[RetroAndreas]

I'm wondering if/when you can transfer your purchased music to a different content provider. If not the day will come. I payed for the music/movies and I should be able to transfer it to where I want as long as the anti pirating security is in place. Apple may be blocking this now but in the future they wont be able to..

[Vindicators]

Now I realize the title is a little extreme and many will call me out on this topic but this is just completely my own opinion. I am not an apple expert but use my Dad's iMac, I used to have an iPad, and currently have an iPhone 4. So I would say I am familiar enough with their products. So today I wanted to drop season 2 of Sherlock which is just 3 episodes on to my friends ipad so that he could watch it later. I connected it to his macbook pro and booted up itunes. For those who don't know you HAVE to use itunes for an idevice to transfer anything other than pictures. I could feel the back of my hairs standing up just clicking that itunes symbol! I clicked on the ipad which was then syncing all the apps bought (yup I know you can remove this automatic sync but still). This said it would take a few minutes but I waited 5 before saying forget this and hitting cancel... Apparently itunes doesn't understand cancel because it just stared back at me doing nothing! After waiting another couple minutes I gave up, dragged the files to his documents and told him he could put it on later when he had an hour to spare (maybe a bit of an exaggeration lol)

Even if I had gotten to putting the files on I would have had to drag the files from my stick into itunes, went into movies tab in the ipad section, hit the files in wanted and then finally hit sync. Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?

Bottom line for me itunes sucks! The playbook and any other device for that matter that has proper files and folders. 2 steps.. Drag and drop, not too hard! I think apple makes awesome products and I enjoy using them, but because of iTunes I am loosing interest and eventually will make me look to another device that makes my life just one step easier..

iTunes suck
For video just use AvPlayer, you can upload/download file via web browser on wifi, pretty easy. It can play all of file ext and codec (mkv, flv,...), support sub, forward, skip, pause gesture, even play video in background.

For file manager use GoodReader, you can drag n drop from iTunes or via web browser (both http and ftp), sync folder with dropbox, support zip, rar.

I just dont need to use iTunes at all, apps and media download direct to iPad and backup to iCloud.
Data and document transfer with file manager app or from dropbox. Lol I dont even have iTunes on my laptop anymore.


@RetroAndreas
Music download from iTunes are DRM-free. You can do whatever you want with it.

[o4liberty]

Apples down fall won't be itunes but there failure to only have one device to choose from. I know so many people that were let down with the last release they left apple.

Sent from my BlackBerry 9930 using Tapatalk

[alnamvet68]

I like iTunes just fine. I've been using it since the early days with the iPods, and now with the iPhones. I also liked how it seamlessly sync'd my music library to my PlayBook when I was initializing it the first time...I wasn't aware that would happen until I began to play with the PlayBook and discovered all my music was sync'd to it.

What I do find frustarting is that when you connect your Apple device, iTunes starts up, begins to sync your device, and THEN downloads any available updates for your device. One has to sync again if you want the new updates to work on your device; never quite understood the ratinale for these extra steps.

One last thing, when ever I buy an album, I see the charge on my account, and then an extra $1.00 charge that is "pending." After a few days, the original purchase price goes through on my cc, but that mysterious $1.00 charge disappears and never is charged...that one is something I've seen for the last few years, and could never get an explanation from Apple what that is all about.

OK, rant over.

[Mystic205]

"Itunes is apples downfall" Are you kidding me?...

that $97Bn cash didnt come from hardware margins..... there is a rake of approx 30-40% or so on every itunes transaction so it is a serious gold mine... I wish i had that sort of downfall

[13echo4]

I'm wondering if/when you can transfer your purchased music to a different content provider. If not the day will come. I payed for the music/movies and I should be able to transfer it to where I want as long as the anti pirating security is in place. Apple may be blocking this now but in the future they wont be able to..

Itunes has nothing to do with your provider. Your itune account is tied to your device and libary. You don't even have to have cellur service to access and download from itunes. You just have to use wifi.

[CrackBook77]

iTunes is a piece of garbage, it is buggy and freezes/ crashes constantly. It makes the simplest of tasks make you want to throw the computer across the room and the fact that despite paying for a legitimate song or video you have to use iTunes to play it. Yes you can get around it for the tunes but for videos it's easier to torrent a PB friendly copy than to do the work around.

All the apple lemmings thinks its all great but I bet if they bought a DVD from wal-mart and put it in their DVD player only to have it tell them it will only play in a wal-mart bought DVD player rather than their $300 name brand player they would throw a fit and never buy from them again.

IMHO Apple is just a communist company telling everyone what they can and can't do with their own purchase belongings.

Remember that they aren't all that inventive. Steve himself was proud of stealing others ideas and if it weren't for M$ Apple would have failed decades ago.

[Vindicators]

"Itunes is apples downfall" Are you kidding me?...

that $97Bn cash didnt come from hardware margins..... there is a rake of approx 30-40% or so on every itunes transaction so it is a serious gold mine... I wish i had that sort of downfall

AppStore, iTunesStore and Software only account for 6-10% of Apple's revenue.
iOS device account for 70%, Mac 22%, total 90-92% from hardware.

[13echo4]

"Itunes is apples downfall" Are you kidding me?...

that $97Bn cash didnt come from hardware margins..... there is a rake of approx 30-40% or so on every itunes transaction so it is a serious gold mine... I wish i had that sort of downfall

Your talking about itunes the domain. We're talking about itunes the ui software to interface with your idevices. 2 completely different experances.

[RetroAndreas]

Itunes has nothing to do with your provider. Your itune account is tied to your device and libary. You don't even have to have cellur service to access and download from itunes. You just have to use wifi.

So I've purchased and downloaded a few movies into itunes on my Mac. Can I use other software to play these movies or am I forced to use iTunes? Forgive these simple questions but I'm only starting to use my devices for entertainment purposes.

