iTunes is nice, no wait…it sucks!
Generally speaking, I like Apple’s iTunes for Windows a lot. However, recently I’ve been noticing some quirks that just bug the heck out of me. I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to successfully burn a CD with iTunes. If I have, my success rate is something like 5-10%.
It always seems to hang during the finalization stage. And yes, I’ve tried it on multiple systems with different burners and my success rate really doesn’t change. This happens even on a brand new clean install of Windows XP. This is a shame since the program overall is pretty easy to use despite some user interface quirks.
Bad Things
- Non-standard UI. It does not follow standard Windows UI conventions for multiple selections using the Shift and CTRL keys.
- Automatically truncates your file names. I know you can turn off the “manage my files” feature but regardless, it shouldn’t rename your files without asking.
- Flakey CD burning. It’s flakey for me. Meanwhile, Nero never has any problems with 100% success rate. So, i blame iTunes.
Good Things
- Drag and drop interface. I like that I can add new files simply by dragging them over. I also like that I can select a bunch of files in iTunes and drag them over to another program.
- Unicode support. I like that it takes my Japanese, Corean, and Chinese titles without mangling them. Well, it does mangle them sometimes but I’ll still give it points for are least being able to display them.
So, I’ve been reverting back to Windows Media Player which is less nice in terms of user interface but much better in terms of never mangling my file names and doing the best job I’ve seen in terms of downloading album covers and more complete album info. I don’t like that the database seems a little limited but it works.
