smackshack

What would you like iTunes to do that it doesn't? Also, are you a Windows user? It's strange but I've rarely encountered a Windows user who likes iTunes or an OS X user who doesn't. I think that maybe I ought to check out the Windows version to see what's so horrible about it.

I am a Windows (and occasionally Linux) user, and at the moment I'm irritated by the fact that it seems to be impossible to access folders and files from within iTunes. If I want to play or transfer a set of songs, I have to import the material into the iTunes database first, and then manage that. Every other application that I might use for handing MP3s in Windows -- in my case at the moment these are WinAmp, Create Media Player, and Windows Media Player -- makes it easy to bypass the database portion of the application altogether and deal with my existing music folders. iTunes, as far as I can tell, does not.

Yes, that appears to be true: iTunes is entirely driven by metadata. However, you can go some way towards what you want. First, unselect "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding items" in the advanced preferences. Then drag the files (not subfolders!) from each folder to iTunes, which will add those tracks to the library and create a playlist for them. Then create a playlist folder for each folder on disc and drag playlists or playlist folders into them to replicate your folder structure on disc. This is not something I've ever wanted to do so I don't know if there's an iTunes plugin or external utility to do this automatically.

Alternatively, you could use Songbird to manage your music library and iPod Shuffle. That might well do what you want: it's based on the same framework as Firefox and seems to take the same attitude towards features and extensions.

Oooo, Songbird looks interesting. Thanks for showing me that. I know that there's a plug-in for WinAmp that might do what I want, too.

Thinking about the Mac/PC divide, I wonder if there's something particularly stodgy about PC users like myself, in that I still think of listening to music in terms of playing albums, which can be neatly organized by folders and filenames and without recourse to keeping tabs on a mountain of metadata. I almost never use playlists and I almost never worry about sorting according to genre or musical era -- I never want to play just "90's music" the way iTunes expects, for instance.

I just tend to want to listen to a specific album and type its title into the search box. I use a lot of smart folders in iPhoto though.

It wouldn't surprise me if Apple's aim is to get rid of folders, at least above the level of the UNIX userland, completely. It's interesting that their (chief?) filesystem engineer is Dominic Giampaolo, who designed the famous Be File System</em> for BeOS back in the 90s.

So they've announced that the iPhone will probably be released in Korea in April 2009, which got me curious. After playing with one of my acquaintance's iPod Touch units, I was pretty smitten by the interface, the wifi capability (and its compatibility with the popular commercial wifi provider in Seoul, NESPOT; I have trouble connecting with it in Linux, but OSX seems to handle it fine). I was thinking, hey! I could finally access Twitter, if not by text message then at least by internet. I could load MP3s onto it. I could surf the net, take notes... and I'll kind of need a new (and more functional) phone by then anyway, so why not take advantage of the change in laws here that will allow foreign phones finally to be available here? (Korean phones in Korea are nice for Koreans, but offer lots of functions I don't need, and access to services I can't/won't use.)

The catch? I don't use Windows or Mac, just Linux, though I have a dualboot with WinXP for when I need to go to Windows. I'm not quite sure it's worth the pain in the ass for me, especially since I'm likely to want to jailbreak it so I can load apps that Apople hasn't approved. (Which would run the risk of Apple bricking it or deleting something in a fit of control-freakishness... though given that approximately 180 Apple employees regularly download updates of one of the jailbreak apps while *at work*, I have to wonder whether that's gonna happen.)

For the record, I also am put off by the cultishness, the DRM, and the price tag. But sadly it's a WAY better device for me than any other phone likely to get released in Korea, and I like the interface, and it'd be nice to have a phone that wasn't stuck in 2001 for once. (All my cell phones have been, er, less than spectacular devices so far.) I do wonder if there are other smartphone alternatives, though, that I haven't heard much about, with apps available that I'd use. Twitter, Facebook, MP3 -- no more having to carry around an MP3 player in one pocket and a phone in the other when out for a few hours -- ha, even VOIP with wifi. I guess I'll have to research it some more.

