[MacBliss]

With all the complaining that took place about that I am surprised that no one noticed a major improvement in iTunes with QT 8.1!!
APPLE FINALLY ADDED A DATE STAMP AND VERSION ID IN THE APP REVIEWS!! They even separated the number of reviews of the current version and from all previous. How is that for listening to user feedback. Thank you Apple!

[sporks]

mdawson said:

> Podesta wrote:
>
> I would like to see better organization in the iTunes Library.

I am guessing that you mean the iTunes Music folder as opposed to the iTunes library which is a binary database file that you can only see through the iTunes user interface, in which case, I am in full agreement.

> Podesta wrote:
>
> Everything should not be tossed into the iTunes Music, as it is now. There should be separate stand-alone folders for each category, with the content alphabetized and date tagged within.

Correct. I use iTunes strictly for music and despite having written feedback to Apple about four times on the matter, the music library still does not use the Sort Album Artist field to properly name Artist folders in an ?organized? music folder so that folders for artists with proper names can be correctly sorted in the Finder by the artist?s last name thus maintaining consistency with the iTunes UI. Add iPhone apps, audiobooks and podcasts into the mix and I can imagine that the organization of the music folder is anything but.

> Podesta wrote:
>
> I don't know why the iTunes Library has been so sloppy for so long.

Apple seems to take the approach that most people could not care less how the media is stored on their hard drives. Unfortunately, Apple is correct in this assessment as most people do not even bother to make sure that their music is correctly and consistently tagged in iTunes let alone keep track of what is going on with how their music is stored on the computer.

Unfortunately, this situation, as always, leaves power users that do things correctly blowing in the wind because the software is catering to the disorganized masses that do not care to properly catalog their music; regrettably, these same people seem to be the ones that submit highly erroneous metadata to databases such as Gracenote CDDB. As I have often stated in the past, iTunes is as powerful as the user is organized. Apple needs to emphasize to people that they need to properly and consistently tag their media to truly benefit from iTunes features, but then documentation from Apple for iTunes in general is sorely lacking.

Ease up the arrogance. Different doesn't mean wrong. Some people are happy letting the computer do the mundane file organization for them, and some people aren't anal retentive about tagging songs because they don't care. It isn't unfortunate, and it isn't regrettable. It's just different than you.

[context]

Still no on-the-fly downsampling of larger file formats (e.g., Apple Lossless) for any other iPod than the Shuffle.

[trip1ex]

ITunes sorts and organizes fine. It seems like some complaints are more about it not using the system file structure to sort and organize.

[hillstones]

[quote name='Jon Seff']
>

daveerato said:

Supposedly a new feature is the ability to rip CDs in "iTunes Plus" format of 256-kbps AAC. You couldn't do this before? Too bad they didn't fix the poor job of managing the library restoration process.

Apple's release notes say "Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus," but unless I'm missing something, that's very deceptive. You could easily rip AAC files at 256 Kbps using the higher quality preset in iTunes 8.

You are missing something. The default setting was AAC 128. So unless people manually changed it themselves, they ripped at 128. iTunes 8.1 changes the default setting to AAC 256. They changed the name from Higher Quality (256) to iTunes Plus.

[Jon Seff]

[quote name='hillstones']
> [quote name='Jon Seff']
> >

daveerato said:

Supposedly a new feature is the ability to rip CDs in "iTunes Plus" format of 256-kbps AAC. You couldn't do this before? Too bad they didn't fix the poor job of managing the library restoration process.Apple's release notes say "Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus," but unless I'm missing something, that's very deceptive. You could easily rip AAC files at 256 Kbps using the higher quality preset in iTunes 8.You are missing something. The default setting was AAC 128. So unless people manually changed it themselves, they ripped at 128. iTunes 8.1 changes the default setting to AAC 256.

I understand that Apple changed the default, but that's not my point. Apple says "Allows CDs to be imported at the same sound quality as iTunes Plus" when in fact that's not a new feature, just a marketing gimmick.

[context]

trip1ex said:

ITunes sorts and organizes fine. It seems like some complaints are more about it not using the system file structure to sort and organize.

How many song files does iTunes organize and sort for you? How many subfolders do you have in your iTunes music folder? Don't you think that iTunes should offer some options -- like organizing the song files by genre subfolders in the Music folder -- which don't necessitate having 1,400 subfolders (and growing) in the Music folder? The iTunes teams seems to have always had a problem with the concept of hierarchy.

[context]

iTunes DJ seems to require that the source is just one Playlist. Doesn't that make DJ just a simple and not very interesting shuffle? A more interesting DJ feature would have been to be able to click-select the next song (and the one after...) while you are already playing music, without having to create a new Playlist. In other words, using a key combo to select and add songs to a temporary Playlist while the music is spinning. That is what a DJ does.

