I have steadily grown more and more frustrated with iTunes, the oh-so-loved application of millions; its feature set is basic, it’s dreadfully slow, not to mention bloated, and worst of all, it has polarized the media player market to such an extend that I often wish it had never been introduced.

The first time I used iTunes, I was actually pretty impressed. Until then, I hadn’t encountered a music player that was as easy to use, or looked as sleek. This was back in the days when the integration of the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) into iTunes was fairly benign, and also well before podcasting was popularized – and in my opinion, monopolized – by iTunes. Back in those days, iTunes was a genuine pleasure to use.

Unfortunately, as the years ticked by, I started to dislike what iTunes had become. With each subsequent version, Apple tried to cram more and more features into their dominating player, and by doing so, they made it ever more unstable and far too slow.

My complaints are numerous, so I’ll list the major ones and try to keep it fairly short. I’ll apologize upfront if this turns into too much of a rant. So, without further ado and in no particular order, here goes:

Features:

Apple loves to keep things simple, which is generally nice. Unfortunately, simple is not always best. The most prevalent showcase of this simplicity is the general lack of features.

The entire appeal that iTunes had to begin with was its incredibly simplicity, and the fact that all the basic and essential components were present: easy importation, a simple playlist, and straightforward controls. However, as the popularity of digital media increased and more mediums became available, Apple simply dumped very mediocre and limited support into iTunes, without any regards for proper optimization.

A good example of this, in my opinion, is video playback – something which was not present in the first few versions. I cannot stand the fact that whenever I try to play back a video clip, mostly in the form of video podcasts, the video is restricted to that tiny, lower-left hand side of the screen. Sure, you can enlarge and undock it, but it’s pretty clear the iTunes was not designed to properly accommodate video playback.

Fine, I’ll concede the fact it’s i-“Tunes” and not i-“Media,” so I’ll try to concentrate more on what it was meant to do, namely audio playback. iTunes has been around since ‘01, when it was introduced at the Macworld Expo, and you’d think that six years ought to be enough time for Apple to add a plethora of neat features, right? So, where are they?

Let’s take a look at iTunes in comparison to Winamp, which, in the interest of full disclosure, has been around since 1996, so has had more time to develop. Looking through the “Preferences” windows in both programs, you really get a sense for how many options there really could be in iTunes. For example, Winamp let’s you set all sorts of things, like the font size, the font type, 24-bit audio support, surround sound, mono channel playback, 50+ hotkeys, and Shuffle Morph Rate – a setting which determines how drastic the change in music style is when music is shuffled. Additionally, Winamp also supports advanced title display formatting, meaning that you can completely customize what the song titles appear as in the player. Of course, this last feature is dependent on proper use of ID3 tags, something that iTunes still hasn’t quite mastered.

Obviously, many of the afore mentioned features are not that high on the wishlists of most iTunes users, but it would be nice to see some more features, and support for traditional conventions – I’m talking about those freaking tags, Apple!

Performance:

Considering what is does, iTunes is simply dog slow. The speed of iTunes, or rather the sheer lack of any decent speed, is probably the single most wide-spread complaint about iTunes. Practically everything about iTunes is dreadfully slow; everything from resizing the GUI, to simply browsing a small playlist, (100 songs, or so). Performance while downloading podcasts is just as ghastly. Why the hell does it often require 100% of my computing power to process a few packets coming in from the net?

And then there’s that crappy “novelty” called Cover Flow – I don’t think it could be any slower if they tried. I must admit that I love the way it looks and feels on a high end machine, but for my Windows box its nothing more than a misguided tease. iTunes (along with Quicktime) really make we want to get to the nearest Apple store so that I can buy more wonderful Apple software – note the wonderful sarcasm!

I’m not trying to advertise Winamp here, but at least Nullsoft knows how to make their software compatible with the widest range of possible hardware. Under the “Preference” menu in Winamp, there is a useful feature called “Priority Class,” which allows you to set the processing priority of the application, much like you can do with the trusty three fingered salute (Crtl + Alt + Del). This way, you won’t have to worry (as much) about the music skipping when the processor pegs.

Popularity:

What I hate the most about iTunes is probably its popularity, and the consequences that such esteem tends to create. Considering that Apple only has about 5% (or something close to that) of the personal computer market, the success of the iPod and iTunes is truly a respectable accomplishment worthy of due praise and applause. Nevertheless, saturating the market with a single product, a piece of software in the case, is detrimental to the market as a cohesive whole.