[mjs416]

Just spoke with the owner of this control engineering group who is trying to switch over to an iphone.

He was on the fence about it but once he found that he cant load music or anything onto his phone without itunes he said he's done with it. He said "Back to my 9650". I was wtf? An iphone 4s cant compete with a 9650. Lawl.

[13echo4]

So I've purchased and downloaded a few movies into itunes on my Mac. Can I use other software to play these movies or am I forced to use iTunes? Forgive these simple questions but I'm only starting to use my devices for entertainment purposes.

I'm sorry I don't know what's avaible for mac. That being said on a pc if the media file doesn't have drm its possible to watch/listen with software like vlc. If your file is drm free and have an .ext of m4a or m4v just change the ext to mp4. Your good to go. If the files are DRM'd and their your purchased files best thing is to just watch with itunes. However if you don't like using itunes and I understand why theresa couple tricks you can use that might work and you play em with your media software.

[Economist101]

Just spoke with the owner of this control engineering group who is trying to switch over to an iphone.

He was on the fence about it but once he found that he cant load music or anything onto his phone without itunes he said he's done with it. He said "Back to my 9650". I was wtf? An iphone 4s cant compete with a 9650. Lawl.

Apparently his opinion on what the 4s competes with differed from yours.

[CanuckSoldier]

LOL "power users" and "simple elegance". It would seem something as iTunes would not defeat a power user. You can almost say Apple did not dumb down the process enough for the "power user". LOL

Not defeat, just annoy them to heck

CS

[ugahairydawgs]

So if I buy a dvd and let a friend borrow it to watch I'm a pirate?

No. But if you buy the DVD, rip it, and then give it to him......then yeah.

[Rootbrian]

No. But if you buy the DVD, rip it, and then give it to him......then yeah.

AARRGGHH!!! lol
I made 20 copies of my winXP CD and 6 of my Win7 DVD for people. I'll continue to do so because m$ doesn't care. I doubt apple would either since there's costs $45 + tax VS Microsoft's being $256 or more.

[Rootbrian]

No. But if you buy the DVD, rip it, and then give it to him......then yeah.

What about renting, burning, returning... Keeping the burned copy?

[JubJubJub]

Every minute iTunes makes millions for Apple. Whether you like it or not it is a very smart way to make money and control their ecosystem. To the masses iTunes is simple and works. It is probably the most comprehensive single source for multi-media that exists and is growing everyday. Don't get me wrong, I don't care for it personally but you cannot critisize their business model.

[[email protected]]

AARRGGHH!!! lol
I made 20 copies of my winXP CD and 6 of my Win7 DVD for people. I'll continue to do so because m$ doesn't care. I doubt apple would either since there's costs $45 + tax VS Microsoft's being $256 or more.

This is a really narrow-minded philosphy. I don't know about software. But, as someone who writes for t.v., this is a subject that is very close. When you pirate tv shows or films, you don't just take money from some big uber-wealthy company. I.e. Paramount, or Warner Brothers. You take it from, the writers, directors, actors, key grips, camera and sound folks, basically everyone involved in some way. Hard working folks who are not millionaires despite what the general public may think.

You might think you're striking back against "The Man" when you pirate content but, I promise, its the folks at the bottom of the totem pole that lose the most.

[Rootbrian]

This is a really narrow-minded philosphy. I don't know about software. But, as someone who writes for t.v., this is a subject that is very close. When you pirate tv shows or films, you don't just take money from some big uber-wealthy company. I.e. Paramount, or Warner Brothers. You take it from, the writers, directors, actors, key grips, camera and sound folks, basically everyone involved in some way. Hard working folks who are not millionaires despite what the general public may think.

You might think you're striking back against "The Man" when you pirate content but, I promise, its the folks at the bottom of the totem pole that lose the most.

Well, those copies went to people who had their original discs (who didn't think about making a backup copy) got damaged, destroyed or had shatter inside the drive.

[iN8ter]

The OP in one statement: "iTunes won't let me pirate, so I guess it'll be Apple's downfall."

P.S. This would fail with media purchased from Zune (Microsoft) as well. It's called DRM and Licensing. It's not his, it's yours. You cannot just loan out Digital Media like a DVD and even those have copy protection on them...

[iN8ter]

Well, those copies went to people who had their original discs (who didn't think about making a backup copy) got damaged, destroyed or had shatter inside the drive.

The license for Windows is not physical. It's the actual License key - numbers and letters on a sticker on their computer (or in their box if that's what they have). All the disc allows you to do is install the software which will ask for that key during installation. Your use case has absolutely nothing to do with pirating media - which is the OP's complaint.

And how do you "shatter" a DVD in a DVD drive. Someone got pissed a DRM'd file didn't play on their computer and threw it out the window or something?

(See what I did there?!)

[iN8ter]

Apparently his opinion on what the 4s competes with differed from yours.

Not to mention iOS has WiFi synching so basically all you have to do is set it up and after that you just press a button on the phone and it brings everything over. If he's an engineer he should have been able to figure that out.

[recompile]

And how do you "shatter" a DVD in a DVD drive. Someone got pissed a DRM'd file didn't play on their computer and threw it out the window or something?

Believe it or not, I've seen this happen first-hand. Many years ago, a friend of mine dug a copy of MetroX out of a dumpster. While I was trying to install it on his computer, the drive started spinning up faster and faster; it sounded like an airplane taking off. After about a minute, I heard a loud "bang" and saw the drive door was bowed out and shards of CD were sticking out along the top-side.

I saw the Mythbusters episode where they decided that this couldn't happen. They're undoubtedly wrong on that one.

Why it happened, I may never know.

[VanCity778]

People pay money for media ?