Escaping The Apple iWorld

[onewhippedpuppy]

I've almost had my fill of Apple products. My not even two year old iPhone 5 lightning port is shot and the speakers barely work. Managing music between our multiple devices, some for kids, is a nightmare. The interaction between iCloud, iTunes, and different settings on different devices is a joke. iTunes in general is a steaming pile of crap.

I used to love their products because they were intuitive and just worked. But that seems to be less and less the case. Here's the issue - we have two iPhones, two iPods, and two iPads. Thousands of songs, some via iTunes some past CD rips. Dozens of iTunes movie downloads. How difficult is it to move to an Android platform without losing downloaded iTunes files? How big of a pain is it to transfer everything over?

I'm right at the tipping point, and will be watching the expected iPhone 6 and ios 8 unveil very closely this week. If they continue the stupidity from ios 7 I'm done.

[HardDrive]

Itunes is the devils work. I buy nothing from them. I either download it from amazon, or buy the media and rip it.

[onewhippedpuppy]

It's just convenient.....when it works. If they can get back to the good old days then I'm a happy camper.

[id10t]

Anything bought via iTunes - burn 'em all to a CD as audio tracks and re-rip outside of itunes

Your original MP3s should still be plain 'ol MP3s.

I'm thinking of an Android when I upgrade my iphone 4 but since I don't have access to iTunes anyway I use an app called Files for my music - allows uploading via a built in webserver, has a built in media player

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Geez I use iTunes for everything and it works fine. Have you tried the tutorials?

The synchronization between all the household I-devices is flawless and simple (maybe it's just me... ). Macbook, Apple TV, iPad, two iPhones... No issues. I dunno - I found iTunes to have a bit of a learning curve but once I did the tutorials and really played with it for an hour or two it became second nature and the iTunes Store a great resource for content that plays anywhere, anytime. Way easier than a bunch of mp3s, lots of files in different formats, etc.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Itunes is the devils work. I buy nothing from them. I either download it from amazon, or buy the media and rip it.

This, plus eleventy-billion.

[winders]

iTunes works fine. Been using it for years. Sounds like the OP has a problem with his iPhone. Have you ever thought it might need to be repaired or replaced? There will be times when devices fail, no matter who makes them.

Haters are going to hate.....

[onewhippedpuppy]

Calling someone with six Apple devices a "hater" is a pretty moronic comment. My wife and I have each had the last three generations of iPhone, so we have bought in pretty completely.

I know how to operate iTunes, I just find the UI to be clunky and counterintuitive. My big issue with the family devices is controlling content on kids' devices within the same Apple ID. I don't want my 7 year old having access to the entire music library for instance. It's very clunky to manually manage, and I typically have to change settings for iTunes, iCloud, and iMessage with each new software update. Manually managing music is convoluted, and today my cloud music library showed 10 copies of each song when I was attempting to manually download a single song to my son's iPod. Why you can't simply download an already purchased song from iTunes (for free) is beyond me. Instead you have to show all music, download the song, and then disable the show all music. It's little stuff but it adds up.

[wdfifteen]

I feel your pain. iTunes is definitely the weak star in the Apple constellation. I avoid everything having to do with iTunes that I can. I had some serious problems with synching that caused me to lose some photos.
But I don't want to start the learning curve all over with a 'droid device.

[porsche4life]

Matt. Really play with the UI on the phones you are considering. I found android to be very clunky and hated it. I'd rather deal with iTunes and have a phone that works well, than have a crappy phone just to avoid iTunes.

[Noah930]

For the love of AAPL, please buy yourself and Mrs. OWP new iPhone 6s (and maybe an iWatch, too!) before making your decision to ditch the brand.

[Z-man]

I use my iPhone 5S for music every day. Recently took a round trip to Pittsburgh - 6 hours both ways. Most of the way, I had music going via my iPhone.

I can't remember the last time I synced my phone with iTunes. And I don't have but a handful of music on my phone.

Streaming music - it is a wonderful thing. I myself love Pandora and have upgraded to Pandora One - unlimited hours of music, and no ads! Plus I like the way Pandora uses my likes and dislikes of music to fine tune my stations - and introduce me to new music. At home, all of my devices (2 iphone 5S's, an iPad, an iPad mini, and a Mac Book Pro) all connect to my Apple TV that is connected to my home theater system, and I have speakers throughout my home.

With Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody, and even Apple's iTunes Radio, there really is no longer a need to buy and download music to your i-Devices.

One may argue that streaming music doesn't have the quality of music from past days, but truthfully, neither does any mp3 / AAV compressed music, unless you go loss-less and take up a lot of space.

As for movies - I occasionally rent movies - but directly via my i-Devices. I've gotten away from owning (DVD/BD or digital) movies - they take up too much space, and I rarely see a flick more than once! Then again, I don't have a bunch of crumb gobblers (kids) that require a movie or two in order to keep the parent's sanity intact!!

-Z

[Gogar]

Also keep in mind that iTunes - especially as the app that manages your mobile
Devices, won't likely be around much longer.

[MongooseGA]

I've been using the whole Google suite. No glitches. Android phone and tablet, and web-based apps on my Window8.1 laptop.

I have all of my music uploaded to Google Play Music and can access it directly from an app on my mobile devices or any other device w/ internet access. It will even play the last 5 (I think) albums w/o data from the phone. Documents, mail, networking, etc... It's all seamless and available anywhere.

I can't tolerate using my GF's Apple devices. They're counter-intuitive, claustrophobic, and missing in a lot of features.

[dave 911]

Originally Posted by Gogar

Also keep in mind that iTunes - especially as the app that manages your mobile
Devices, won't likely be around much longer.

Huh?? Where is it going/what is it being replaced with?

OP - I feel your pain also, a few weeks ago I tried to move a playlist over to a new (actually daughter's old, but big memory) ipod for my car, and found that 3/4 of our music 'could not be found'...the dreaded exclamation points....and ended up reloading about 60 CD's of music to iTunes. I think it is from when we upgraded our computer a few years ago, but I looked everywhere on our external back up drive and couldn't find the files. Talk about a PITA.

But it's nice when it works.

I don't know anything other than Apple, but I know when my son replaced his iPhone w/ an Android last year he didn't like it and switched back...

[Gogar]

Originally Posted by dave 911

Huh?? Where is it going/what is it being replaced with?

Nobody's buying anything anymore. iTunes is going to have to fundamentally change in the next few years to keep up.

[cockerpunk]

this is a case study in staying away from closed-architecture platforms.

[berettafan]

falling out of love with my 5s.

last one had blue screen issues and replacement phone has flaky battery.

and now when I browse forums I get pop up ads! if I have to see that crap there is one less reason to put up with iTunes.

[jyl]

Originally Posted by berettafan

and now when I browse forums I get pop up ads!

Is that an issue with your forums, your settings in Safari, or ??? I block pop-ups in Safari and never see any.

[widgeon13]

No problems here.