Rant The "My Apple rant is valid and informed 'cause it's got, like, eight swear words in"

Exactly the problem I had, with almost as much profanity, tried to get the 'Free' video of the big 4 playing 'Am I evil', jumped through all the same hoops, it's unbelievable the amount of info they want from you. I drew the line at my card details, especially since I refuse to use Ipods. which leads me conveniently on......

I can't exactly convey the mix of disgust, pity and despair (I'm usually quite placid and well balanced on most issues, including marmite, but for some reason this really gets me) that I feel when I see people walking past with white earphones, ok so maybe not everyone with white earphones is actually listening to an Ipod, maybe they just want to look like they are, but I can't decide what's worse.

It's probably got something to do with the fact that I know there are much better players out there and people will just go for whatever is shoved in their faces.

(I guess if you're offended by profanity you probably aren't reading this thread, you have been warned)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo

+1, just revived my Sony NW A3000 for the half price Sony MDR EX500's that I bought off the net, and my ears won't let me take them out, Audio Bliss. Having this player hooked up to my old MDR EX300's opened my ears to all the subtleties in music production on songs that I though I'd known for years.

I showed one IPhone owner the difference in sound quality between my player with my earphones and his player with my earphones again with the same song, to me the difference was very obvious, he completely denied hearing any difference and ran away (to cry? who knows) and the best bit, my combo only cost less that £80.

Probably not going to end up very popular if I carry on with my little crusade though, will probably have to settle with the knowledge of knowing I'm far smugger than they will ever know...

+1, been using winamp for years, nothing has given me any reason not to.


On another note, I am quite interested in some of the more innovative apps that are appearing on the IPhone, but all the reaons above would stop me using it as a music player.

 

Man do I miss using Winamp 2.95... nostalgia...

Anyway, I'm using v5.572 and it's not bad at all. It's definitely more bloated than the original but it's also still WAY less bloated than say iTunes or WMP. I also use Winamp for throwing songs on my ipod. Don't judge me!!! It was a gift when my generic mp3 player was stolen.

I got a pair of Sony MDR-V6 not too long ago and it's the same story. I put them on and it was just like.. WHOA! I don't remember hearing that in this song! I went through my music collection and I just got so excited thinking "what do I listen to next?!" because it was like listening to brand new music that I already knew I'd like.

 

You will be surprised, but most people really can't hear the difference. For example i can't hear any difference between 192kbps MP3, 320kbps MP3 and FLAC. Yet many of you pro-digital audiophiles will say that i listen to junk, that 192kbps is ************ (put here profanity of your choice). Yes, i said pro-digital audiophiles, because in eyes of pro-analog audiophiles you are as bad as we, non-audiophile general public.

PS: You said iPhone. Do you realize he bought it as a phone with media player capabilities, not as a media player with phone capabilities ?

 

I do, but I was sat in the room with the same guy who turned me onto these phones, he did exactly the same test with my and his brothers Ipod a few years back and although the difference was less we all concluded that the in comparison with the exact same MP3, the Sony (with most up to date firmware) sounded much better.

As for MP3's it can depend on what was used to encode them. A 192kbps Lame encoded MP3 will sound as good as a 320 from most other encoders, maybe better. I tend to encode with the highest possible quality variable bitrate (VBR 0) Lame encoder.

To me the difference was much more than just a low quality MP3, the whole soundstage (stereo spread), the reverb, everything was compromised somehow on the Iphone.

I used to have the smaller version of the NW A3000, and the Creative MuVo (that looked like a robot's tampon), I used to use the MuVo all the time as I couldn't tell the difference between the 2 in terms of sound quality with my old headphones (Sony fontapoid EX71's). It wasn't until i got the Sony EX300's that the vast difference in quality between the 2 MP3 players became apparent. Like I said previously I was hearing subtle parts of tracks that I'd never heard before, even though i'd been listening to them for years.

Apparently one of the reasons the IPods don't quite cut it is down to one resistor or resister sized component that apply cut the corner on putting into every model. Apparently the Ipod Shuffle has this missing component and even audiophiles would agree it sounds better.

One thing I will say for Apple though is that the user interface and controls are second to none.

 

You guys keep saying that, but I've never had it happen to me, to be honest. I've never had any Apple zealot grab my arm with a religious glint in his eyes and proselytise its greatness with flecks of foam at the mouth. Never come across a thread on this forum dedicated to extolling its virtues.

On the other hand I come across an "I hate Apple" thread at least once a month. People seem absolutely compelled to tell me what crap products Apple sells, and how I am a mindless drone of the Jobs collective for thinking otherwise. I mean, my local Jehovah's Witnesses show more perspective and restraint.

Seriously, I don't care what people think of Apple. I hardly care what I think of Apple. I have an iPhone and iPod Nano because they do the job well enough for me. I have an Apple travel router because it is compact, fairly solid and has rounded corners (whereas other brands are flimsy plastic boxes with external power bricks, external antenna and lots of fragile corners). I may even get an iPad because other tablets are simply not a compelling choice, and no, I don't want to debate what it's for. I know what I want to use it for.

So let it go already, because you're not fooling anyone. You are not being informed consumers; you are just being fanboys of another god.

 

You've never walked past the Apple shop in my city. Some guy told me how much better the iPhone was than my N97... yeah probably, considering your phone was made 2010/2011 and mine was 2008/2009, thats lifetimes in the techworld *shakes head*

We're allowed to rant Nexxo Don't make me bring the wooden shoes up.

Then why are you posting in this thread for arguments sake?

*coughs* actually... some of us are informed, not all of us, some of us. Plus my device is blue and louder than your idevice! >.<

 

I have.

