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Has iTunes on Windows ever been good? I think I tried it in 2003-4, and it was garbage then, so I uninstalled it. In the intervening 20 years, I've never heard

Has iTunes on Windows ever been good? I think I tried it in 2003-4, and it was garbage then, so I uninstalled it. In the intervening 20 years, I've never heard anyone say "it's good now!", so I never re-installed it. I assumed that if you were a dedicated Windows user, you just wouldn't use iTunes, and if you weren't a dedicated Windows user but loved your iPhone, you'd do what Apple wanted you to do in the first place, and switch to MacOS.

bee_rider 3y ago
I’m dedicated to Linux but I like my iPhone. iPhones are more-or-less standalone devices nowadays. They can backup straight to iCloud. The only thing I’d need to borrow a Mac for, as far as I know, is a factory-reset. I last used iTunes on windows in like 2010 or so, I think. It was pretty awful. Although, it did have a neat feature, you could share your library over the lan, so it was neat to listen to other people’s music in a dorm. I’m sure they’ve removed that feature by now, it was too good to be true.
- freeplay 3y ago
  If the phone is functional (as in you can access the Settings app), you can factory reset from the phone, as well. You can also remote wipe from Find My if need be.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    True! Actually, I have an ancient iPad that I’ve forgotten the pin for. I think I’d need a Mac to reset it. Fortunately the reason I forgot the pin is that I got a laptop and stopped using the iPad as my SSH client as a result, haha, so recovery is not really a pressing issue.
bdcravens 3y ago
It used to be a required piece of software for setting up your iPhone/iPad.
- eloisant 3y ago
  and iPod before that
  - matsemann 3y ago
    often wiping it by accident, RIP my favorite playlist :(
accrual 3y ago
Anecdotally I had a friend who exclusively used iTunes on Windows XP back in the day for all his music management and playback. I still have a screenshot of his library that he sent to me over AIM. At the same time I was using Winamp for playback and Mp3tag [0] for tagging. Present day, I only ever install iTunes on a Windows machine to do backups. My parents still use it to copy CDs to their phones, but that's it. [0] https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ https://www.mp3tag.de/en/
jimmaswell 3y ago
As someone who generally hates Apple, I actually enjoyed iTunes on Windows in the ~2007-2012 era when I had to use it to manage my iPod Touch (and second one a friend gave me, since I ran out of space on the first, spreading the MLPMusicArchive across both). Performed fine on my somewhat-potato laptops, had a nice interface and search function, got the job done syncing the iPods. I never got the big deal about iTunes in particular.
- Macha 3y ago
  Huh, that's exactly when I had to interface with iTunes and remember disliking it. It was horribly non native to the point that both it and Safari (which had a windows port in those days) ported the Apple font rendering which stuck out like a sore thumb. Performance was also bad compared to Windows Media Player, never mind Foobar2000 etc. And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software.
  - k12sosse 3y ago
    > And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software. Loved me some Creative Zen MICRO. I'm sure there were better competitors but it's what I had. There was a tiny 1" mechanical HDD in it with a compact flash interface. The drive is now part of my office desk flare. A real conversation starter.
  - plorg 3y ago
    I remember at the time having MTP- only PMPs and every piece of software (WMP included but also Foobar2000 and Winamp) was miserable.
- sleepybrett 3y ago
  As someone who generally loves apple iTunes on any platform has always been a usability nightmare. In previous generations and mostly on windows it's attempt to both 'be my winamp, vlc and ebook manager AS WELL AS manage my phone more generally' was just a usability clusterfuck of epic proportions.
M4v3R 3y ago
I have a friend who never used a Mac nor an iPhone, but he owned an iPod and so installed iTunes years ago and used it to manage his entire music library, and continues to do so to this day. I'm sure he's probably an outlier but Windows iTunes users do exist :)
- locofocos 3y ago
  I do this! My personal computers run Windows. I have an iPod touch that I use for listening to music on a stereo in my living room. I use iTunes to manage my music library. When I want more music, I buy CDs (or mp3s if those aren't available). It's nice owning things. It has no ads, unlimited skips, and music doesn't sporadically disappear.
- iggldiggl 3y ago
  > I have a friend who never used a Mac nor an iPhone, but he owned an iPod and so installed iTunes years ago and used it to manage his entire music library, and continues to do so to this day. Same here. I eventually replaced my iPod with an Android phone, but found a software combo that allowed you to sync your iTunes library to your phone just as easily, and also enable reverse syncing of ratings and playback counts. Sadly those apps have been sold to some company that's trying to turn them into cash grabs, but at least for now the old versions keep working for me, even on my new phone and Android 14 (albeit with some tweaking that's rather requires a rooted phone). The advantage of iTunes is that it's perfect for also managing my collection of radio comedy, because you can easily re-classify manually imported files to be treated as podcasts, which makes for a nice UX (podcasts remember their playback position, and podcast apps track which episodes you've already listened to and which are still unlistened). Most other podcast apps don't allow manual file management, so I'd have to set up fake podcast feeds for my local files otherwise, which would definitely be a hassle.
MikusR 3y ago
A couple years ago I was rebuilding my nas that i keep my music on. So I decided to trial all the popular streaming services. Apple Music had a generous 3 month trial compared to the usual 7day-1month ones. I cancelled the service on the second day. Because the Windows iTunes experience was incredibly horrible - laggy/glitchy mess. If hell exists then the worst torture there would be being forced to use iTunes.
folkrav 3y ago
Somehow, in high school around that same period, while everyone was over on Winamp, it was still my favorite to both catalogue/tag and listen to the ~80GB library I had back then.. Genuinely can't remember why, though, but I do remember everyone else hated it.
smileybarry 3y ago
I liked using iTunes for library management even before I got an iPod, I kinda liked the “hub” UI design rather than the miniplayer + library window (and even + playlist window) the others had. Even if— sorry, when— my library got corrupted, and when different sections started taking 1-2 seconds to load, I still liked using it.
_Parfait_ 3y ago
No they tried to bully us to buy music by not letting us import things like album covers etc. I used Media Monkey mostly
gwbas1c 3y ago
I loved iTunes back then, it was the easiest way to clean up metadata and navigate music. I only switched away from iTunes when I switched to subscription-based streaming.
bhauer 3y ago
> Has iTunes on Windows ever been good? No. It has always been awful. I was briefly excited to hear that media synchronization had been separated from iTunes. That gave me hope that I would be able to put media on my phone without a cloud intermediary and without the crippling mess of iTunes. But, sadly, my experience is that the Apple Devices App simply doesn't recognize my phone at all, so it's non-functional for me.
unsignedint 3y ago
I cherish the memory of using the local music streaming feature on iTunes, until the day they introduced unreasonable restrictions. The sentiment surrounding the iTunes release for Windows was notably intriguing. I recall that quite a few people seriously considered taking a day off just for its launch!

