Why iTunes Sucks

Note: The following is an excerpt from my new book, The Love Your Music eBook -- guaranteed to contain “everything you ever wanted to know about digital music” or your money back.

Just because iTunes is the most popular media player and online music store on the market doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Now I don‘t really think iTunes totally sucks, but certain parts of it are really bad. There are several media players that I would use before iTunes. Read on for the top reasons why iTunes sucks and you should use a better media player and shop from better and less expensive music stores.

Here are the particularly bad parts of the iTunes media player:

• It doesn‘t save the ratings you apply (1 to 5 stars) back to tracks (meaning the ratings are easily lost).
• It can‘t play rented music, meaning you can’t play rented tracks from Rhapsody, Napster or Zune.
• It can only sync with iPods, not other Portable Media Players (PMPs).
• It takes a comparatively long time to start up and consumes a lot of system resources.

There are several media players that don’t suffer from these issues, including WinAmp, Windows Media Player, Song Bird, and, my favorite, MediaMonkey.

The table below compares different media player software (listed in the left-most column) across a variety of criteria (listed across the top). The check marks indicate the best media player in each category and red Xs indicate a media player that is poor in a particular category).

*Free version is missing some features that are available in the paid version
OS: Operating System
Mac: Macintosh OS
Win: Windows OS
Best in Category
Worst in Category

A point that I can‘t stress enough is to make sure you are saving your metadata changes back to your files, not just to your library. Use MediaMonkey or Windows Media Player; they will do this for you.

Unfortunately iTunes will keep your metadata in a special library file separate from your music files. That means even if you backup your music collection, if your computer‘s disk goes bad, or it is stolen, then you will lose all of the ratings you have applied to your tracks, unless you also backup the iTunes library file. If you choose to use iTunes, you will need to backup your iTunes library file separately from your music.

iTunes also has the most popular online music store. While I’m picking on iTunes media player, here are some things that are bad about its store (which you access via the iTunes media player software):

• It‘s expensive. You can almost always find any song or album for less at a different store.
• It doesn‘t sell MP3s. It only sells less-compatible M4A files.

You have to buy each and every track you want to listen to, because, unlike other stores:

• It doesn‘t have any rental music.
• It doesn‘t let you stream music.

There are many music stores out there that sell DRM-free MP3s and/or rented tracks including eMusic, Amazon MP3, Napster, Rhapsody and Zune. All of these stores are usually cheaper than the iTunes music store too!

So, as you can see, there is a lot not to like about iTunes. For a better media player, check out
MediaMonkey. For a better music store, try eMusic, Amazon MP3, Napster, Rhapsody or Zune.

For more info on how to get the most from your music, check out The Love Your Music eBook.