Apple locks new iPods to iTunes

Monday, Sep. 17 2007 | Author: Griffith

Although this probably isn’t a problem for the majority of users who use iPods, those who use Linux, or suffer from some weird allergic reaction to iTunes will probably be upset to learn that the new iPods, namely the new “fat” iPod Nano, the iPod Touch, and the iPod Classic have all been “locked” so that they only work with the iTunes software.

I don’t think that this lock will last for long, and soon users will be find out ways to put their music on their iPods without the use of iTunes. But unless you’re using Linux… I really have to ask why?

If you want a music player that just shows up as an external disk and allows you to drag-and-drop music why did you buy an iPod? And is dragging-and-dropping music from iTunes all that different from doing it with Windows Explorer?

Apple was able to secure it’s $.99 per song deal because they developed the iPod and iTunes in a way that wouldn’t allow users to spread the purchased songs in whichever way they preferred. And I don’t know about you… but hitting the search box and looking for an artist or an album on iTunes is much faster than doing the same thing on Winamp, for example, and then synchronize the tracks to the iPod.

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7 Responses for "Apple locks new iPods to iTunes"

Brandon

September 17th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
1

Have you tried alternatives? I wouldn’t consider Winamp (even with it’s media library) a real alternative to iTunes. Try Mediamonkey (http://www.mediamonkey.com) and you’ll see the advantages, including speed, over iTunes. The sooner this is broken the better.
Steve

September 17th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
2

Although I do mainly use iTunes, I can think of several reasons why not to: firstly, itunes takes up loads of memory (especially for older pcs) and is also a really hefty download at 56mb (and has to be downloaded again and again each update) secondly, if you’re already using another piece of software, you might as have it all in one place, but thirdly – just because it’s fun to experiment with the different things you can do with it!
Super Jamie

September 17th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
3

Good news, everyone!

The encryption on the iTunes DB was cracked yesterday, so anything using libgpod will be able to sync to 6G iPods. Some guys from the Amarok dev team broke it here
http://amarok.kde.org/blog/archives/496-iPod-Classic-Will-Be-Supported.html

Still doesn’t fix the face that iPod Touch is a poorly-executed re-hash of the iPhone, or the iPod Classic has EVEN MORE INFERIOR sound chips to the rest of the lineup.

Apple is really slipping. The new Microsoft?
MTRNZ

September 17th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
4

Can’t imagine what you would have written if Microsoft would have made the same manouver. Don’t say they doesn’t (in fact it happened a lot of times), but it’s a fact the reaction on certain blogs is VERY different when the sinner becomes Apple…
Frogman

September 18th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
5

Why use another software to sync my iPod? Well why buy an iPod? I bought my iPod Classic 160GB because it is the only reasonably priced mp3 player that works (sort of anyway, current artwork, syncing problems not withstanding).

Back to the original question:why use anything but iTunes? The short answer is that iTunes sucks. The long answer is:
1. iTunes is buggy. It stalls, it stops, it hesitates, it slows down your machine when set to anything but “manage my music manually.” And then there is the occasional blue screen/reboot when syncing (started with firmware 1.0.1).
2. iTunes does a terrible job with artwork: it doesn’t recognize album art in album folders automatically all the time. Then there is that buggy “autodownload” “feature” which if you have anything over 5000 songs is more or less useless.
3. iTunes is horrible at managing large collections: tagging, renaming, “repathing” (in a flexible way), and managing artwork, is slower and doesn’t work nearly as well as several free alternatives. Hell, even WMP is better than iTunes at those things. And neither even comes close to the best of the best: Mediamonkey.
4. iTunes, the store, is outrageously overpriced. If you use the software you might be tempted to actually use the store. Yikes!
5. iTunes is UGLY. Really it is. Not so much the brushed metal thing which is nice, but the interface is kludgey and surprisingly unintuitive especially for Apple and especially compared to the iPod’s GUI (even if the iPod classic has lost a little of its “cleaness” with the new coverflow split-screen).
Griffith

September 18th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
6

Frogman, I think that there’s something terribly wrong with your computer, as I’ve experienced none of those problems and I have a very large music collection, which I manage with iTunes.
Amarok music player to support iPod Classic

September 19th, 2007 at 9:24 am
7

[...] the recent news, about the new iPods being locked to iTunes exclusively, it looks like iTunes won’t have exclusive access to them much longer. The Amarok [...]