I am not loving iTunes. I don't usually love iTunes much on account of it being the guffest piece of software ever to exist, but the non-love is expanding.
Each Christmas they do their "12 days of Christmas" giveaway; every day for 12 days, starting boxing day, they give away a free something. Lovely, but it is highly possible that it is not done out of altruism. No, really.
I have a 16Gb iPhone 4. This is plenty for my normal use, for the number of photos and songs etc I choose to carry. I don't have any videos. That's me, personally, not getting any. I bought a tv episode once, watched it, deleted it. I am very wary of iCloud so I have that backing up my photos only. Distrust distrust.
And so I see that iTunes are offering me a free episode or seven of a tv show or nine. In HD! Brilliant! 1.5Gb a pop. The songs that they give away all come with videos and look, I seem to have run out of space. Hmm. How can I overcome this? What could I do to give myself more room? Maybe a new product? An iPad maybe, or a nice big iPod? Maybe a Mac too?
To accommodate all the things I don't want. That iTunes give me and dupe me into downloading them by making them free for one day only - but what if I wanted it later? I would surely die if I hadn't got it for free! On one day they gave me a song I'd actually already bought at great personal angst (I don't often buy new stuff). On another day they gave me sonic racing which is marvellous (and very mario kart-y). I like that. Ssshh. I dutifully downloaded the Top Gear episodes I won't watch. I have now deleted these. I resisted today's, it was a song I dislike. Sense reigned briefly.
I have had it pointed out to me by Grumpypants that I could download to my computer. I shall not be doing this on account of the following:
My computer is a piece of junk and probably has less free space than my phone.
My computer is a piece of junk and I only use it under duress. Indeed, I will use my kindle to access Internet sites that insist of loading the mobile version on the phone. The Kindle is better than the computer, not least because it can't run iTunes.
If I did want to move anything to my phone, I would have to connect the phone to the computer, and I don't do that for fear of the Bad Things that happen when the phone syncs with iTunes. And a reluctance to spend 16 hours doing the sync.
So. Thanks for Sonic Racing. I won't be buying any Apple products to run it on. Unless I come into some money. In which case I probably would buy a lot of Apple products. Which renders this...
Showing posts with label iTunes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iTunes. Show all posts
Monday, 2 January 2012
Monday, 25 May 2009
iCare
I may have mentioned previously that I got an iPhone and I'm rather fond of it.
The one bugbear I HAD with it was iTunes. It's a bit temperamental, it loses songs occasionally, which may be the fault of the server they live on, it may be a Windows thing. I know not. I shout at it relatively often. It takes forever and a day to get all the music nicely imported and matched up with album art and the gapless playback thing done (I never listen to albums in order: why can't I turn it off?). It has moments of being rather slow. I don't like to think about what they can know about me. It worries me. The final straw came when I realised the suicide of my computer meant I had completely lost some purchased music.
Ridiculous!
So I sent an email, expecting some corportate regurgitation of the rules regarding downloads and how it was my own stupid fault for not backing up.
Well.
Almost immediately, I receive an email from John at Customer Services. Very polite, very apologetic, offering me credits to rebuy the songs in question, plus an extra credit. Niggly problem I'd moaned about, fixed. And the following day - I still don't get on the PC much - a follow up email to see if all was ok. It is indeed ok. I have just been wished a nice evening from John after a number of "thank you", "no, thank YOU" emails. How very nice. How very unusual.
iTunes: I love you. Even if you only have an acoustic version of Live it Up.
The one bugbear I HAD with it was iTunes. It's a bit temperamental, it loses songs occasionally, which may be the fault of the server they live on, it may be a Windows thing. I know not. I shout at it relatively often. It takes forever and a day to get all the music nicely imported and matched up with album art and the gapless playback thing done (I never listen to albums in order: why can't I turn it off?). It has moments of being rather slow. I don't like to think about what they can know about me. It worries me. The final straw came when I realised the suicide of my computer meant I had completely lost some purchased music.
Ridiculous!
So I sent an email, expecting some corportate regurgitation of the rules regarding downloads and how it was my own stupid fault for not backing up.
