iPhone: Is it worth it?

Really? Will it let me transfer music from one machine to the other? That would be great!

Of the three MP3 players I've owned, Creative Labs, Apple, and Sandisk, none of them ever let me just drop an MP3 on them and play them. They had to be ripped to their format (some MP4 flavour I assume) first.

I have had problems moving the ripped song off my Creative Labs to a different PC - it knew it was different and wouldn't let me.

Thrasher said:

Really? Will it let me transfer music from one machine to the other? That would be great!

Click to expand...

There is a cool little PC program called 'TuneAid' that allows me to grab stuff from my iPod Touch on my PC at work ... I used it today to grab some stuff I had bought and forgot to dump on a flash drive.

My thing on the format is that at least now they work between a different OS ... it is all still sync to 1 PC like every other player of the same type (e.g. Zune)

Is there a way to have iTunes sync with another computer running iTunes so they have the same library? I use both a PC and Mac, and would like their libraries to be consistent with one another and my iPod.

Thrasher said:

Is there a way to have iTunes sync with another computer running iTunes so they have the same library? I use both a PC and Mac, and would like their libraries to be consistent with one another and my iPod.

Click to expand...

Sadly library syncing is a royal PITA, and I've found that across Windows Media, Zune and iTunes. You can get all the songs there ... but specific playlists and album art and so on ...

As an aside, can I mention that I still keep a 2nd gen iPod Nano in my car ... because I find the iPod Touch to be *the worst* MP3 player I've ever used in terms of controls? Ugh ... tap, slide, touch to do anything, and even the double-home access is a pain. Way too much precision and looking required for car use.

How do you get the songs synced? Just manually copy them from one comp to another and then import? iTunes should just sync with another iTunes on another computer, shouldn't it?

I have a 2nd gen? Classic iPod in the car. It's dangerous because I sometimes watch music videos while I am stuck in traffic jams.

Thrasher said:

How do you get the songs synced? Just manually copy them from one comp to another and then import? iTunes should just sync with another iTunes on another computer, shouldn't it?

Click to expand...

There is iTunes Home Sharing, which works great across the same network, then there are numerous other solutions that cost money to sync multiple libraries.

I don't ever do that - our multiples are for myself (2 PC's and 1 Mac), my wife and both kids ...

Thrasher said:

I have a 2nd gen? Classic iPod in the car. It's dangerous because I sometimes watch music videos while I am stuck in traffic jams.

Click to expand...

That is why I'm happy with the Nano ... just 4GB of music. The Touch is much more involved.

Does the home sharing actually copy the music and video files to the other computer library or just allow to you play them across the network?

The classic controls are just as simple as the nano, but watching videos is the distraction.

Thrasher said:

Does the home sharing actually copy the music and video files to the other computer library or just allow to you play them across the network?

Click to expand...

Home Sharing allows you to copy freely across your network.

But Spotify is a non-owning music source, right? That is completely different. It also does about 25% of what iTunes does.

Oh, and is available to about 1% as many people as iTunes.

Click to expand...

It is an owning music source, and it is available in china, which means it is availiable to more people than itunes…… unless itunes was unbanned again there… anyway I almost sure it is going to replace most other music sources. In sweden it is already so popular that lot of people stopped pirating…… it is simply better than pirating. Last numbers also show it is more popular than buying music in the regular store.

As far as I know spotify is also being introduced in US now.

I have had all the issues GG had with iTunes on the PC. This was a while back, as well. On the Mac it currently works fine.

Click to expand...

So as you see not only my PC, perhaps you were a bit blind to these things or your memory of 3 years back are not so good? If it works perfectly fine now it is kind of a moot point though.

I had an iPod before and yes Quicktime takes the file associations, but that's like one of the easiest things to change back as well as making both iTunes and Quicktime not run on startup.

The only thing I didn'r like was the hard time getting songs out of my iPod and back onto a separate hard drive. iTunes doesn't like that apparently. Other than that, I never had trouble with it.

I never really used iTunes except to add new songs to my iPod, so it's not like I'm going to use it that often.
Also, I'm almost 100% leaning towards iPhone, so I am probably going to get it this weekend...

