[John Stone]

On 12/2/07 12:37 PM, in article , "Codifus"
wrote:

Basically, a Windows PC is much more customizable. The drawback being
that it's much more complicated, too. The simpler Mac interface makes
things easy, but harder to customize other aspects of the system. For
most users, that extra customization is usually not needed. People who
like foober like to tinker. Adjust sample rates, bit depth etc. Itunes
and quicktime don't go that far, but if setup correctly, there's no
need. Just rip and play. Playlists on the fly? done. Burn a CD of that
playlist? Done. Drag the playlist to your ipod? Done.
I mostly agree, but it's actually a piece of cake to customize Itunes for
sample rates and bit depth on a Mac or PC. Just go into Preferences, click
"Advanced" and then "Importing". All your options are right there. Then if
you want to customize your CD burning options, just click on "Burning" and
you have those too. Pretty simple stuff. I use a Logitech Squeezebox3 for my
music server and it simply imports everything, including playlists, right
from the iTunes library automatically. Nothing could be easier. I also have
absolutely no problems with skipping or slow speed or anything else. I just
access everything via a WiFi connection to the Squeezebox right at my audio
system. The biggest task I have other than ripping the CD's is making sure
my computer is on.


For all your criticisms of iTunes, do you know which other music
management program does it better? I briefly ventured into trying
windows media player and quite frankyly found it's interface to be all
over the place. Not only that, when a new version comes out, the
interface changes drastically. This is typical Windows way of doing
things. Look at Vista and Windows XP, even Office 2003 and 2007. It's a
whole new learning curve to do basic stuff. Quite annoying. Why does
Windows have to completely change the basic task of "saving as?" It is
well known that Apple spends more on R&D than MS . . .and it shows,
especially in the interface.

You might point out that When Apple went from OS9 to OSX, they
introduced a totally new interface. Yes, they did. But that's because
the transition was to a completely different type of operating system. A
bit painful in the beginning, but worth it in the end, IMO. Going from
Windows XP to Vista is going from one 32 bit OS to another. Upgrading
from Office 2003 to 2007 is going from one office application suite,
word processing, spreadsheeting, presentation, to another.

Apple was smart to include a program in OSX called "Classic" that allowed
you to run OS9 applications within OSX. Made the transition very easy.