Eff Apple! One man's rant

MacLeod

Im sure Im the only person alive that didnt know all this, so feel free to poke fun at me for not paying attention. :mad:

I have been using Itunes for several months now and have been raving about how much I like it. Plenty of selections, very easy to use program, flawless burning. Yesterday I ran across their catch. You cant use it with ANYTHING else.

I bought a song off the Underworld soundtrack and the last 2 minutes of it are nothing but noises so I decided to use my Soundforge program to edit that part out like Ive done with a million songs. Well Soundforge wouldnt recognize it as its an MP4.

No problem I thought, Ill just search the net and find one of the millions of programs that convert mp4's to mp3's. Well there arent any because Apple makes their stupid mp4's bulletproof!

Not only that but I discovered that you cant use their mp4's on any player other than the Ipod which just happens to cost 3 times as much as the generic mp3 players out there.

You can burn the songs onto an audio cd and then rip them back to the computer as an mp3 but youve wasted a cd and you lose SQ which is limited anyway with mp3's.

What a crock!

Apple deserves to be 2nd place. Make very cool stuff but then make it only work on 5% of devices.

[/rant]

heiney9

Yep, now you know the fine print. It's proprietary, they gotcha! Sorry you didn't know this, many others don't.

H9

janmike

That is a kick in the A......

fireshoes

So download it elsewhere? You have purchased the song right?

Demiurge

Good God, who cares? A 50 pack of blank discs might cost you $10. I say deal with it, or use another service. It's not fine print, and it's pretty much common knowledge.

bobman1235

Yeah, it's the downfall of DRM.

What Demi said though. Just burn it to a CD and rip it again. Blamo, DRM-free MP3 that can play anywhere and be edited to your heart's content. I can't see how you lose any SQ doing that.... CDs are much higher res than most MP3s (or MP4s) so you're just upconverting. I suppose you might lose something in the conversion but not really.

There's also a program called HYMN (Hear Your Music aNywhere) that does the same thing - strips the DRM out and gives you an MP3 you can use. I have no experience with said program though.

While I'm annoyed by the whole thing as well, pretty much any DRM system is the same way. Apple pisses me off for a lot of things, but this one is just kind of par for the course.

MacLeod

I found that program, JHymn, last night and tried it. When I selected the song it popped up "we need to access your Itunes account to get the keys to unlock the file". It then asked for my password which I, like a dumbass entered. It ran for a few seconds then I got skeered and canceled it and immediately changed my Itunes account password.

I then decided to uninstall it but now I cant find it on my computer, anywhere!

Thats just a little too weird for me.

Ill do the burn and rip thing, it aint the end of the world. It just pisses me off that Apple does that. Makes Itunes which is the best there is hands down but then you have to buy their overpriced crap to play it and you cant use the songs that YOU PAID FOR on any other programs.

danger boy

I hate software and hardware that is proprietary like that. With so many other P2P places to download music from. i don't use Itunes or have an IPod. One way or another they'll get ya.

Down with proprietary devices. Just imagine if you bought a Denon pre amp say.. and could only use a Denon amp with it. because the connects wouldn't fit say a Rotel amp.. how much would that suck?

Demiurge

It would only suck for the person that bought it and didn't research what he was buying. It doesn't bother most people, which is why it sells so well.

I don't use iTunes at all. I rip all of my CDs I own to my HD, and then put them on my iPod with winamp for working out. Does exactly what I want it to do.

It's like bitching about the fact that CD Clubs charge you S & H and $24 for a CD at regular price.

Apple makes a superior product as far as MP3 players go.

scottvamp

Sounds like you bought a bad song? Bought it from where? I love itunes. I DJ at home with it. Downloads my CD in seconds. It files and plays my videos well. It connects and works with LimeWire. I found the cd burn engine to be bass heavy/muddy. Fine - i have others that are better.
The thing i like most about iTunes is thier radio stations have better selection, stations and sound quality the XM and Sirius sat radio. And it's FREE!

disneyjoe7

MP4 Apple lossless Love it, I give Apple a thumbs up for this digital format. I burned a CD put it on my Ipod played the CD on my system / switched to my cheap 1/8" to RCA in from my Ipod and couldn't tell which was playing I was quite impressed. Something MP3 never did.

SWFalken

Apple was actually kind enough to build into iTunes software to edit individual song playing times. Go to "get info" and go to the tab labeled "options" set start and stop times for any track in the library.

MacLeod

SWFalken wrote:

Apple was actually kind enough to build into iTunes software to edit individual song playing times. Go to "get info" and go to the tab labeled "options" set start and stop times for any track in the library.

Excellent idea! That worked like a charm! Thanks.

And calm down Demi. Nobody is saying that this is the end of the freaking world or anything. Its just a huge inconvenience that need not be.

Demiurge

MacLeod wrote:

Excellent idea! That worked like a charm! Thanks.

And calm down Demi. Nobody is saying that this is the end of the freaking world or anything. Its just a huge inconvenience that need not be.

I'm calm, MAC. (pun intended)

MacLeod

Demiurge wrote:

I'm calm, MAC. (pun intended)

cam5860

One thing I know for sure is apple's ACC files sound a hell of alot better than a mp3 file. One other thing I noticed is if you use your ipod in your car the EQ on the ipod makes a big difference also. If you don't believe me set it on flat and listen to it and then set it on treble booster hell of alot of difference.