Thanks for your advice. All of you.
I had a look at the HTC and Droid phones and talked to some people about it. Since every single person I talked to and know personally who has an iPhone loves it and I've used it for a bit before, I think I'll go with it.

I will tell you guys how it went once I actually really start using it.

GothicGothicness said:

It is an owning music source, and it is available in china, which means it is availiable to more people than itunes…… unless itunes was unbanned again there… anyway I almost sure it is going to replace most other music sources. In sweden it is already so popular that lot of people stopped pirating…… it is simply better than pirating. Last numbers also show it is more popular than buying music in the regular store.

Click to expand...

Same in Finland. Ask anyone and most likely they use spotify.

Isn't spotify streaming based, though? So you'd have to have an internet connction or use your data plan when you're on the go? Thats what I thought when i read about it, but I haven't used it, I don't think its available in Switzerland yet. Not that that is a big problem, but it's still a fundamental difference to iTunes if it is like that.

You can use it offline too, or buy the songs on it. You can also add things from your current play library to spotify.

GothicGothicness said:

It is an owning music source.

Click to expand...

Cool - thanks for that. I checked their site and much has changed since I last looked ... but some stuff hasn't.

But there is a fundamental difference between iTunes and Spotify - which is why I asked about 'owning'. My understanding:
- iTunes is based around collecting music you own and listening to it anywhere and transferring it to your mobile devices.
- Spotify is about streaming content, with option to buy songs.

I am open to correction, but it seems like a Spotify is a better version of Zune or Rhapsody with peer-to-peer networking. And instead of those services including songs for free with the subscription, you have to pay for all of them you want to own.

While I think it is pretty clear I am up on mobile technology, and despite having gone 'total digital' with my music habits as soon as it was legally possible, I am 'old school' when it comes to habits: I buy the MP3 CD, and load it in iTunes, and sync it to my iPod Nano, iPod Touch, iPad and Android Phone.

With Spotify ... if you are on Free then you get lower-quality streams, no offline listening, no portable player support, and so on. You have to pay to get anything other than just plain streaming, right?

Also, as I understand it what you can access is directly limited to what Spotify gets rights to ... so if I want that 30-years out of print Art Ensemble of Chicago thing, I am *still* stuck with the version I digitized off of my old vinyl, right?

GothicGothicness said:

It is an owning music source, and it is available in china

As far as I know spotify is also being introduced in US now.

Click to expand...

A few things I found on their site:
- Not available in the US, and no estimate of when it will be.
- Not available in China - and as I had heard, it is only available in certain areas of Europe.

From their site:

* Finland
* France
* Norway
* Netherlands
* Spain
* Sweden
* United Kingdom

Click to expand...

They want to get it to the US, and I think that is a great thing.

GothicGothicness said:

So as you see not only my PC, perhaps you were a bit blind to these things or your memory of 3 years back are not so good? If it works perfectly fine now it is kind of a moot point though.

Click to expand...

So you are saying that since you had problems with a single install and I had no issues with dozens of installs over a decade that it is an 'either / or' thing, and that someone else saying 'I had issues' means you are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong?

I was pretty clear it was likely a computer specific issue, and I think that some folks having issues and others not pretty well proves it. Also, the 'extension hijacking' stuff, which is what seems to be a large part of your issue, is shown during the install and can easily be changed ... and as I said happens with all major software that syncs with major MP3 players.

txa1265 said:

With Spotify … if you are on Free then you get lower-quality streams, no offline listening, no portable player support, and so on. You have to pay to get anything other than just plain streaming, right?

Click to expand...

If you pay 5€/month or if you buy the songs you get higher quality. Most people use the free though since quality is good enough for them.

With 10€/month you can also put spotify on your mobile phone and use that as your "portable device". If you buy the songs you can play them on any portable device player. Possibly you can use spotify as such too in mobile without paying the monthly.

Offline is not a problem since Im always online. Datapackage for my mobile is only 10€/month and I can tether it too.

GothicGothicness said:

You can use it offline too, or buy the songs on it. You can also add things from your current play library to spotify.

Click to expand...

If you add stuff from your library that Spotify doesn't have permission to list, can others see it and listen and add it to their lists?

A few things I found on their site:
- Not available in the US, and no estimate of when it will be.
- Not available in China - and as I had heard, it is only available in certain areas of Europe.