Well.
Almost immediately, I receive an email from John at Customer Services. Very polite, very apologetic, offering me credits to rebuy the songs in question, plus an extra credit. Niggly problem I'd moaned about, fixed. And the following day - I still don't get on the PC much - a follow up email to see if all was ok. It is indeed ok. I have just been wished a nice evening from John after a number of "thank you", "no, thank YOU" emails. How very nice. How very unusual.
iTunes: I love you. Even if you only have an acoustic version of Live it Up.
Thursday, 8 January 2009
And another day again
Well, it is now midnight. Exactly so according to the post options. Stinky bad day is finished. And people were generally nice which I must admit and grudgingly accept that it's not all that bad. Positivity back now. For at least an hour.
I am totally ready for my exams: I have four pens, three mechanical pencils, one eraser, one ruler, one scientific calculator, one large notebook for notes, past papers, course notes. All I need to do now is, er, read the notes and do the past papers. No problem!
I have previously read the notes. It's not quite as bad as it sounds. I just don't remember any of it.
Going back to previous ponderages:
1) I have the new issue of Psychologies magazine. I'm kind of scared to open it as I am totally duty bound to love every word of this month's issue after last month's foot in blog incident. I really liked an article in Easy Living by Shane Watson and I can't remember a word of what it was about. So easily unimpressed, so fleetingly impressed. Fairness decrees that I should praise an article this month - and it should really be one from Psychologies, unfortunately as I'm scared of that particular magazine now, I can only open it under the cover of darkness and then I won't be able to read it - but that would go unnoticed. Ho hum. I'm going to turn into one of these people that goes out of their way to experience terrible things so they can be funny about them. Well, I suppose that's marginally better than doing nothing at all.
2) iTunes and I are no longer happy together. I think I am being punished for my lack of Macness but until Apple charge £32 for a new Mac, I will continue to be Macally challenged. To indicate its displeasure, iTunes thought it would be a laugh to lose all the music files. Can't find, can't find. To make it look better, the resident boffin renamed all the files and actually ensured that iTunes was telling the truth, which filled me with immense joy and gratitude. I readded the files and then ran a script to delete the old ones. Nothing. Re-adding the files involves the analysis of gapless playback data, which takes approximately 72 hours. I would like to pick the "don't bother, I never ever will want gapless playback" option, but no, you have no choice. So I have done this three times, the third time after deleting the old library. iTunes is now happy(ish). But it's a new library, so it has to overwrite the songs on the iPhone. Of course. Because it would be useful to add to it, wouldn't it, and it's not like anyone ever uses more than one computer, or gets a new computer or anything like that. I have 4 of my 5 allocated computers used up, 2 of which are dead and gone and one of which is this one but it doesn't know that as it had been Linuxed by the boffin between then and now. It has been adding 367 songs, which isn't a huge amount, for 2 HOURS. It's connected directly by a wire into the USB port of the computer so I can't even blame the slow hub or network connection.
I get it. I need a Mac. Ok? I won't be getting one for a while.
Where's my magazine? Seven steps to make this my year?
Step 1) Overcome fear of magazine and open it.
I am totally ready for my exams: I have four pens, three mechanical pencils, one eraser, one ruler, one scientific calculator, one large notebook for notes, past papers, course notes. All I need to do now is, er, read the notes and do the past papers. No problem!
I have previously read the notes. It's not quite as bad as it sounds. I just don't remember any of it.
Going back to previous ponderages:
1) I have the new issue of Psychologies magazine. I'm kind of scared to open it as I am totally duty bound to love every word of this month's issue after last month's foot in blog incident. I really liked an article in Easy Living by Shane Watson and I can't remember a word of what it was about. So easily unimpressed, so fleetingly impressed. Fairness decrees that I should praise an article this month - and it should really be one from Psychologies, unfortunately as I'm scared of that particular magazine now, I can only open it under the cover of darkness and then I won't be able to read it - but that would go unnoticed. Ho hum. I'm going to turn into one of these people that goes out of their way to experience terrible things so they can be funny about them. Well, I suppose that's marginally better than doing nothing at all.
