3 ms·

This is what I'm gonna link to my friends the next time they make fun of me for being a green-texter. This is exactly the story I went through a few years back

This is what I'm gonna link to my friends the next time they make fun of me for being a green-texter. This is exactly the story I went through a few years back as well. I had an iPhone 4? 9-ish years ago when I was in a music-kleptomania frenzy (back when what.cd was around too ;) ), and I remember just how frustrating it was dragging and dropping shit through iTunes all the time. Same for movies, photos, and documents! I couldn't see the appeal of using the iPhone at all - why would somebody use this when they could just plug an Android device into their PC and use their file explorer? (The update to iOS7 was the nail in the coffin - I found the neon design just repulsive.) I guess my question is - has the Apple "ecosystem" gotten better for this? Can I actually edit metadata for .mp3s and .mp4s and just drop them into an iPhone or iPad now? And copy them out as well or download them offline, bit for bit? If so, are dongles still the norm? *An aside - I've definitely eased up on the file-ownership thing now. I just let YouTube Premium handle everything. It was definitely a waste of time retagging thousands of music files out of some strange ownership OCD. I see it as a net positive overall - now I just find it amazing that someone even uploaded some white-label vinyl-only run-of-100 Foul Play UK garage record (and similar records going for >$100 on discogs - maybe even ownership has its limits?) at 128kbps at all, even if it doesn't stay there forever :)

launch_queue 7y ago
I can say from my experience no it hasn't. You are forced to install iTunes for your computer to even be able to manipulate the device with other software, so even if you have MediaMonkey or an alternative music library you will need to install iTunes first. MediaMonkey works well generally, but as soon as there's an iOS update there's no guarantee you can transfer music because it can break something in the chain. As for metadata, you still have to use 3rd party (e.g. mp3tag) which can be its own time-consuming headache--at least you can use RegEx.
dehrmann 7y ago
> [media file ownership] was definitely a waste of time retagging thousands of music files out of some strange ownership OCD Full disclosure: I used to work for Spotify. When people talk about services like Spotify and Apple Music, they usually miss how much value is added in the cataloging and search they do. These are a massive pain to do yourself, it doesn't scale past ~10,000 tracks, they've put more thought into it, and are better at handling the song/track/recording ambiguity in search results.
- detaro 7y ago
  > it doesn't scale past ~10,000 tracks, they've put more thought into it, Spotify also says supporting more than 10000 tracks in "My Library" isn't necessary, so the people who hit that limit aren't helped by Spotify either
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Except search and playlists still work.

launch_queue 7y ago

I can say from my experience no it hasn't. You are forced to install iTunes for your computer to even be able to manipulate the device with other software, so even if you have MediaMonkey or an alternative music library you will need to install iTunes first. MediaMonkey works well generally, but as soon as there's an iOS update there's no guarantee you can transfer music because it can break something in the chain. As for metadata, you still have to use 3rd party (e.g. mp3tag) which can be its own time-consuming headache--at least you can use RegEx.

dehrmann 7y ago

> [media file ownership] was definitely a waste of time retagging thousands of music files out of some strange ownership OCD Full disclosure: I used to work for Spotify. When people talk about services like Spotify and Apple Music, they usually miss how much value is added in the cataloging and search they do. These are a massive pain to do yourself, it doesn't scale past ~10,000 tracks, they've put more thought into it, and are better at handling the song/track/recording ambiguity in search results.

detaro 7y ago
> it doesn't scale past ~10,000 tracks, they've put more thought into it, Spotify also says supporting more than 10000 tracks in "My Library" isn't necessary, so the people who hit that limit aren't helped by Spotify either
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Except search and playlists still work.