What sort of drones are designing the Windows software strategy at Apple? iTunes on Windows is a whole hunk of messy software. It runs slowly, it freezes and worse, it's not very good at keeping its house in order.
I've now been told on three separate occasions that one of my iPod directory files is corrupt and as a result my iPod now doesn't update. Explanation/instructions - "please run the chkdsk utility".Who exactly thought that asking users to run a boot-utility is the correct error message and why on earth hadn't it backed up sensitive files in the first place?
Not to despair though - there's *yet another* iTunes update available. Only a 33Mb download. 33Mb? Who on earth are they kidding. Most people won't bother with an incremental update and my delicate wireless connection won't even make it through the time it takes for a 33Mb download.
Get it together Apple. Stop letting marketing-monkeys write your software and stop erroding your brand. Give use software that works. If you don't then you will eventually see your users turn into someone elses users. iPod Ubuntu anyone?
3 comments:
I do provide tech support for my gal. She runs iTunes on Windows without a problem. Must be that cutting edge dev environment of yours.
Before blaming the software, one must verify all other aspects of the interaction between the software and the hardware. That's why iTunes asks the user to run chkdsk. If chkdsk doesn't find any errors, I suggest re-installing iTunes. If iTunes still doesn't work, I would check an iTunes compatibility list to see if there are issues with running iTunes on certain P.C.s made by particular manufacturers.
It is however the culmination of a succession of small irritating problems I have with both iTunes and the software on the iPod itself. I'm also put on my guard by the fact that I don't get any chkdsk errors with any other files in any other applications (despite hammering everything else for 12 hours a day).
More than anything though I'm irritated by being asked to download a 33Mb update. ITunes does not do anything particularly dramatic and I'm not pleased that a development strategy which is becoming too marketing lead is distracting from one of the core attractions of Apple software which is its useability and reliablity.
I can't use something I can't download and were I a dialup customer (like my parents and a large remaining sector of the population) there is statistically no way that I'm going to end up with that software on my computer. Even if I tried, 33Mb is going to take around 1.5hrs to download (assuming optimistically that the connection's not terminated) which at 10p/min could cost a user £9.
I know that there are download managers and I know there are flat rate dialup accounts (though these are hopelessly liberal with their 'inactivity' terminations) but there are still lots of people on pay-per-minute.
£9 is hardly a bargain for something that's already on your computer in the form of Windows media player (which of course you can't sync with your iPod) and whose core functionality could be written in a few hundred Kb of actionscript.