I'm afraid I've never taken the smartphone plunge, so I can't really offer much of a suggestion there. I even resent the little barebones pay-as-you-go phone that I haul around. Terribly luddite of me, I suppose, but I have access to so many computers at work and at home that I've never felt the need to be tethered by yet another device. On the other hand the iPhone and the BlackBerry are both pretty sweet brands.

Have you tried seeing if iTunes will run and sync properly in Wine? I feel sure I've seen people talk about it before.

As for MP3 players generally, I'm very fond of my aging little 1GB Creative MuVo N200 with its FM radio, voice recorder, and it's ability to be managed like a removable hard drive without the use of any other software whatsoever. I don't like the idea of hauling around a portable hard drive like the iPod Classic. I do like the snazziness of the iTouch, though, and the current line of iPod Nanos is a big improvement on the old ones.

Yeah, I think it might be an effect of being in Korea, but I like having a cell phone that can do more than just, er, be a phone. It's basically a function of the fact that when I go out, I often carry a cell phone, MP3 player, Ebook reader, and whatever other stuff I'll be bringing along. (Sometimes a camera, for example.) The desire to collapse everything into one unit is strong, for me, plus though I have an Asus EEE, and carry it around too, it'd be nice to be able to see updates on stuff while, say, on the train. (Assuming Nespot is working like I think it is.) Busting out even a Netbook on the subway is problematic. And also, it'd be nice to have a phone I could just swap a new GSM card into when traveling, instead of using the stupid, expensive roaming function. (I won't even dare to hope I'll be able to send text messages internationally, the way I seem to remember people on other networks being able to do.)

I should add, though, that I really like my current MP3 player, a Cowon M5, and wouldn't trash it. It'd be something to bring along for plane trips and stuff... 20 Gigs of memory. But it's a bit bulky for daily use. (And has those features you mention, radio, voice (and line-in) record, no need for other software, etc). And it plays video, er, if you encode it right.

I haven't seen any of the newer iPods besides the iPod Touch.

As for synching with iTunes, maybe I could rig it up for daily use, but I know for one thing that updating the firmware is something that doesn't work this way. You need to boot into Windows or borrow a Mac to do that. (Or that's what I read recently, on the other computer, so no link for now.)

Which DRM?

As an alternative, there's already at least one Google Android smartphone, although it's had less than stellar reviews, and there's certain to be a whole lot more soon enough. As Android is a Linux distribution it might be a better fit for you.

Oh, I mean the company's general comfort level with DRM (and other lock-you-in anti-consumer preactices). I assume that's what Marvin means too, but I could be wrong. I know I can load my own media onto the phone; my issue is that its connection with Apple means, in a sense, I'd be throwing money at DRM-pushers, and I'd prefer to vote (with my pocketbook) against 'em.

I've thought about the Google Android phone, actually, but as you say, the reviews have been poor, and besides they're going to be carried in Korea by KTF, which is my old, escaped-from cellphone carrier.

I left KTF not just because of the connectivity problems I often had with them, but also because they wouldn't let me move beyond pay-as-you-go account without a credit card or Korean citizenship. Pay as you go was unreasonably more expensive per minute, with none of the deals or membership benefits of a regular account, and basically the only people I knew who had them were foreigners and broke-as-hell rockers.

That is to say, your average Korean college kid, with no steady income, had an easier time getting a proper cell phone account than a well-paid foreign professor on a two-year contract. (I ended up having to sign up under a Korean friend's name (an unemployed Korean friend's name, no less), and couldn't do anything on my phone, not even download a new ringtone, without his password and so on.)

Since, getting a credit card was next to impossible back then for foreigners (again, unlike for unemployed college kids, though I did luck out and get one back in 2006), and SK Telecom let me have a regular account without a credit card -- I just had to make a deposit of some sort. (Maybe three or five hundred US dollars' equivalent, at the time?)

Ironically, the fact that SK will be carrying the iPhone gives me even more incentive to consider it.