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The future of streaming isn't all warm and fuzzy feelings...

2K views 54 replies 16 participants last post by  torndownunit 
#1 ·
#6 · (Edited)
I have to find it, but there was a really good followup blog about this making the rounds saying this guy more likely screwed up his settings. Which I know is very common with iTunes. The apple music match settings are kind of unintuitive but this was still likely user error. I will see if I can find the article.

I use iTunes (I still use old ipod shuffles at the gym) but I don't let it manage my library in any way. And I always have backups running daily. While I don't think iTunes is great software by any means, people not understanding it's settings, especially library setting, leads to a ton of problems. You can just tell it not to organize your music. As a podcast application and music player I don't mind it. All the other bloat sucks.
 
#8 ·
On the other hand, listening to music should not require reading an instruction manual. Granted, making music necessarily involves technology, even if that technology is as simple as remembering to flick the standby switch. But all of that is oriented towards providing a simple pleasurable experience for the listener. Once you have to start remembering "settings", the listener experience is pretty much over.
 
#14 ·
There is a logic behind it how these programs work. But I just plain don't trust these 'match' services. Whether it's Google or Apple the technology still seems in it's infancy and it messes up. The idea is pretty cool, that you can subscribe to the service, but have it match songs on their cloud so that you can have access to all your music, but without having to have your library on a device. And, it will replace your old crappy mp3's with higher quality tracks in the cloud. All of that sounds cool. But, it's just not working well yet. My friend has Apple Music and it screws up matching songs constantly. It can't differentiate between demos/rare/live tracks and the studio versions is a well known issue.

RE Zontar's comment, it's not just music you should back up. My computer is running a full backup daily. If it's digital and on a drive, it can get corrupted or get lost.
 
#15 ·
I am so glad I have no use for Apple products in any form.................except for the kind that grows on trees and you eat.
 
#23 ·
I think that the only reason the cloud exists is that some marketing troll working for apple or google or some such said, "This is what the people will have, make it so.". and never asked the populace.
I don't have VLC on any of the laptops or computers.....I use the windows media player that came with them. On some, like this one, I also have apple quick time player to play the vids from the cell phones and I guess tablets until I convert them. Some of the windows media players I have don't seem to want to play mp4s. A couple of the laptops won't load qtp. I had to look up vlc. I'll convert and use Windows Media.
Most of the photos from my phone get deleted. For the ones that I save, like anything of the grand daughters and other family. I usb connect the phone to the computer and down load them...then delete them from the phone. The important ones I print. They go into albums. At the grand daughters insistence I put spotify (the non subscription version) on the play station.
The only time my phone gets connected to the net is when there is a wifi connection handy. That only happens once in a blue moon. To use up my monthly data I will use my phone as a hot spot for my tablet around the last few days of the billing period. If I am in an area where there is a connection to my server.
You can have bluetooth in a car? Why? The wife's car has a usb in for the "sound system". You can download a hell of a lot of music to a flash drive.
For everything I have the automatic setting is disabled. No automatic updates, back ups, downloads etc.....except for the google tablets.
 
#24 · (Edited)
Again not questioning the validity of how you use your devices. Only saying you and I aren't the average user nowadays. Cl0ud software is the norm (and has produced some amazing software), cloud services are the norm. Anyone younger than me is growing up using them, and they are only going to be more prevalent.

My only comment is you really should try VLC. Converting videos when a lightweight simple media player like VLC exists just isn't needed. VLC has been the standard for playing video on all platforms for a solid 10 years at this point. It exists because Windows Media Player and the Windows media codec are absolutely horrible. Which is why no device uses Windows Media codec for storing files anymore. Heck, don't use VLC. Use one of the dozen other free media players that has replaced Windows Media at this point. They all literally will play any codec thrown at them, even all Windows Media codecs. It's not some new technology, Windows Media player is just god awful so better players were built years ago.

And Bluetooth for the car? Again, everyone's media player is their phone nowadays. And they are connecting the phone to play media, use hands free while driving, using Google Now, using Google or Apple Maps, using voice to text. I mean do you seriously have to ask why? I can't really tell if you are serious when you ask that. It's how people want it, and it's how people use their devices. It's not how I do, but I am 40. And I have a aging car that I can't do any of this in even if I wanted to lol. It's nothing anyone needs to really answer 'why' to.


EDIT: just one other point about cloud services. A lot of people nowadays don't want to own physical media. I absolutely hate DVD's and BluRays. I hate owning them, I hate storing them. I would rather use Netflix and video on demand. And I go the movies. I don't want to own seasons of TV shows. I'll watch them on Crave TV. And I don't have room to store my CD and record collection in my small apartment. I use Spotify mainly. Podcasts are absolutely awesome.
 
#31 ·
You paint a pretty wide swath with that "everyone/everybody". Possibly the people you know....there are people on the forum who are around my age (and quite a few people I know) that don't even own a cell phone. Plus there are a hell of a lot of vehicles on the road that don't have a "radio" with bluetooth. I ask why because I can't see the point of it. Do you actually have to have a cell phone/whatever grafted to you hand to get by. I had to look up google now. Is that one of those programs that talks to you? Google maps....I just checked it again on my phone. It tells me that the house is in the same place it always has been, about a mile from where it actually is. Most of the people I know who drive for a living don't use google maps. I shudder to think about voice to text. Sounds like it would be good for the deaf and blind but that's about it.
Your generation and those younger that you know might think that all these things are important but people I know don't. That includes people who are your age and younger.
I tried netflix free. To me there was nothing worth watching and it was not worth paying for. If I want to watch a movie I'll put in a dvd or a vhs tape. Or, if there is something both of us want to see that's just out, we'll go to the movies.
Nah, I'll keep on going the way I've been going for the last 66 years....without all the new stuff.
 
#30 ·
Well, I guess I'm just an old fart, knowing and using things that have worked with me for years and still work quite nicely. Bluetooth. Only one of my laptops has built in bluetooth. Another one has a usb plug in. 99% of the time I plug the phone into any of my laptops and download pics and vids etc. FOR ME, it's faster. Then I either convert the vids or usually run them thru the editing program which will work with any of the vid formats I get from the phones and any other "cameras" I have. That includes plugging the cables from my Palmcorder....tape....into the adapter that takes RCA plugs. Then a lot of the times I edit the videos.
As far as vlc goes, it will not work on any program older than XP and when I tried to download it on the XP laptop I use for a lot of my editing I was told I needed to download 2 kernels for it to work. So much for that. On the iMac that runs Snow Leopard it sort of works but I don't use the iMac much.
 
#35 ·
Well, it does run on XP. I used to use it on XP. You can also download an older version, if you didn't want to install kernal files. It works very well on Snow Leopard because my MacBook runs snow Leopard. VLC's strengths are that it's so lightweight, plays every codec out there, and that it runs on practically every OS.
 
#47 ·
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i gigged with one of those as my amp head for months, it even caught fire twice! but lemme tell ya - i don't care what anyone says about marshall this or whatever. believe it or don't, the sound i got out of it was loud, and it frickin rocked. people always laughed when they saw it. but when they heard it, they couldn't believe their ears, and thought it was some kinda trick. it was british steel all day long, but was completely ghetto in appearance.
 
#49 ·
TL: DR

Back up as often as possible, to more than one area. I have an external HD I still need to set up. Not a lot of stuff on my laptop (and two dead phones) but I might as well. I don't know what my dropbox storage is at, but I wouldn't be mad about using that to backup phone photos.
 
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