Saturday, October 16, 2010

Tip for podcasts, and the confusing iTunes

Except for those pod- or videocasts which you plan to enjoy on the go, meaning outside of hotspots, it is often just as easy to listen or watch "live" in iTunes on your iPad or iPhone, rather than first download, and then remembering to sync when there are new ones. You save both time and disk space.

I don't think a regular iPod can do this, though, they have to go through iTunes, the app, not the store.

And talking about that, man, Apple has really painted themselves into a corner. What is iTunes? Well, it's a web site. No, it's not, it is a music playing app for Mac and PC. No, it's not, it's an online store, unconnected to the web. It sells music. It also sells video/TV/Movies. No no, it's a distribution system for free university lectures. No, wait, it's a book store. But only for audio books, for ebooks you have to use the iBooks store. But wait, the iBooks store is clearly also the iTunes store, you use the same login and the same system!

And the "iTunes" app on iPad has a completely different function from the "iTunes" app on Mac/PC. The function which iTunes has on the desktop (playing music) is called the "iPod" app on an iPad! On the iPad, iTunes is an online store.

And if that's not confusing enough, iPad also has a "Videos" app which, well, plays videos. But why did they not just combine this with the iTunes (or iPod?) app like on the other devices? There are also videos on the iPod app. So which videos turn up in the iPod app and which in the Video app? I don't know. Some even turn up on both!

And by the way, why can't we delete the Apple apps which we never use, like the useless "Notes"? (Only one font, and it's illegible.) They just sit there and fill up space and make it harder to find the apps you do use.

Geeeeeez.  Apple is like a beatiful, beloved girlfriend, whom you wouldn't be without, but who you sometimes just want to bend over a chair and give the quarter-inch rattan switch.

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