Annoying software: Is Apple iTunes the new AOL?

The author's comparison

The author's comparison between AOl and Apple is invalid. the author is comparing apples to oranges. AOL is an email/browser/internet service, itunes is a media player.

The advertising campaigns of both companies are entirely different (although the author might find them both equally annoying, this analysis is subjective).

As a final note, itunes was originally designed to run on Mac. itunes runs perfectly on my older iMac but sluggish on my pc laptop. Therefore, it is more likely that the sluggishness of itunes to due to the operating system then to the number of features on itunes.

GRASPING AT ANYTHING FOR A

GRASPING AT ANYTHING FOR A STORY... whatever. No comparison.. and thanx for wasting my time reading your stupid opinion... go Microsoft... woooo... whatever.

AOL IM uses a standard

AOL IM uses a standard Jabber connection, that way they can connect to Google or Mac, but Microsft and yahoo, uses a closed and secret protocol in order to keep other companies out

Yeah, I was in a department

Yeah, I was in a department store the other day and they had both shirts and Pants!!! Then socks too!! This is just too much stuff guys! Macys is just like Aol.
If its one thing that I hate its lots of media on my media player. Come to think of it Safari has way too much internet on its browser.

"With iTunes you encounter

"With iTunes you encounter similar degrees of hassle when it comes to the basics. For instance, burning a CD requires the very unintuitive step of having to create an iTunes playlist first."???????

Seriously? Clicking "File", then "New Playlist" is unintuitive? It seems like half the tech columns I read these days are written by my father.

I think it's an absolute

I think it's an absolute pity that this misleading, idiotic article and its title ended up on the main Google News page and who knows where else.

I get it- you can't say anything good about Microsoft so you decide to come up with this twist on a lie about Apple. "User error," as we say in the tech business. Go back to writing about (and watching) football- and don't forget to call Pizza Hut, which is way more annoying than AOL and Microsoft combined! (Obesity and heart attacks just get on my nerves!)

It is patently ridiculous

It is patently ridiculous that one must run msconfig to remove the Apple auto-updater EACH AND EVERY TIME after choosing to install an update to a Windows-resident Apple component.

Excellent article. iTunes is

Excellent article. iTunes is POS.
they should learn a thing or two from google

The Church of Apple

The Church of Apple

Wow, the author sure got the true believers squealing.

When you get snarky about Apple, it's not like a couple of guys disagreeing about which program has worse annoyances. With Apple it's like publicly criticizing the Church of Scientology, guaranteed to stir up a bunch of loyalists who know your incorrect thought is proof that you're evil, stupid or a shill for Xenu/Micro$oft.

Some people are just happier with the the nice sandbox Chairman Jobs gives them, which is fine, but they also take it as a personal affront when others prefer life outside the sandbox.

While I disagree with your

While I disagree with your opinions, I also disagree with some of your facts. For instance, iTunes reduced the price of its DRM-free songs to $0.99 quite some time ago. Stop ripping on Apple for false reasons. We have yet to see any other company sell nearly as many songs or mp3 players so Apple must be doing something right.

First of all, apple uses

First of all, apple uses standard file formats for it's media, AAC is the official successor to MP3, and H.264 in an m4v or mp4 format is also standard, and can be used by anybody - except for the DRMed Stuff, but that is a legal issue, since apple is contractually obligated to keep that media locked up in DRM by the record companies, so that point of the author is invalid - the record industry is to blame for that. Other manufacturers, for example those of AVCHD cameras use fileformats you can't read, they are truely a pain to use, even though they are just H.264, their packaging makes them unusable.

iTunes is based on Quicktime, it uses Quicktime to play it's media, so Quicktime is not an extra app downloaded, but a required component. I agree with the author on Safari for windows, I like it on my mac though.

To answer the question posed

To answer the question posed by the title of the article, I don't think that iTunes is the new AOL. While I can see the arguments for some of the similarities in some of the challenges that they are/were facing, they are totally different animals. iTunes is a 'supportive' player is a gadget driven ecosystem. I think that ultimately people don't have to be in love with iTunes as it helps their music and video playing gadgets work and work well.

Also, while I agree that it is beginning to feel bloated and is sort of a 'jack of all trades, master of none,' it's function is actually fairly staightforward...it a shopping space for media and is a means of organizing that media. Whether it's bogged down by it's own success or ubiquitousness or not, it can really only be fairly compared to other similar services...and by my experience those other software options leave a lot to be desired. Problematic? Yes. Still the best option out there? Definitely. There are a lot of different factors that come into play, and for my money Apple is still the best player to come up with the solution to complicated problems.

That said what I do appreciate about the article is that it brings focus to the needs for iTunes to get a serious overhaul. The fact that it is still called iTunes is a great metaphor of what I am talking about. It went beyond music along time ago yet it's still holds onto it's outdated name...and I think that the program is doing the same thing. It's still retains is music store and music organizational roots which I think is becoming a problem.

It's a tough problem. There is a strong argument for having all these services and media types in one place. I think that there just needs to be a new more streamlined, paradigm to put all these pieces together in a way that things as easy again as when it first came out. Even I am noticing the voices of discontent are growing louder and Apple needs to more aggressively address the problems of such a pivotal tool.

Apple freaks in full force.

Apple freaks in full force. Face it, your company is acting like Gates in his prime. Arrogant and sure anyone else besides Jobs is irrelevant. Funny, thats the way the Apple freaks act to . . .