[stilist]

>> ITunes sorts and organizes fine. It seems like some complaints are more about it not using the system file structure to sort and organize.
>

Quote

How many song files does iTunes organize and sort for you? How many subfolders do you have in your iTunes music folder? Don't you think that iTunes should offer some options -- like organizing the song files by genre subfolders in the Music folder -- which don't necessitate having 1,400 subfolders (and growing) in the Music folder? The iTunes teams seems to have always had a problem with the concept of hierarchy.{quote}

For several years, I managed my library's structure by hand. Somewhere around 10,000 items, I admitted to myself that I had lost control over my system--so I switched over to letting iTunes manage everything.

My library is now significantly larger; my Music folder has 7,857 folders in the root level (artificially inflated by 200-500 due to incorrect tags).

I hardly ever have to care about the fact that I'm working with actual files, and it frees me to invest my time in tagging instead of file management.

[context]

stilist said:

>> ITunes sorts and organizes fine. It seems like some complaints are more about it not using the system file structure to sort and organize.
>
> How many song files does iTunes organize and sort for you? How many subfolders do you have in your iTunes music folder? Don't you think that iTunes should offer some options -- like organizing the song files by genre subfolders in the Music folder -- which don't necessitate having 1,400 subfolders (and growing) in the Music folder? The iTunes teams seems to have always had a problem with the concept of hierarchy.{quote}

For several years, I managed my library's structure by hand. Somewhere around 10,000 items, I admitted to myself that I had lost control over my system--so I switched over to letting iTunes manage everything.

My library is now significantly larger; my Music folder has 7,857 folders in the root level (artificially inflated by 200-500 due to incorrect tags).

I hardly ever have to care about the fact that I'm working with actual files, and it frees me to invest my time in tagging instead of file management.

Do you find it pleasant, when need be, to scroll down nearly 8,000 folders? Is that the optimal way for a root folder to be "organized"? Was the Hierarchical Filing System created for a good reason? Is hierarchical filing now obsolete? Is there some problem with iTunes allowing a user to elect to organize those files by genre?

I, too, used to manually manage my iTunes files. I preferred it that way and I found that iTunes was much more responsive. I didn't stop because iTunes manages more intelligently, but because, due to poor linking between iTunes and the files, it was hell moving the collection to a new hard drive and relinking thousands of files which iTunes lost track of. So, because of poor database design I had to opt for poor file management.

I will be assuaged if Apple merely takes the modest step of allowing the user to keep files organized by genre.

[rsmac]

iTunes 8.1 update breaks 2nd gen Shuffle syncing.
http://AppleNag.com/...ts-the-shuffle/

[meta]

Still can't make playlists of shared music libraries. Still can't iTunes DJ from shared music libraries. Why not?

[mdawson]

Stating facts is not arrogance. Humans are inherently lazy and often times make poor decisions based on that laziness. A number of facets of human nature are unpleasant and pointing them out does not make anyone arrogant. I choose not to bury my head in the sand, perhaps you may want to look up once in a while.

That stated, nothing is wrong with people letting their computer do the file organization for them and that was not the point that Podesta or I were making. If everyone did not care about the organization of the files on their computer then there would be no need for the option in iTunes? preferences. The fact of the matter is the option does exist and those of us that use it expect iTunes to properly organize our files having enabled that feature for a reason. iTunes has added more media management and the organized music folder has remained fairly stagnant throughout these changes.

Secondly, no one stated that anyone has to be anal about tagging their music. It is unfortunate that people do not bother to properly tag their content because by relying solely on sources such as CDDB to do the tagging or just not bothering, they deny themselves the full functionality of iTunes. I have helped several people manage their iTunes libraries and the main cause behind their inability to take advantage of iTunes organizational features is poor tagging.

As I stated previously, it would be nice if Apple pointed this fact out to iTunes users. What the user ultimately decides to do is their choice alone, but they will be informed that if their library is not at least consistently tagged, let alone correct, then they will be crippling iTunes ability to organize content. It is anyone?s prerogative to leave their tracks poorly tagged, but when they have unexpected results when they attempt to build a smart playlist, guess why that is. I have seen countless people laboriously assembling playlists by hand, if they have not outright given up altogether, instead of using playlists because they cannot get the feature to work as they expect. I have also talked to people that gave up on iTunes because they could not get expected results when they try to use iTunes features; want to guess this culprit for their dismay?

iTunes is a database and like any database, the management features will not function as intended if the data is inconsistent because computers are stupid. You can give a holy mess to a person and expect them to properly sort and group items. Database software is not intelligent and requires the user to put in work in order for the software to work correctly. So this goes beyond people?s choice to tag or not tag media as they wish. No one has stated that people do not have that choice, but they should know the consequences of that choice when using a database.

[garyi]

Context I am totally with you on this one. I find it such an astoundingly simple concept that I have written apple on a number of times.

You have some music playing, you fancy the next track to be 'such and such' so in my mind clicking it or hold clicking it should stack it up ready to be played next.

But oh no. You have to create a playlist first. Dumb Dumb Dumb.

I like itunes and I like the ipod remote app, but its getting heavier and heavier. I don't want all this crap, genius and the likes. I don't buy a lot of music on itunes store and am getting fed up with it being shoved down my mouth at every given opportunity.