Alan C

Man. I've struggled all day trying to get a Photo Ipod and a Shuffle synced in with a few hundred tunes to try them out...

Itunes functionilaity is garbage. The default settings are really intrusive and the information given as it's syncing is poor to say the least..

Never thought I'd say this but MS WIndows Media Player (v10) is the dogs.. Intuative, easy to use, packed with easy to access features and it Auto Syncs..

Bye Bye iTunes..

Markus

The default for iPods should be to auto sync the library in iTunes onto the iPod(s) and whenever they are connected, re-sync things.

It should be easy to work out from the iPod settings in iTunes how to turn on/off the sync capabilities.

Never had a problem with autosyncing, and I've been using a Mac formatted iPod with a PC (plus a copy of Media Four's MacDrive6 software)

Alan C

I'm going to have to eat some Humble Pie..

Not the type of person to let a little 'config issues' come between me and beating a box full of 1's & 0's, but after fixing the errors, overcoming the interface and subscribing to a few Podcasts and downloading a few Videos, I'm starting to warm to it. It's still a crappy interfcae, but It appears to be configured correctly for the Ipods functionality.

I know that's the point, but it could be better...

The Rani

Hate iTunes - it messes my computer up big time - realplayer reckon they are compatible now - but haven't got an iPod any more to try it

Father Jack Hackett

iTunes always works flawlessly for me. I think it's a great interface. Hate their copy protect stuff but that's another story.

I refuse on principle to have RealPlayer on my PC. It always fills your hard drive up with all kinds of crap and nags you to upgrade to a paid version. Windows Media Player is fine.

rgv_stu

i prefer itunes to mediaplayer10 i find it far too confusing! the layout is crap

GaryK

Yep have to say the same here itunes is a really slick piece of kit, it has *never* given me any problems at all and works flawlessly with the ipod and always has done.

The Rani

Don't have that problem - just said no to everything on their options bit.

mattbeef

iTunes it easy to use, i dont get why people hate it?

Alan C

Matt. It's very clunky and doesn't have an intuative interface...

Don't take this the wrong way.. but I belive it's designed for basic users to achieve basic results... Maybe a person who isn't technically minded, able to make minor adjustments to their MP3's configuration or understand what's actually going on underneath... Just press and go..

I want to be able to control what it does, when and how.. Very much like TG or 5th Gear complaining about Traction control etc etc interfering with the driving experience.. I want to be able to control it.. not for it to tell me what I want or should do....

I don't hate it, but I (and probably ther others) find that frustrating and annoying..

mattbeef

Im a power user and i can make it do what i need to, i guess that im missing something then

Ah well maybe its because im a mac user i dont have any probs doing what i need to do in iTunes

Alan C

That's a very good point... maybe the Windows Interface degrades or takes something away??

Interesting...

Markus

Alan,
It's simple because that is how Apple's products, hardware and software are designed. The theory is that you have true plug and play and should be able to from the word go, plug in your ipod, have it auto fire up iTunes and auto sync your music onto the iPod.

I've got both Mac's and PC's and iTunes looks a little different on the both platforms, but not much, the prefs are in the correct places on both platforms, and there aren't any features that are not present on one platform but are on the other.

What kind of features would you like iTunes to have? I am not having a go, I'm curious.

carl

Actually syncing a Shuffle is a bit of a bore because you have to click the "Autofil" button.

wakeboardar

one thing that caught me out,
my wife has her own itunes on my my computer and sometimes my ipod connects to her itunes and not mine and so updates itself by deleting my stuff and filling up on from hers

TopBanana

I don't like itunes either. Almost a shame the ipods themselves are so great

ScoobyAl

Have been using i-tunes for ages now without any problems. Just make sure you keep updating the software (its free). Use 2 playlists in itunes one for my ipod and one for my wifes ipod mini so that i dont get her nasty tunes !!

The Rani

I found it OK till they went onto version 6. Played havoc with other software on my computer and I ended up uninstalling it. Have tried a couple of times since, including BT's plug in for it, but no joy.

Alan C

Markus.. No issues my friend..

Now that I have it finally working, it seems fine. I'm an experienced PC user and we just didn't hit it off straight away. It took me most of Xmas day and night to figure it out and a lot of fiddling and tweaking to get it to sync and transfer properly as everytime I tried some tracks were missing on the device for no apparant reason or removed from my hard drive.. Even the annoying 'Do not disconnect' caused issues as the software didn't readily explain that it was updating or converting tracks...

So my first impressions of it were poor.. Along the way I'd installed Xplay 2 and used Windows Media 10 with a lot more success..

I have warmed to it as the auto sync is useful and now I know where to look for certain clues as to what it's doing, but it just doesn't 'feel right'.

Some features I'd like would be to simply delete a track from the device itself with some form of explorer type interface.. Having to remove it from the library or playlist and to then re-update doesn't seem right. Even then the device holds on to the file title for a little while before resetting.

• How about setting up playlists or Genre, Artist and song categories to my liking? Up to now it tells me where it's going to put them..
• How about editing titles straight on the device?
• Eject the device????? This is XP not W2K...
• How about not having to disconnect & reconnect the USB to re-initialise the connection? Whay can't I just select the device that's still connected?

I'm sure it's me and that the ability is there to do all that and more. But I'm just not getting a warm fuzzy feeling.. I will be playing some more as I'm happy to keep plugging away.. but I really shouldn't have to.

Markus

Some good points there Alan. Version 6 introduced a nice playlist folder concept, which allows you to have nested playlists, pity they are not respected on the iPod and are amalgatmated into one playlist One hopes a firmware update might address this, or, it's possible the Nano and Video iPod do properly support this and it's not supported on older iPods (Can anyone confirm this?)

When you say "editing titles on the device" what do you mean? Do you mean select a track and change it's name and other info? if so, then that is possible, or it is in the Mac version of iTunes, as I've had to do that after having to change ` into ' (damn that allofmp3.com ) on some tracks, and I did that on the files on the iPod.