The popularity of iTunes has effectively backed the music media player market into a corner; iTunes is so successful, (in the eyes of the masses, at any rate), that practically no one has the desire or ability to introduce something else. And if no one can effectively introduce anything else, no one is going to develop and market anything else. This creates a real problem for that small percentage of users who hate iTunes for whatever reason, because there simply isn’t anything else that has had enough backing and development to beat the offending software. iTunes might very well work and fit the needs of the majority perfectly, but, contrary to that ridiculous statement, one size does not fit all…

Audio Controls and Quality:

Since iTunes runs on personal computers (Macs included, of course), I would assume that most people listen to the music in their libraries via their cheap, probably Chinese-made computer speakers, or through their similarly inferior headphones. If that is truly the case, than this next complaint might only apply to a very small niche who use their computer as a dedicated audio source.

If you happen to have a high-end sound card and a pair of proper headphones, and you really know what the music that you listen to is supposed to sound like, then you may have already noticed this, but iTunes doesn’t perform the best decoding and signal processing. Now, don’t get me wrong, iTunes is pretty decent when it comes to this stuff, but for a program meant to do little else, it does have its shortcomings. Part of the problem might be that iTunes performs Windows kernel mixing before it sends the audio out to the sound card; in other words, there is no way to get the most out of your sound card with iTunes. Once again, thank you, Apple!

Playing back audio is one part where Apple’s simplicity really hurts. Some buttons are tripled-up on features (play, pause and stop are all the same button) and dependent on the users location within the program. For example, you have to be in the playlist that the song is in to be able to pause, otherwise you can only stop. Then there’s the equalizer. It’s far too limited and basic to properly tune the music to a particular speaker or headphone setup – but, to be honest, I have this complaint of almost all equalizers.

When I purchased a few songs off of the iTunes Music Store and listened to them, I noticed that they didn’t quite sound right. I could hear compression artifacts in some of the more unpredictable parts of the song. This wasn’t just one song, it was pretty much the entire album. I don’t know if iTunes was used to get the music from the original CD onto the store, but if it was then it’s pretty darn bad at ripping music as well.

My experience with the Store certainly does not speak well of the service, considering that it’s DRM “protected” and cost me close to a whole dollar per poorly-encoded song. If you’re looking for a real audio-only player and ripper, check out Foobar2000 and dbPowerAmp. They may not be as user-friendly, but the sound they produce is definitely a lot better.

Stability:

I wouldn’t have a problem with iTunes if only it would work right. With every subsequent version, iTunes has gotten more and more unstable and it has gotten to the point where I have completely abandoned it out of frustration.

No matter what I tried to do, iTunes (version 7.xx) kept informing me that the iTunes library file couldn’t be saved. When this problem first started popping up, I didn’t really think too much of it, because I could usually just hit “OK” and nothing would be affected; it would continue working properly. A few weeks ago, that changed. Whenever I got that error message, iTunes would either corrupt the library file to such an extent that it was no longer readable, or it would delete that songs from the playlist. And then, as if I wasn’t frustrated enough already, I discovered that whenever I closed iTunes and tried to restart it, I’ll would be informed that critical files were missing and that I’d have to re-install the software – which did absolutely nothing!

Another problem I frequently run into is having my downloads spontaneously stop, and it doesn’t matter whether I’m downloading a podcast or a song off of the iTunes Music Store. The problem seems to be most prevalent whenever I’m downloading more than one song or podcast at a time. I’ve had a few cases where I’ve had to restart a download five or six times before it finally did it right.

FLAC Support:

MP3 is definitely the dominate audio codec out there, and Apple whole-heartedly embraces it, so no complaints there. However, there is more to the world of audio than just lossy MP3’s. Again, if all you use to listen to music with are cheap desktop speakers and headphones, you probably won’t have a problem. For those of us who happen to be more selective about the quality and accurate representation of the music that we listen to, MP3’s, especially those encoded at lower bit rates, simply won’t cut it. Or even if you’re satisfied with the high-bitrate MP3’s, there might very well be another reason for wanting support for better, lossless codecs.

“What are you talking about? iTunes has a lossless format; it’s called Apple Lossless!”

Correct, and I’m not going to argue that I can hear the difference between a lossless encoding and the original source, because I can’t. I would, however, like for there to be support for FLAC – the Free Lossless Audio Codec. If I’m going to make the permanent switch from CD’s to the realm of intangible media, I would want to make sure that everything on the source medium is transferred perfectly to a format that is open, non-proprietary, and not dependent on the continued survival of a single company.

Adding support for FLAC shouldn’t cost Apple a lot, except maybe a little development time and possibly their stubbornness. The codec is free and open, so come on, Apple!

