{"id":451,"date":"2007-12-20T01:48:26","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T15:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2007\/12\/20\/itunes-and-i\/"},"modified":"2007-12-30T20:59:18","modified_gmt":"2007-12-30T10:59:18","slug":"itunes-and-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2007\/12\/20\/itunes-and-i\/","title":{"rendered":"iTunes and I"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alastair at girtby.net<\/a> has never been happy that I have denigrated the iTunes user-interface once<\/a> or twice<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He tackled several different objections in a recent defence of iTunes<\/a>. I have a lot of respect for Alastair. When he says I am wrong, I certainly pause to reconsider.<\/p>\n

So first, let me make clear that my past objections have been solely related to the user experience. I haven’t complained about any of the other items Alastair addresses – such as it being a resource hog or not supporting WMA, for example.<\/p>\n

I’ve been using Windows for a while now, so while I agree there isn’t a firm standard for media player user interfaces, I do have a strong grasp of the basic concepts of documents, folders and files. I get vocal<\/a> when other media player applications don’t follow the basic conventions.<\/p>\n

I haven’t used iTunes for a while, so I decide to give it another go and use it to play a couple of tracks and see how it goes. <\/p>\n

The iTunes application is already installed – I have used it before – but it is a newer version since the last time I ran it. When I start it up, it begins to “configure itself”. I watch a progress bar for a while, as I ponder what it could possibly be doing.<\/p>\n

A leading lower-case letter in a product name? It is like Ecto<\/a> all over again! How do I start a sentence with the word “iTunes”?<\/div>\n

I accept the EULA, and my DVD player starts whirring. Why is it doing that? I didn’t ask it to access that; the music I want is on my hard-drive, in F:\\Music\\. The DVD in the drive is a movie that I don’t want to watch right now.<\/p>\n

It tells me I need another upgrade, which is fair enough, because I keep declining them when offered. <\/p>\n

Certainly, iTunes consumes unnecessary resources during the critical startup period on my computer, but that’s not its fault. Windows needs a central upgrade manager so my machine doesn’t get swamped with individual upgrade managers calling home, but that’s another blog article.<\/div>\n

So, the iTunes application window is open… I think. Is it the application window? Where’s the title bar for the window? Surely that’s not too much to ask for? What reason could there possibly be to muck around with the basic elements of the window? Alastair says it is no barrier to entry. I feel like kidnappers have broken in to my house and taken away my teddy bear. Sure, I can live without it, but I am still upset that they did, and wonder why their are such evil miscreants in the world who would be so spiteful to me for so little gain. The world seems a scarier place without my teddy bear.<\/p>\n

I note the fast forward, rewind and play buttons at the top of the page, but what object or document are they operating on? I haven’t selected one yet, so what’s going on?<\/p>\n

The main screen is displaying four random movies; I have no idea where it found them, or why it chose those four. I try to ignore both the movies and my growing sense of bewilderment.<\/p>\n

There’s an Apple logo in the middle of the screen. At this point, I don’t know why; it just seems like obnoxious branding.<\/p>\n

My eye is attracted by a spinning icon next to the word “downloads”. I don’t know what it is downloading. Did I tell it to download something the last time I ran it, many months ago? Who can tell? I ignore it.<\/p>\n

There is some other movement on the screen. The entry for podcasts has a number that’s counting, and I don’t know why. I remember trying to subscribe to some podcasts once, but I couldn’t work out what it was doing. Perhaps those settings are still in place. I ignore it again.<\/p>\n

In the bottom corner is a plus-shaped icon. I wonder what that does. Oooh, that’s a shuffle icon (I have an iPod, so I recognise it!) and another one that means play-in-order, right? Then an eject button? Doesn’t sound right. I decide to get some tooltips, so I hover over the buttons. Nothing happens. Why not? It turns out I don’t have focus! I can’t tell because it doesn’t have a standard fucking title bar, which normally indicates to me quite clearly which window has focus.<\/p>\n