Click to expand...

Ooops, my mistake I have been using it in china quite much and it has chinese music...... the premium version acctually works anywhere... but you can't signup to it unless your IP is in one of the above mentioned countries. Anyway it doesn't make the program any less superior to all other music software. Wait until you get it in US and you'll agree with me.

- Not available in the US, and no estimate of when it will be.

Click to expand...

They are working very hard on it..... apple are trying to fight them like hell though, because they know itunes will be gone when it gets there.

to quote this gizmodo review: ( http://gizmodo.com/5502815/why-its-worth-getting-excited-for-spotifys-us-launch )

You've probably not heard of Spotify yet. That's ok—it's still relatively new over here in Europe, where I live. But I can say in the year I've used it, I've never touched iTunes or used BitTorrent once.

Click to expand...

Everyone else I know who tried it say the same thing.

So you are saying that since you had problems with a single install and I had no issues with dozens of installs over a decade that it is an 'either / or' thing, and that someone else saying 'I had issues' means you are absolutely right and I am absolutely wrong?

Click to expand...

It is good for you that you didn't have any issues... perhaps you were lucky, but it can't be it was specific to my PC anyway since it happend to other people too. Maybe it has something to do with the OS language.. if you have US as your language it works fine, because everyone in sweden I talked to had the same problems as me.... but that doesn't count for anything here as I can't prove that.

Thanks, GG. I had found that link after I spoke without doing due diligence about Spotify.

Some thoughts, questions:
- Above I asked about 'self-sharing' of content ... in other words, since the music I listen to is always non popular and often out of print, can I essentially 'add to the stream', or is that just stored locally. I never found anything definitive, but since there was much made of the legal nature of the service, I assume what you see is what you get.
- I had actually written a while ago about things that bugged me about Slacker / Pandora ... and Spotify handles them - particularly that if I want to hear a song by an artist, I don't want to just hear the artist or the song, I want the song BY the artist ... and not have to wait 10 songs to get it ... my wife and I had some sappy Helen Reddy song in our head and I ended up buying the song because after hours and hours I never got it on Slacker or Pandora!
- I wonder about the artists ... I had done an article on how many sales / plays an artist needs to make minimum wage, and Spotify was the absolute worst, needing >4.5 MILLION plays per month for the artist to make 'minimum wage' (US definition).

Thoughts:
- Spotify is not making money ... in fact they are apparently living off of VC funds and bleeding cash. They blame greedy record companies, but while I inherently agree that greedy record companies are to blame for most woes in the music biz, I don't think it is that simple.
- Apple ... while it is an easy target (and a fave for some), again it isn't that simple. Apple is the largest music retailer in the world - by a large amount - BUT, they are also the biggest source of revenue & profit for record companies (remember those greedy swine?). Apple is reported to have pointed out that Spotify will hurt sales (and does anyone deny that?).
- Profit: remember that record companies get 70% of iTunes sales $, and have considerably lower overhead than on retail sales, where they get an even lower cut!
- Regulations - in the US Pandora almost died because the recording industry (i.e. not Apple) got the government to pass insane licensing fees that would have killed streaming music dead. Fortunately things are better ... but it is still one of those wonderful 'laws by industry influence' things ...
- 'Test-Bed' - apparently one major factor in delaying the US launch is the deals with record companies, which are being delayed by the fact that the increase in play-time from Spotify is NOT EVEN CLOSE to offsetting the losses of digital sales.
- Also, there is already an iPhone Spotify App ... so if it was REALLY all about Apple, don't you think they would have killed that?

Another thing that I have heard ... the user experience, while on paper fairly ordinary and very much like other services, it so slick and streamlined that it is a pleasure to use. That is great ... and is the sort of thing that every year I see articles about how Apple needs to slim down iTunes and offer a quick web-type interface. Perhaps with the iOS style integration they will - it is actually much better on the iPad than on a computer!

txa1265 said:

Home Sharing allows you to copy freely across your network.

Click to expand...

But it requires both of your machines to log in to the same iTunes account. What an annoyance. It also limits 5 computers to sharing. But it does have an import button (yeah!) and options to automatically sync "new purchases" with each library on the other computers. This includes everything from music, and videos to books and apps. Sweet!