bee_rider 3y ago

I’m dedicated to Linux but I like my iPhone. iPhones are more-or-less standalone devices nowadays. They can backup straight to iCloud. The only thing I’d need to borrow a Mac for, as far as I know, is a factory-reset. I last used iTunes on windows in like 2010 or so, I think. It was pretty awful. Although, it did have a neat feature, you could share your library over the lan, so it was neat to listen to other people’s music in a dorm. I’m sure they’ve removed that feature by now, it was too good to be true.

freeplay 3y ago
If the phone is functional (as in you can access the Settings app), you can factory reset from the phone, as well. You can also remote wipe from Find My if need be.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  True! Actually, I have an ancient iPad that I’ve forgotten the pin for. I think I’d need a Mac to reset it. Fortunately the reason I forgot the pin is that I got a laptop and stopped using the iPad as my SSH client as a result, haha, so recovery is not really a pressing issue.

bdcravens 3y ago

It used to be a required piece of software for setting up your iPhone/iPad.

eloisant 3y ago
and iPod before that
- matsemann 3y ago
  often wiping it by accident, RIP my favorite playlist :(

accrual 3y ago

Anecdotally I had a friend who exclusively used iTunes on Windows XP back in the day for all his music management and playback. I still have a screenshot of his library that he sent to me over AIM. At the same time I was using Winamp for playback and Mp3tag [0] for tagging. Present day, I only ever install iTunes on a Windows machine to do backups. My parents still use it to copy CDs to their phones, but that's it. [0] https://www.mp3tag.de/en/ https://www.mp3tag.de/en/

jimmaswell 3y ago

As someone who generally hates Apple, I actually enjoyed iTunes on Windows in the ~2007-2012 era when I had to use it to manage my iPod Touch (and second one a friend gave me, since I ran out of space on the first, spreading the MLPMusicArchive across both). Performed fine on my somewhat-potato laptops, had a nice interface and search function, got the job done syncing the iPods. I never got the big deal about iTunes in particular.