2) iTunes and I are no longer happy together. I think I am being punished for my lack of Macness but until Apple charge £32 for a new Mac, I will continue to be Macally challenged. To indicate its displeasure, iTunes thought it would be a laugh to lose all the music files. Can't find, can't find. To make it look better, the resident boffin renamed all the files and actually ensured that iTunes was telling the truth, which filled me with immense joy and gratitude. I readded the files and then ran a script to delete the old ones. Nothing. Re-adding the files involves the analysis of gapless playback data, which takes approximately 72 hours. I would like to pick the "don't bother, I never ever will want gapless playback" option, but no, you have no choice. So I have done this three times, the third time after deleting the old library. iTunes is now happy(ish). But it's a new library, so it has to overwrite the songs on the iPhone. Of course. Because it would be useful to add to it, wouldn't it, and it's not like anyone ever uses more than one computer, or gets a new computer or anything like that. I have 4 of my 5 allocated computers used up, 2 of which are dead and gone and one of which is this one but it doesn't know that as it had been Linuxed by the boffin between then and now. It has been adding 367 songs, which isn't a huge amount, for 2 HOURS. It's connected directly by a wire into the USB port of the computer so I can't even blame the slow hub or network connection.
I get it. I need a Mac. Ok? I won't be getting one for a while.
Where's my magazine? Seven steps to make this my year?
Step 1) Overcome fear of magazine and open it.
Friday, 28 November 2008
Snippets of airy nothing
3am, 750 words of 2000-3000. Decision taken to invoke the "5pm Friday is the same as 9am Monday" rule.
9am, approximately 700 of those words discovered to be irrelevant.
Dammit.
I am so disorganised. I should have just watched Buzzcocks last night. Mark Watson was on it! I love him, even if he is but a child.
I *need* to sleep. Not write. Not amuse hyper people.
Is it wrong to have pistachio ice cream for breakfast? I have some and it's divine. Pistachio. The elusivest and tastiest of ice creams. With bings of pistachios in. If you want chocolate ice cream, you just go to a shop and buy chocolate ice cream. Not true with pistachio, and there it was just sitting in Tesco's freezer looking all pistachio-y.
It's just a nut thing. I may continue with the daily nut related supermarket news. I may not.
No. I'll have a muffin. Not healthy, but at least it's sort of breakfast fayre.
Genius is in fact genius.
It's marvellous.
Get it now. You just turn on Genius in iTunes, wait several years for it to check all your dodgy downloads and sometime in another lifetime it will be done and you simply click on a song, click the genius button and tada! A playlist of joy. You have to go back to iTunes to delete the ones that it gets a bit wrong, but so far out of 50 songs, I've had to delete 3.
I did another playlist, this time from Human by The Killers, which I still love, and the playlist is spectacular (mostly). For one, it includes Intervention by Arcade Fire which is exactly spot on, and again, it's included stuff I thought I didn't like (Beck? White Stripes?) and yet I do. Except for two hideous errors, Celine Dion and the Spice Girls, but that's my own fault for not deleting their albums when we accidentally got the entire Top 40 a few months ago. Genius probably thinks I like all that cack, Connie Talbot and other people I had to Google to find out who they were. Anyway, Genius is fab. I am very lazy when it comes to listening to music, especially with the ease of playlists, I tend to listen to the songs I like and rarely "discover" new ones. The radio is my only salvation usually. I went through and copied the songs I like off the server onto my beloved the other day, and now Genius is picking the Other Songs for me. It's a revelation in toons.
I'm liking this cheapness thing. Every time I open my email there's a pile of messages telling me things are reduced, free delivery, 20% off, free stuff, more free stuff, please please buy stuff. I've dispatched a spy to go and see if Woolworths are giving away their stock yet. I'm noticing a lot of "2 for the price of less than 1!" offers. It's good, even if we have to ignore the fiscal implications. We all HAVE to buy stuff, our economy depends on you buying some stuff. Yes you, go buy that thing you reckon you shouldn't. It's not extravagance, it's survival.
