27th
December
2007
Here’s what I went through on Christmas Day, just to get songs we legally purchased through Itunes to play on my kids new MP3 players…
I will never spend another dollar with Itunes after what I went through. Tell me again why anyone would pay $.99 a song, only to (eventually) figure out that you’re not allowed to listen to them on any device other than an Apple brand music player?
This is so wrong, and I can’t believe there isn’t more fuss about this, and some consumer backlash. Who does Apple think they are, Microsoft?
Anyway, my kids received Creative Labs brand MP3 players for Christmas, and they also each received a $15 Apple music gift card.
After painstakingly helping them through the process of installing iTunes on their computer, which is mandatory just to spend the gift certificates, we sorted through hundreds of songs choosing what music to buy. I had to listen to samples from Hannah Montana, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and the Jonas Brothers until my ears were bleeding, but we finally completed the process and had all 30 of our songs downloaded.
Then came my attempt to get the music onto their MP3 players, where I finally figured out that it could not be done with that music. I was shocked! What kind of crap is that? Ultimately, I had to jump through several hoops to make it happen.
In the end, here are the steps, and as far as I can tell, there is no simpler way, but it still sucks, having to burn and then throw away perfectly good CDs.
- Buy music from the proprietary format ripoff music vendor (a.k.a. Apple)
- From inside the application of the forced download of Itunes, assign all of your desired music to one playlist
- After selecting the play list, highlight all songs with Ctrl – A on your keyboard, and hit the “Burn Disk” button in the bottom right of the software.
- Insert your blank CD, and go to the process of burning your music to a CD you’ll never need. Too many songs may require multiple CDs, but they can all be done in succession.
- After all of your music is on CDs, uninstall iTunes so you never make this mistake again (this step is optional)
- Open Windows Media player (I’m running version 10) – , and maximize the window so you can see the menus at the top.
- Go to Tools > Options and select the “Rip Music” tab from the menu. Pay close attention to the location you’re going to “rip” music to so you can find it again.
- In the “rip settings” pulldown menu, instead of the default Windows Audio, and hit “apply”. I also chose to check the box that said, “Rip CD when inserted”.
- Assuming you have the CD in already,go to the main “Rip” tab in Windows media player, and highlight all (Ctrl-A) of your selected songs.
- Hit the “rip music” button at the top right of your screen, and in just a few minutes you’ll have all of your music back off of your CD, and ripped into MP3 format, at which point you can use your regular software that came with your MP3 player to import your music.
This ridiculous limitation by Apple serves what purpose exactly, other than to alienate me as a customer?
If I had known ahead of time that the music could not be played on a regular MP3 player, then I would’ve bought it elsewhere in a standard MP3 format, and I’ll never again buy music from Apple. Why is there no warning on their website and on gift cards people buy that the music use is limited?
One note of caution is that this process completely removes all of the song information, such as title and artist. For my own kids it didn’t matter, since their MP3 players had no screen for selecting songs, but for someone who wants to be able to see and select what song they are going to play on their MP3 player that would be frustrating.
If I had wanted to retain my song information, (which I bought and paid for legally), I would’ve had to use a third party program to outsmart Apple at its own game, and remove Apples DRM (Digital Rights Management)and I’ve been led to believe that one of the best is called Tunebite.
Instead of using that I’ll just choose to never give the Apple music store another dollar of mine, and instead whether for my own video Ipod, or for the kids songs, I’ll use one of the many other music services that sell you music you can play on any MP3 player, such as…
MP3.com , or Legalsounds.com, or Emusic.com, or Napster or Buy.com or Magnatune or MP3 Ninja or 100 others. Perhaps I’ll even use Walmart, where it’s only 54 cents a song, but after forcing me to waste my time on Christmas, (and today writing this blog post), Itunes is dead to me forever.
R.&B. Kipperberg says:
Scott,
we love you and your sense of humour!
We despise itunes for the same reasons. We both are educated people, one an electronics engineering graduate and one a HS teacher, and quite able to follow instructions and grasp things. When my sister gave me an ipod for christmas, my husband cringed and immediately offered to buy me the very best mp3 player on the market. Itunes is a heavy, clumsy programme and its Bonjour Service tries to dial out every 5 seconds, even when you are not on itunes. Keeps the firewall awfully busy. I am going to free my ipod from itunes soon, and in the meantime I am using the great mp3 player I got from my wise husband.
To all those people who responded so rudely to you: there are people out there who live in the real world and who are not consumed with the latest gadgets! Get a life.
Scott says:
thank you @R.&B.
i’m not sure why this comment got flagged as spam, but I’ve salvaged it…
Jaime says:
Scott, I agree. I am a young, “average” consumer, and I despise iTunes. I have tons of music on my computer (the only things I have ever purchased from iTunes are a bunch of apps for my iPod touch – most of ‘em for my kids), and it takes me all freakin’ day to sync my ipod with the songs I want, while leaving off the songs I don’t want.
Most recently, I “sync”ed my iTouch, only to find that there was NO music, and all of the apps I had purchased from the iTunes store were useless; they would open then close immediately.