Once. It was actually my own fault, though, I went to an Apple store opening with "I <3 MS" on my t-shirt. Still, it was fun to play with the Appleman.

 

So much rage in this thead over someone complaining that a free handout from Apple had to be acquired according to their rules.

 

Amen. Apple fanboy = Android fanboy = Windows fanboy. Who cares what hardware you use, as long as it does what the purchaser wants it to.

I personally accept Apple's limitations, and the system works for me.

 

It basically boils down to what your happy with, if you like having choices and not being tied down to the uniformity (as someone said earlier) then you will not like Apple.

I have used a macbook, ipod, and iphone, and they are incredibly slick smooth pieces of hardware, and i would gladly use those products, but I dnt like being restricted on the software side of things.

If a company could produce hardware with the smooth slickness of an Apple product and combine it with the freedom and software offered of android, then I would buy that ahead Apple or Android without hesistation.

(for the record I always hear people say to me in RL "why you go that? and not iphone, iphones are amazing", i ask "why?" and they reply "they just are", they cant explain to me why and they have never tried anything else, it does get tiring)

 

I couldn't have said it better.

iTunes is slow, restrictive, forces other bits of software on you (No apple I do not want safari every time you want to update iTunes!) it's stupidly slow at ripping, you cant customise how it organises your library and even if you tell it to leave your library alone it will occasionally just go organise it anyway. Several times it has told me my music can not be found but if I double click on the song its there. The complete unwillingness to support flac grates too.

I prefer media monkey but the wife loves the genius feature on the iPod.

Really? Show me a tablet with equivalent specification and build quality to the iPad which costs £400? Every tablet I have seen which has been described as potential 'iPad beater' has cost more.

 

Android phone and tablet user here, with XBMC on Apple TV, Windows desktop & laptop and Linux fileserver, while having NVIDIA card in main desktop and waiting for ATI to return from RMA to put it in my brothers PC.

I'm the nightmare of fanboys, LOL.

And back to topic - only if i could buy songs on iTunes, that would be awesome. But unfortunately, iTunes stops at the country i can see when looking out from my window here in Slovakia (namely Austria) :

 

I feel compelled to call you out on this point. I happen to be trying to decide atm between an iPad and an Android alternative.

You say the ipad is not worth the price for what you get, PLEASE show me what IS worth the price, in your opinion.
Every other Android powered tablet i can find is either much more expensive or not due for release for several months (at an unconfirmed price point - Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1)

I am at a loss as to what alternatives there are.

Please enlighten.

 

I think the point of this thread was about frustrations with itunes and yet it seems to have tapped into so many of our frustrations with other Apple products.

Don't get me wrong, I think a lot of apple products can be very good, a lot of not so computer literate people have said how if they actually want to get work done like Photoshop or music production, without having to know enough about PC's to keep them maintained, apple is the way to go.

I latched onto this thread because I saw so many opinions that I shared with a lot of the posts (hence probably one of the longest posts I've written), that usually people don't appreciate and was glad I wasn't the only one.

Different hardware is better suited for different purposes and if an Apple product suits yours better than another product then great, I stated my reasons why I wouldn't consider the Ipod for listening to music, some of which relates to the OP as my experience with Itunes would be a big factor for staying away.

Apple: more contraversial than Marmite

 

How about the Archos 101?
half the price of an ipad

 

Ib4 Media Monkey for ipod goodness : )

 

Music player

For playing music on the pc, I just use Foobar2k. I love it! Totally customisable. Not sure about the sync stuff and all, since I don't use any of it, ...but there are prolly plugins for it. It's lightweight, quick, relativly low on memory all depending on what you use / add ofc. And supports most if not all audio codecs. Only wished they had a nice visual like those that the ol' Steinberg music player had (which was my previous favourite player but they discontinued it.)

Also I occasionally use the Creative Music player/organiser.

 

.QUOTE. DA_Rude_Baboon
Really? Show me a tablet with equivalent specification and build quality to the iPad which costs £400? Every tablet I have seen which has been described as potential 'iPad beater' has cost more. .QUOTE.

well the thing is I don't think it is worth spending £400 for something that all you are going to do is sit on the sofa and browse the internet with. It needs to have many more uses than just that, and I can't think of anything. I would much prefer to spend my £400 on a media PC or laptop which I can use for many different things. What I am saying is tablets are useless they have no proper use.

 

The archos isn't even an official android device afaik, so you don't even get the android market on it. Its also not running 3.0. As a tablet goes, its one to avoid imo.

The honeycomb tablets are only just starting to come out, and I don't think any of them will be significantly cheaper than the iPad for quite a while. To be honest I think that the iPad is one of the more reasonably priced apple products - it's a lot of money, but no manufacturer has been able to significantly undercut it with a comparable product. I can't wait for the honeycomb tablet price wars to start. That's when the deals will start appearing

Please don't mistake me for an apple fan - I hate their software, and how righteous people with macbooks and iphones are. I live with two of them, and one won't have a single bad thing against apple (but then he's a fanboy for anything he owns - He even argues the case for Norton anti virus on his windows virtual machine because it was provided with VMware). I'll admit they make some nice hardware though - finding an equivalent/better 13" laptop is impossible . I just couldn't stand the shame of pulling out a macbook.

Despite what some people say about how unusable android is, I honestly prefer it to iOS. I've used iPhones a lot, and they are smoother, simpler, and don't go wrong. But you also can't do anything with them without jailbreaking, and your still limited then! With android they're much more open to messing around, customising... and everything really. Plus my £90 orange san francisco is much faster (note: not smoother) than my mates old 3G, which even second had, and 3 (?) years old is still 150% the price!

ooh, 900th post. 1K here i come

 

Retro, I sort of want one.

It's stupid how far we've come in the last 7 years or so.