Tomorrow: a blog entry where one paragraph has anything remotely to do with the following one.
9am, approximately 700 of those words discovered to be irrelevant.
Dammit.
I am so disorganised. I should have just watched Buzzcocks last night. Mark Watson was on it! I love him, even if he is but a child.
I *need* to sleep. Not write. Not amuse hyper people.
Is it wrong to have pistachio ice cream for breakfast? I have some and it's divine. Pistachio. The elusivest and tastiest of ice creams. With bings of pistachios in. If you want chocolate ice cream, you just go to a shop and buy chocolate ice cream. Not true with pistachio, and there it was just sitting in Tesco's freezer looking all pistachio-y.
It's just a nut thing. I may continue with the daily nut related supermarket news. I may not.
No. I'll have a muffin. Not healthy, but at least it's sort of breakfast fayre.
Genius is in fact genius.
It's marvellous.
Get it now. You just turn on Genius in iTunes, wait several years for it to check all your dodgy downloads and sometime in another lifetime it will be done and you simply click on a song, click the genius button and tada! A playlist of joy. You have to go back to iTunes to delete the ones that it gets a bit wrong, but so far out of 50 songs, I've had to delete 3.
I did another playlist, this time from Human by The Killers, which I still love, and the playlist is spectacular (mostly). For one, it includes Intervention by Arcade Fire which is exactly spot on, and again, it's included stuff I thought I didn't like (Beck? White Stripes?) and yet I do. Except for two hideous errors, Celine Dion and the Spice Girls, but that's my own fault for not deleting their albums when we accidentally got the entire Top 40 a few months ago. Genius probably thinks I like all that cack, Connie Talbot and other people I had to Google to find out who they were. Anyway, Genius is fab. I am very lazy when it comes to listening to music, especially with the ease of playlists, I tend to listen to the songs I like and rarely "discover" new ones. The radio is my only salvation usually. I went through and copied the songs I like off the server onto my beloved the other day, and now Genius is picking the Other Songs for me. It's a revelation in toons.
I'm liking this cheapness thing. Every time I open my email there's a pile of messages telling me things are reduced, free delivery, 20% off, free stuff, more free stuff, please please buy stuff. I've dispatched a spy to go and see if Woolworths are giving away their stock yet. I'm noticing a lot of "2 for the price of less than 1!" offers. It's good, even if we have to ignore the fiscal implications. We all HAVE to buy stuff, our economy depends on you buying some stuff. Yes you, go buy that thing you reckon you shouldn't. It's not extravagance, it's survival.
Tomorrow: a blog entry where one paragraph has anything remotely to do with the following one.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
Genius
A friend of mine was telling me yesterday how great the iTunes Genius playlist thing is. And so I spent half my day yesterday activating it and I have my first Genius playlist on my beloved.
What it does: takes a song and suggests similar songs from your library and compiles a playlist, this one has 20 songs which may or may not be standard.
The song I started from was 'Annie Let's not Wait' by Guillemots, which I think is a great song. Now, iTunes has the pick of a large and eclectic library, partly because of my tendency in the past to buy dodgy compilations, greatest hits and pop shite just because I liked one track, and partly due to the ease with which things can be downloaded. So this is what it produced:
Annie Let's not Wait - Guillemots
Had Enough - The Enemy
You Can't Have it All - Ash
Nature's Law - Embrace
Slight Return - The Bluetones
Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones
Tranquillize - The Killers feat Lou Reed
This is How it Feels - Inspiral Carpets
Motorcycle Emptiness - Manic Street Preachers
Wondering - Dirty Pretty Things
You're not Alone - The Enemy
House Party at Boothy's - Little Man Tate
One Day Like This - Elbow
You're Gorgeous - Babybird
You're Gonna Lose us - Cribs
A Design for Life - Manic Street Preachers
Rose - The Feeling
Going Missing - Maximo Park
Pass it On - The Coral
Now, some of those are songs I know I like - the ones by Elbow and The Only Ones being the best, but some of them are songs by bands I actively dislike - Maximo Park, Cribs and The Enemy being the worst. And The Feeling and The Coral are repetitively almost offensive mostly. But, with the exception of the Cribs, I actually have enjoyed listening to all these songs. Ones like The Feeling one are like, yeah, I KNEW I liked something they did, so woop woop, all hail Apple.
