iTunes is frustratingly sh@te, most will agree, especially if you use it. Is there however, an altenative that will work on our Mac’s and iPhones?

Please help!

Plenty of other music players out there. But if you want to interact with Apple, using your laptop or desktop to manage your iPhone, then iTunes it is, as far as I know.

iTunes used to be very easy and intuitive to use. It was then given a big overhaul, I can’t remember which version, and it then became frustrating. It started from scratch and simple functions were removed, it was developed to suit only the very latest devices. I complained to Apple and kept pressing the issue, they did respond positively and put up support documents on the Apple website with how to find all of the old functions.

iTunes is frustratingly sh@te, most will agree

Not really sure about that. I use it to manage and play my music collection and sync to iDevices and it’s just fine.

Find album, play album. Make playlist, sync to device, easy. 😉

Edit: in fact I’m even using it at work! Not that that helps your problem though, I’m on PC so don’t know of any good alternatives 😕

no, it’s shite.

mediamonkey seemed to do half-decent job of looking-like old itunes, but then it started asking me for money…

Spotify and Pandora

Never have to limit myself to the music I own, heard so much more enjoyed a lot of new and old music with it.

Spotify premium, and the spotify app on your phone.

Haven’t touched itunes in maybe a year now? haven’t synced my iphone either. Doesn’t seem to make any difference to it.

I find iTunes perfectly easy to use, but then all I want to do is rip the music I own on CD and airplay it somewhere in the house or load it onto my phone to listen to elsewhere.

I must get round to Spotify, but I’m too busy being old school and buying music from the world’s greatest record shop.

Maybe I should have started a thread ” Apple, whats wrong with you?” Music appears to be there but won’t play. Tracks just plain disappear, then come back a few days later! We’ve been banging our heads against a wall for months now, and getting nowhere.

Please Apple, listen to the masses.

Can you put your own music on Spotify?

99% of your music is on spotify, the desktop player also plays your own music. Not sure about the mobile one

Can you put your own music on Spotify?

No. You just stream the music you want to listen to (including anything you might already have bought). Norma;l spotify is free, is lower quality and has adverts. Or you can pay for the Premium service.

Give MediaMonkey a whirl. It’s free, although there is a ‘premium version’ that you can pay for.

I think you have to use the paid version to RIP CDs to MP3, although the free version will give you a limited number of RIPs.

I just use Windows Media Player for plonking CDs onto the laptop. Works fine and is very easy to use.

mikewsmith – Member

Spotify and Pandora

Never have to limit myself to the music I own, heard so much more enjoyed a lot of new and old music with it.

emsz – Member

Spotify premium, and the spotify app on your phone.

Haven’t touched itunes in maybe a year now? haven’t synced my iphone either. Doesn’t seem to make any difference to it.

Is this not the answer to a different question?

Not really, owning your own music may not be the real solution.
Best thing I learnt over the years is come up with the best solution not just answer the question.

I don’t know if you can put your own music on it, but it does look at what’s on your laptop already, mine calls it Local music or something.

iTunes has always worked fine for me, but I agree that the latest incarnations have looked a bit rubbish. For simple management of music and video and synching devices though, I don’t really have any issues.

I got ride of my iphone because of itunes.

Spotify premium now, can download what I like to my phone and the mobile and desk top apps just do what they’re meant to do without trying to flog you some “ecosystem” pish to run your life.

mikewsmith – Member

Not really, owning your own music may not be the real solution.
Best thing I learnt over the years is come up with the best solution not just answer the question.

But it’s likely that the OP already owns some music; hence his OP. For this, Spotify probably isn’t the best solution. It’s an alternative.

I use Spotify but also listen to my own music that is stored on my phone (or tablet/laptop)….sometimes you know exactly what you want to listen to and it’s easier to just go to that album and listen to it from your stored stuff. Or you have sporadic data signal, or you have used your data allowance for the month…..

Blimey, I think there is actually no viable alternative to iTunes! (for us anyway). That’s quite frightening.

andy8442 – Member
iTunes is frustratingly sh@te, most will agree, especially if you use it. Is there however, an altenative that will work on our Mac’s and iPhones?

Please help!
Some recent changes have certainly made it a bit less intuitive, but shite it isn’t; I use it regularly, to rip stuff, update my phone and add or remove tracks from it and my iPod, and I’ve now sussed out the various changes, and they work very well. One thing that was removed still annoys me, though; the facility to have two windows opens simultaneously, which made it easy to add tracks to my phone without duplicating any, as I could easily see everything on the device.
I really can’t understand the rationale for removing that facility, or why it hasn’t been reinstated, but I’ve got workarounds and I don’t have any real gripes with it.
I’m managing somewhere around 200Gb of music, with more being added all the time.

Is there no Google Play Music app available?