.

Also, with respect to people's succumbing to lower quality audio... I don't think they're choosing to. Many people don't realize that when they purchase from iTunes the music they're getting is compressed. Additionally, they don't know they can change their setting to obtain lossless audio. They're not like many of us, who keep ourselves informed on forums like these.

Although, there are those people who just don't care. I have 60% hearing loss, so the uncompressed audio doesn't do much for me...

[Blinkman987]

If someone could make a GUI as clean as iTunes and make it stop sucking my PC dry of resources while using it, I'd switch. I like the option to watch stuff while I'm doing cardio at the gym, or when on an airplane and I don't want to pop out my macbook (not an apple fanboy. most of their products are dogshit). I would never use that screen as a main source of video entertainment, though.

As pointed out earlier, you can use losselss quality. You just need to rtm.

iPhones are pretty shitty. To be honest, Maddox isn't the most objective eye on the internet and most of his posts are just well-written flames to entertain, but his article on the iPhone is pretty spot on.

[Blu Haze]

Hey Brian,

Hows it going are you staying away from High Def Forum for awhile or did you go back. YOu were hated by many for liking Blu ray lol.

[BStecke]

Originally Posted by Blinkman987

iPhones are pretty shitty.

How?