I'll worry about the information Apple now have, tomorrow.
What it does: takes a song and suggests similar songs from your library and compiles a playlist, this one has 20 songs which may or may not be standard.
The song I started from was 'Annie Let's not Wait' by Guillemots, which I think is a great song. Now, iTunes has the pick of a large and eclectic library, partly because of my tendency in the past to buy dodgy compilations, greatest hits and pop shite just because I liked one track, and partly due to the ease with which things can be downloaded. So this is what it produced:
Annie Let's not Wait - Guillemots
Had Enough - The Enemy
You Can't Have it All - Ash
Nature's Law - Embrace
Slight Return - The Bluetones
Another Girl, Another Planet - The Only Ones
Tranquillize - The Killers feat Lou Reed
This is How it Feels - Inspiral Carpets
Motorcycle Emptiness - Manic Street Preachers
Wondering - Dirty Pretty Things
You're not Alone - The Enemy
House Party at Boothy's - Little Man Tate
One Day Like This - Elbow
You're Gorgeous - Babybird
You're Gonna Lose us - Cribs
A Design for Life - Manic Street Preachers
Rose - The Feeling
Going Missing - Maximo Park
Pass it On - The Coral
Now, some of those are songs I know I like - the ones by Elbow and The Only Ones being the best, but some of them are songs by bands I actively dislike - Maximo Park, Cribs and The Enemy being the worst. And The Feeling and The Coral are repetitively almost offensive mostly. But, with the exception of the Cribs, I actually have enjoyed listening to all these songs. Ones like The Feeling one are like, yeah, I KNEW I liked something they did, so woop woop, all hail Apple.
I'll worry about the information Apple now have, tomorrow.
Monday, 24 November 2008
iLove
I love my phone. True love, soulmate style. Really, it has all the things I look for* in a soulmate: pedantry, good books and music, fondness of being and ability to be online at all times, shiny good looks and the ability to be in my pocket at all times. If it was a better photographer I think I'd leave my husband for it, but hey, noone's perfect.
Anyway, I'm beside myself (right there, look) with joy today because I got a software upgrade yesterday which has solved some of my (minor) gripes and made it even more wonderful. I now have a Google button on the browser and I can download podcasts direct from iTunes. Wowee. The 2Gb of 38 podcasts are downloading themselves as I type, with no need for a PC at all! Wowee!
AND my Sony Fontopia headphones have been returned to their rightful owner, me, and all sounds perfect again. No more hiss from enforced use of the lesser Creative ones. Ear buds are amazing. I have storymakers on repeat and Cars on, and I can hear Mssrs C and H.
The iPhone is the greatest thing I have ever owned. I love it more than I loved my Volvo (RIP) and I have no idea how I functioned without it. Oh, the fickleness of looking at Other Phones. This is the phone I was born to own. Oh yes.
*possibly hyperbole and indeed, a complete lie.
Anyway, I'm beside myself (right there, look) with joy today because I got a software upgrade yesterday which has solved some of my (minor) gripes and made it even more wonderful. I now have a Google button on the browser and I can download podcasts direct from iTunes. Wowee. The 2Gb of 38 podcasts are downloading themselves as I type, with no need for a PC at all! Wowee!
AND my Sony Fontopia headphones have been returned to their rightful owner, me, and all sounds perfect again. No more hiss from enforced use of the lesser Creative ones. Ear buds are amazing. I have storymakers on repeat and Cars on, and I can hear Mssrs C and H.
The iPhone is the greatest thing I have ever owned. I love it more than I loved my Volvo (RIP) and I have no idea how I functioned without it. Oh, the fickleness of looking at Other Phones. This is the phone I was born to own. Oh yes.
*possibly hyperbole and indeed, a complete lie.
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