I found your post by googling “I hate iTunes” because I DO!!!!!!!!!!!
chris says:
Man thanks for the info. I bought my gf a gift card and it has been one headache after another with itunes. I updated itunes as the admin and it did not update for any other users, the store did not connect to the internet, the library and purchased songs will only show on each users itunes program….the list goes on and on. I want to move the purchased songs onto the ipod but it tells me i have to delete everything that is currently on the ipod to do that. I will try your technique if only to never use Itunes ever again. Thanks for the info.
James says:
I hate iTunes too. That’s why I use an alternative to manage my iPhone 3G.
http://www.copytransmanager.com
it’s free and light!
Solaris says:
Found this while researching how to help my dad with his iTunes. from what I’ve learned so far Apple stuff is total crap. Just stylish crap. Apple fanboys would kill you for saying that. But do your own research. For every Apple product there is at least one competing product that will outperform it.
And speaking of mp3 players – I have 20GB Samsung that you just plug in and it acts as a drive you can just copy music to. It can also rip music from other devices such as cd players all by itself. Just plug in. Has a radio and can record from that integrated radio. Has video and text function. Dictate function. Audio enhancement functions. Record live bands in cd quality with integrated microphone. Do your research and you see why Apple is crap.
http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12558-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=56312&messageID=1068634
fiarucci says:
itunes sux bigtime —
HATE IT!
i won a nano at the office christmas party never got any warranty help, cuz i didn’t have receipt my old windows 98 computer would not communicate with ipod- arrghhh
got a new laptop with vista — worked for awhile – built nice big library…… windows updated and would no longer load itunes service module ipod and computers not talking again
got a new desktop (stil vista – work in acad, need windows)… itunes loads on new one – norton instead of mcafee (could this be it?)… got a shuffle for the gym — it loads fine —
old library on laptop and nano — new library on desktop desktop will play nano – but not let me manipulate playlists or library…. so amazingly frustrated with my ipod experience!!!!
WAIT — for even more mister — Let’s not forget that idiotic itunes, keeps duplicating all my non apple files…. ya — that’s great, too! Stupid effen applebots!
K says:
I totally agree. Gah. I just spent about $10 dollars on ringtones for my phone, only to find out that you have to have iPhone to use them. What a waste. Apple you suck, this will in no way encourage me to get an iPhone, and now I absolutely not get one, even though I had been thinking about it. Apple sucks, they just want a monopoly over the industry and they might just get it if they stay on the same path. I’m so disappointed. I used to love apples.
Tom says:
“I got attacked by rabid fans and supporters of Apple so quickly that I was stunned…”
Scott, you got dissed because you’re a moron.
It’s ok if you’re not tech-savvy, but to go on a ranting rage about things you know nothing about it is pure stupidity. How did you, the self proclaimed “SEO expert” forget how to google “Will my Creative Labs mp3 player work with itunes?”
The answer: You’re an asshole. What’s funny was that I foresaw your fate. While I was reading this rant I thought to myself “I bet he’s already bought an iPod” and sure enough I found your blog saying you bought 3!
The icing on the cake was that you said “Itunes is dead to me forever.” and then I found your SEO Automatic app on the iTunes Store! http://www.seoautomatic.com/iphone-app/
You’re just an asshole trying to stir the pot with provoking statements such as “proprietary format ripoff music vendor” and “I HATE Itunes” (it’s iTunes, buddy). So Apple sold you a DRM song… Who’s fault is that? Take responsibility for your actions.
Also, where did all the other comments go? Only an asshole would delete comments oppose their views.
Just for fun, I googled “SEO” and couldn’t find you in the first 1000 results. Not surprising. I did however, find hundreds of links for your little Search Commander spammed all over facebook and myspace.
Scott says:
Even though you can only criticize anonymously, I’ll respond to your idiotic comments on my more than two year old post…
1. It never occurred to me back then to Google for “Will my Creative Labs mp3 player work with itunes?ā€¯ because I just had assumed music was music. Admittedly, I was wrong.
2. Yep, my kids both now have iPods and my wife has an iPhone – Personally, I use a Blackberry.
3. Yes, we have an SEO iPhone app. Just because I don’t personally want an iPhone doesn’t mean I’m not willing to make money on an app. If that seems hypocritical, too bad, get over it.
4. Yes I was trying to stir the pot with a controversial title. Don’t like it? Well, I can’t really say I care what you like, and it seemed t owork, didn’t it?
5. There are 59 comments here, so I don’t know WTF you’re talking about. Nothings been deleted, and all the Apple fanboys that attacked in the first couple of days are there. See the link that says “older comments”? Are you actually blind, or just too stupid to look?
6. Yep, ranking for SEO is a tough one. Sad that I’ve had to settle on ranking #1 for both for “search engine expert” and “internet consultant”. Guess I have to live with that failure…
7. Calling me a moron and an asshole really doesn’t bother me, but calling me a spammer does. I have no idea (again) WTF you’re talking about, by saying …”hundreds of links for your little Search Commander spammed all over facebook and myspace”. Why don’t you back that up with proof,, or an example of some links to my spam on Myspace or FB? Because you can’t – they don’t exist, that’s why.
Thanks for taking the bait and wasting your time commenting here, Dick. err… Tom