Macha 3y ago
Huh, that's exactly when I had to interface with iTunes and remember disliking it. It was horribly non native to the point that both it and Safari (which had a windows port in those days) ported the Apple font rendering which stuck out like a sore thumb. Performance was also bad compared to Windows Media Player, never mind Foobar2000 etc. And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software.
- k12sosse 3y ago
  > And for syncing, the non apple devices just let you copy the files onto them as USB Mass Storage devices, only the iPod needed special software. Loved me some Creative Zen MICRO. I'm sure there were better competitors but it's what I had. There was a tiny 1" mechanical HDD in it with a compact flash interface. The drive is now part of my office desk flare. A real conversation starter.
- plorg 3y ago
  I remember at the time having MTP- only PMPs and every piece of software (WMP included but also Foobar2000 and Winamp) was miserable.
sleepybrett 3y ago
As someone who generally loves apple iTunes on any platform has always been a usability nightmare. In previous generations and mostly on windows it's attempt to both 'be my winamp, vlc and ebook manager AS WELL AS manage my phone more generally' was just a usability clusterfuck of epic proportions.

M4v3R 3y ago

I have a friend who never used a Mac nor an iPhone, but he owned an iPod and so installed iTunes years ago and used it to manage his entire music library, and continues to do so to this day. I'm sure he's probably an outlier but Windows iTunes users do exist :)

locofocos 3y ago
I do this! My personal computers run Windows. I have an iPod touch that I use for listening to music on a stereo in my living room. I use iTunes to manage my music library. When I want more music, I buy CDs (or mp3s if those aren't available). It's nice owning things. It has no ads, unlimited skips, and music doesn't sporadically disappear.
iggldiggl 3y ago
> I have a friend who never used a Mac nor an iPhone, but he owned an iPod and so installed iTunes years ago and used it to manage his entire music library, and continues to do so to this day. Same here. I eventually replaced my iPod with an Android phone, but found a software combo that allowed you to sync your iTunes library to your phone just as easily, and also enable reverse syncing of ratings and playback counts. Sadly those apps have been sold to some company that's trying to turn them into cash grabs, but at least for now the old versions keep working for me, even on my new phone and Android 14 (albeit with some tweaking that's rather requires a rooted phone). The advantage of iTunes is that it's perfect for also managing my collection of radio comedy, because you can easily re-classify manually imported files to be treated as podcasts, which makes for a nice UX (podcasts remember their playback position, and podcast apps track which episodes you've already listened to and which are still unlistened). Most other podcast apps don't allow manual file management, so I'd have to set up fake podcast feeds for my local files otherwise, which would definitely be a hassle.

MikusR 3y ago

A couple years ago I was rebuilding my nas that i keep my music on. So I decided to trial all the popular streaming services. Apple Music had a generous 3 month trial compared to the usual 7day-1month ones. I cancelled the service on the second day. Because the Windows iTunes experience was incredibly horrible - laggy/glitchy mess. If hell exists then the worst torture there would be being forced to use iTunes.

folkrav 3y ago

Somehow, in high school around that same period, while everyone was over on Winamp, it was still my favorite to both catalogue/tag and listen to the ~80GB library I had back then.. Genuinely can't remember why, though, but I do remember everyone else hated it.

smileybarry 3y ago

I liked using iTunes for library management even before I got an iPod, I kinda liked the “hub” UI design rather than the miniplayer + library window (and even + playlist window) the others had. Even if— sorry, when— my library got corrupted, and when different sections started taking 1-2 seconds to load, I still liked using it.

_Parfait_ 3y ago

No they tried to bully us to buy music by not letting us import things like album covers etc. I used Media Monkey mostly

gwbas1c 3y ago

I loved iTunes back then, it was the easiest way to clean up metadata and navigate music. I only switched away from iTunes when I switched to subscription-based streaming.

bhauer 3y ago

> Has iTunes on Windows ever been good? No. It has always been awful. I was briefly excited to hear that media synchronization had been separated from iTunes. That gave me hope that I would be able to put media on my phone without a cloud intermediary and without the crippling mess of iTunes. But, sadly, my experience is that the Apple Devices App simply doesn't recognize my phone at all, so it's non-functional for me.

unsignedint 3y ago

I cherish the memory of using the local music streaming feature on iTunes, until the day they introduced unreasonable restrictions. The sentiment surrounding the iTunes release for Windows was notably intriguing. I recall that quite a few people seriously considered taking a day off just for its launch!