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Hate the latest iTunes, switching to SongbirdHate the latest iTunes, switching to Songbird
Submitted by Benjamin Melançon on October 16, 2008 - 7:05am
After a long delay because my poor abused MacBook didn't get restarted for a few months, Mac OS X managed to update iTunes. And the new version, 8, is terrible. There are ugly little arrows everywhere that just send you to the iTunes store for songs you already have.
I don't need a whole separate box to tell me what's playing that hides a third of my playlists. And I certainly don't need an entire idiot sidebar that needs an account at Apple's iTunes store to show it's genius.
All that has been added to the program is non-configurable, bloated, intrusive ad-ware.
Goodbye to another Macintosh application; Apple, you're making it so easy to leave you. Just need to replace iPhoto and its scary giant opaque blob method of storing thousands of photos, and I won't rely on a single proprietary application. Then it is next stop: Ubuntu.
For my music though, right now, while still using Mac, I am happy to Get Songbird.
Comments
What exactly is the complaint again?
How many key strokes and clicks did it take to write and submit that? You could have instead
1) Hid the album art box that's cramping your playlists, with one click; and
2) Hid the Genius Sidebar, with one click.
Total: two clicks.
That leaves only those "ugly arrows" that... do what again? Send you to the iTunes Store? If you're referring to the arrows that appear in the various columns of a list view, they don't act as iTunes links for me; rather, they serve to instantly pare down the list to the selected artists, album, genre, etc., as appropriate for the arrow's column - a feature that's really handy. Maybe we're set up differently?
Even if your arrows are actually iTunes Store links... well, if you need to trash iTunes for the sole remaining reason that the arrows are "ugly", then have at it! I'd join you in heading to Songbird, but somewhere in it I saw a tiny bit of shading on a trivial interface element with a gray shading about 10% darker than optimal for my dandified tastes. Utterly unacceptable!
awesome.. we should have a
awesome.. we should have a comments hall of fame :P
Seriously!
If I weren't reasonably sure of my own sanity, or at least short-term memory, I'd suspect logging out and writing that myself...
We need to change our polite "visitor" tag to anonymous coward... link to your own site, darn it! With screen shots of how to do this, 'cause this guy must be using the back of his shoe for his mouse if he's getting rid of those elements in one click. They were glued there like Big Brother in George Orwell's 1984.
My computer is 100 megabytes lighter without the metastasizing iTunes, and Songbird works like a charm. I can resize my album art window if I want to, let alone hide it (with one click for real)!
Oh, and color or shading of the user interface? Songbird is completely skinnable (though they call it "feathers").
Free software wins again... to you dear readers, save your two clicks for downloading and installing Songbird.
I'm looking at the controls
I'm looking at the controls right there in iTunes, one each under the album art window and under the Genius Sidebar panel. Each element has a very visible button right under it, a "disclosure triangle" inside a square. Each button hides the element above it with one click.
If those are on your iTunes window, be a good sport and say "oops"! If they're not on your iTunes window, I guess somehow we've got different setups. (So much for "non-configurable".) FWIW, I've got iTunes 8 on OS X.
Hi AC
I really did delete iTunes from my computer, and there was an update pending so maybe they fixed it right away. Next time I meet someone with a mac, I'll make them let me check it out.
Sounds good. Hmm, a quick
Sounds good. Hmm, a quick check of Apple's site shows that the buttons are indeed visible on iTunes screen shots (http://www.apple.com/itunes/whatsnew/), if hard to see on the small images. So rest assured that the iTunes panels that annoy you are completely optional.
I'm a fellow fan of free software (esp. Drupal). Just setting' the record straight here.
Bugs me too
The thing I can't past with iTunes updates is how blasted long iTunes wants to take now anytime it loads or unloads my song library. I've been a busy boy with bit torrent and it used to be no trouble but now iTunes seems to want to snub me for my 200 gigs of sweet sweet music. Always taking my precious clock cycles away to do some genius crap I never use and can't seem to completely turn off. Gonna give Songbird a try.
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