Whoa, Julian! It’s just a funky silver-coloured toolbar. You can tell the focus by the colour of the font. You are just unfamiliar with it. Is there really any need to debase yourself by swearing at this point? I check and it seems the answer is “Damn fucking right! This user interface is confusing and frustrating me, and besides, Teddy won’t be upset at me for swearing because those bastards kidnapped him!”<\/p>\n

So, it is time to play a file. I open the file with File | Open...<\/code> dialog. No, wait, I don’t do that at all. Why not? Because there isn’t a fucking File | Open...<\/code> submenu. I can’t work out how to open a file to play it.<\/p>\n

I move my mouse cursor over the non-standard (but still recognisable) Application Close icon, but I pause. Have I really given iTunes a fair hearing? For Alastair’s sake, I decide to keep going.<\/p>\n

I go back and take a guess at the most likely way to play the file. I choose to add the file to the library. A File Chooser dialog box appears, defaulting to some subdirectory that I was using yesterday in another application. I click on “My Computer” to find some music. No, wait, I don’t really do that… My Computer icon is missing; this isn’t a standards Windows File Chooser.<\/p>\n

I navigate through the directories and select Jonathon Coulton<\/a>‘s Re: Your Brains<\/a> which is in my F:\\Music\\ directory.<\/p>\n

Nothing happens. Nothing. There is no sign I have made any difference.<\/p>\n

I move my mouse cursor over the Application Close icon again, and go to press it, when I stop.<\/p>\n

All right, one more chance, Alastair.<\/p>\n

I guess again and click on the word Music in the odd menu on the left.<\/p>\n

I see a (non-standard) grid\/file view of music. The first column is untitled, and shows many exclamation marks. I have no idea what that means. There’s no tooltip when I hover over it. <\/p>\n

The second column is the name with a checkbox. What will happen if I uncheck that? I have absolutely no idea, so I don’t dare. <\/p>\n

I scroll through the list, and I am pleased to see that “Re: Your Brains” is there in the list. (There’s no exclamation mark next to it, which is either really good or really bad, I am not sure.) I click on it. There’s still no music coming out of the speaker, but I get some new icons appearing – funky arrows in a circle. <\/p>\n

I click one of the funky arrows to make it play or, at least, open the file. It accesses the Internet and then tries to sell me some music! What the hell? I’ve already paid Jonathon Coulton for this music. My task today was not to go shopping; it was to merely listen to some the music I already own.<\/p>\n

I hate spam. I hate junk<\/a> mail<\/a>. Shoving shopping catalogues onto my computer screen isn’t making me feel love towards this product.<\/p>\n

I have to hunt to find the non-standard Back button in a non-standard position. (It looks like it might advance to the next record in the database, not navigate through the history list.)<\/p>\n

I double-click on the song name in the grid and finally some music is playing! (I manage to get it into rename mode, but that was probably just a simple mouso.)<\/p>\n

Yay! I can play a damn song.<\/p>\n

So, I click on another song. This has an exclamation mark next to it. It can’t find the file and offers to let me add it back. Odd, because I already have a perfectly good database of music. I call it “F:\\Music\\”. It is always completely up-to-date. Maybe F5 will make it refresh? Nope.<\/p>\n

I finally hit the Application Close button. <\/p>\n

Sorry, Alastair. That user interface makes me feel stupid and lost, which makes me feel angry and swear. For what? I don’t need iTunes in my life to listen to my music or to populate my iPod.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to go through that again for a long while. <\/p>\n

Just tell me where to leave the money to get my teddy bear back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t used iTunes for a while, so I decide to give it another go and use it to play a couple of tracks.<\/p>\n

The result involves some swearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,25,47],"tags":[192,103],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-based-on-a-true-story","category-insufficiently-advanced-technology","category-review","tag-itunes","tag-user-interface"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}