DRM:

What list wouldn’t be complete without this complaint. Granted, this grievance one that can be thrown at almost any online music store in existence, but that doesn’t change the fact that DRM is really annoying. What makes it all the more frustrating is probably the fact that it doesn’t even work! If you’re going to implement a system to prevent piracy then, please, make sure it actually works and doesn’t just hinder the honest user.

iTunes Music Store:

And then there’s that wonderful feature called the iTunes Muss Store – note the sarcasm…

First of all, the Music Store is incredibly slow; it takes ages for it to load pages, which makes browsing the store really tedious in my opinion.

iTunes seems to have become a propaganda tool for getting people to waste their money on poorly ripped, poorly encoded, DRM-ed music – yes, I know that there is DRM-free music available for a premium. A new installation of iTunes, for example, will by default have the MiniStore feature activated and ready to sell you albums. This is just obtrusive and annoying.

I had never given the iTunes Music Store a go until recently. A few weeks ago, I received an iTunes gift card, and figured, “What the hell, might as well try it.” Not exactly the greatest of experiences. I downloaded the album “Best of Van Halen, Vol. 1,” which contained Eddie’s signature riff, entitled “Eruption.” This was one of the few tracks that I already owned on another CD and that I had ripped to FLAC, a lossless codec. Playing the purchased track in iTunes, I noticed that something was, well, off. I didn’t sound all that pleasant, and I was noticing compression artifacts that seemed foreign to me. Using Foobar2000, I compared the FLAC version and the iTunes version, and sure enough, the artifacts were only present in the AAC iTunes rip. For the same price ($9.99), I’d rather wait for the CD to arrive from Amazon.com, and rip it myself. I guess that old saying does have some merit; if you want it done right, you’ve gotta do it yourself.

Obviously, the complaint above only reflects my experiences with a single album (of 17 songs), and perhaps other albums are better encoded…

Podcasting:

Let’s be perfectly clear on this: Apple did not create “podcasting.” It has absolutely nothing to do with Apple, their iPods, or iTunes! So why the hell is the word “pod” in there at all?

According to the etymology of the word as presented by Webster’s New Millenium Dictionary of English, the word is a derivation of “iPod + broadcast.” Okay, fine, I can live with that; but it does create a few problems. First of all, for all the novices out there, the word will immediately be associated with Apple and iTunes. Whether this naming was accidental or deliberate is irrelevant; what does matter, however, is the implication. I’m sure that we’ve all come across few people who, when asked if they listen to podcasts, say “No, I don’t have an iPod.”

The problem is only exacerbated with the podcast haven that is the “Podcast Directory,” part of the iTunes Music Store. In truth, this grievance really only exists because of Apple’s (well deserved, I must admit) success. Too many people rely on iTunes as the source of their podcasts, and, unfortunately, not all podcasts have found their way onto iTunes.

As noted by Leo Laporte, a well-known podcaster himself, iTunes is both the greatest thing to have ever happened to podcasting and the worst. Without iTunes, podcasting might never have gotten as big as it currently is, but precisely because of it, too many feel that their podcasts can only be judged by their presence and rank within The Directory.

Quicktime:

At first glance you might say that this complaint is merely a filler, created so that I can reach the nice, round number of ten. Well, you might be right, but consider the following. The iTunes installation package includes Quicktime, the video/audio codec engine that iTunes relies on to play any and all content. Because of this integration, and the subsequent necessity of having to bundle these two programs together, I think this complaint is merited.

I dislike Quicktime almost as much as I dislike iTunes, and pretty much for the same reasons: it lacks features, codec support, and it’s unbelievably slow. I may not be running the fastest machine available, but my 2.0Ghz Athlon should be more than adequate to play back an H.264 encoded video at a smooth framerate. Before anyone points out that H.264 is resource intensive and that this performance issue is normal on a machine like mine, let me point out that VLC has no trouble performing the same feat. Trying to watch a 720p trailer from Apple.com/trailers using Quicktime is an absolute nightmare. What I end up having to do every time is saving the H.264 file, so that I can play it back in VLC. I’d be lucky to attain even 10 frames per second with Quicktime without that stupid player skipping in a desperate attempt to keep it all in sync. VLC can play the same trailers without ever dipping below the desired framerates. Quicktime, much like iTunes, is dreadfully inefficient. It’s absolutely horrible – a complete joke.

And since Quicktime is so deeply integrated into iTunes, trying to watch even a low definition podcast is almost always unpleasant, and at times downright torturous.

Trying to substitute iTunes:

It’s actually surprisingly hard. I may not be the biggest fan of iTunes, but it certainly serves a purpose. It’s hard to find another program that can do decent audio playback and podcasting in a simple and comprehensive fashion.

I currently use dbPoweramp to accurately rip CD’s, Winamp to listen to my (FLAC encoded) music, and iTunes for podcasts. Winamp is far more stable than version 7.xx of iTunes, and sounds slightly better as well, but for podcasts there really is no alternative. So, in short, if you really want to replace all of iTunes, I can only wish you the best of luck!