I still have no idea how anyone used an iPod as their daily mp3 player, or anything that uses iTunes. The Zune player and software were so far superior, it only lost because of marketing.
In what way? At the time I used an iPod nano. A zune is enormous by comparison. People may not like iTunes, but I never had a problem with it. It is highly advanced in ways that people don't even realize. I could download a podcast in iTunes, start listening. Then sync to iPod and it would continue listening from where I left off on the desktop. This also worked in reverse.
So the Zune had its first generation 30 GB unit which was to compete with the iPod Classic, and then they released smaller units that were about the same size as the Nano, and the Zune HD was about the same size as the Touch. That's all fine and dandy. The iTunes software, other than your one podcast trick, was so far inferior to Zune software that it was not funny. It could make my computer, which was able to run Crysis, lock up. It would not update its listings on its own, so if I got new music from outside the iTunes store(which was basically always) I would have to tell it to manually update its listings, and then it would not take away any songs or videos I had since deleted. Perhaps the Zune's best trick, though, was that it would convert any wmv, mp4, or avi file to work on your Zune automatically, this was built into the software and the resulting file could be cleaned out the next time you ran disc cleanup. It kept even old 30 gig Zunes that could only natively play wmvs usable as internet video began to swing toward mp4. Zune also had wireless sync between the software and your player a long time before even iPhones could do that.
I never had any of those problems with iTunes. Your problem is that you were trying to make iTunes work the way you wanted rather than changing yourself to work the way iTunes expected.
You were managing your music on the file system level. iTunes is designed as such to where it hides the file system from you, so you don't need to worry about that. If you get new music, don't drag it to a folder. Drag it into iTunes itself. Then iTunes will put it in the correct place.
Also, nobody was playing videos on any iPod that I knew. I didn't do that until the iPhone 3G. And it supported H.264 MP4 natively, so no conversion was necessary since that's the format everyone uses for everything. I only had to encode for the iPhone when using Handbrake to rip DVDs, but I doubt Zune software would rip an encrypted DVD for you.
Nowadays none of this matters because an iPhone or an iPod touch doesn't need iTunes. They can stand on their own without needing to connect to a PC, unless you need to restore or something.
There was never anything anywhere to tell you to do that. Zune asked you what directories you wanted to watch, and then watched them. I had a massive commute and you had your phone when I was using my Zine for video. It made a lot of sense at the time.
Sounds like the iPad Pro is an unimaginatively trying to compete with the Microsoft Surface Pro.
I agree with Hitman Hart, iTunes was and is a steaming pile of shit. Zune software worked way better (I never bought one because I was already using smart phones before the iPhone existed). Also my one and only iPod was such a pain in the ass to use constantly having to connect and disconnect it, I could also play movies on it however you needed to convert most normal formats. Zune got buried under generic media dumb asses not knowing anything outside of Apple products. It was dead as a result.
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You were managing your music on the file system level. iTunes is designed as such to where it hides the file system from you, so you don't need to worry about that. If you get new music, don't drag it to a folder. Drag it into iTunes itself. Then iTunes will put it in the correct place.
Also, nobody was playing videos on any iPod that I knew. I didn't do that until the iPhone 3G. And it supported H.264 MP4 natively, so no conversion was necessary since that's the format everyone uses for everything. I only had to encode for the iPhone when using Handbrake to rip DVDs, but I doubt Zune software would rip an encrypted DVD for you.
Nowadays none of this matters because an iPhone or an iPod touch doesn't need iTunes. They can stand on their own without needing to connect to a PC, unless you need to restore or something.
I agree with Hitman Hart, iTunes was and is a steaming pile of shit. Zune software worked way better (I never bought one because I was already using smart phones before the iPhone existed).
Also my one and only iPod was such a pain in the ass to use constantly having to connect and disconnect it, I could also play movies on it however you needed to convert most normal formats.
Zune got buried under generic media dumb asses not knowing anything outside of Apple products. It was dead as a result.