I feel dirty

[bobv13]

I just purchased by very first apple product, a refurbished 32gb gen3 itouch for $219. I say I feel dirty because I hate the "I" fanboywagon. However I will wait no longer for other manufacturers to catch up. I want my toy and I want it now, I just hope my discussed for myself will be overtaken by fabulous eye-candy.. now where do I go to find out how to jailbreak this thing?

[tokenuser]

Originally Posted by bobv13

I just purchased by very first apple product, a refurbished 32gb gen3 itouch for $219. I say I feel dirty because I hate the "I" fanboywagon. However I will wait no longer for other manufacturers to catch up. I want my toy and I want it now, I just hope my discussed for myself will be overtaken by fabulous eye-candy.. now where do I go to find out how to jailbreak this thing?

You said a very important thing ...

"I will wait no longer for other manufacturers to catch up"

That is a very good reason in and of itself. Hate the iFans, hate Steve, but it's hard to hate a product that really is ahead of the curve. You will start to see that beyond the device itself, the whole iTunes infrastructure really is another point where apple got it right ... Not necessarily the iTunes software itself (and there are alternatives, but to be honest iTunes just works), but the app store as well. Other companies don't get that, and it has fragmented the android market too.

Don't fell dirty.

Welcome to the future

[Yes, typed from my iPad ]

Well, being a previous owner of a ipod touch, I feel I can comment on this subject. Like the OP, at the time, I was tired of waiting for the "rest" of the mp3/video players to come out with a touch pad, so I bought the ipod touch 2G. The hardware itself is second to none. My problem was with what tokenuser thinks is a plus...the Abominable iTunes! When I tried upgrading iTunes, it totally bonked my PC to an unusable state! I also didn't like that iTunes really wasn't that good at organizing my albums library. The songs themselves were either out of order or were duplicated. Most of the time, I would have to download the album cover art myself (Even WMP 11 does this job better!). And believe me, I don't blame you at all for wanting to jailbreak the Touch.

In my case, I went out and got a Zune HD. I love this thing! Sure, it doesn't have the apps that the ipod touch has (and probably never will.) But my albums are in order with the correct album art. If the apps are a big part of what you want, then you'll probably like the ipod Touch. I rather just rip my own CD's to the Zune and have "true sound" music instead of purchasing mp3's or AAC that iTunes uses anyway (that is if you purchase thru the iTunes store). To me, I didn't use but a few apps (such as internet radio that I can get HD radio with the Zune HD!) If you like the ipod touch, good, I hope you enjoy it and have no guilty feelings about it. In the end, that's all that really matters, what YOU like.

[tokenuser]

Read what I said again ... carefully.

iTunes is unfortunately both the desktop application name, and the backend infrastructure.

Personally, on both Windows XP and now under OSX (both using regular consumer releases, and prerelease developer releases), I have never had a problem with iTunes. Other peoples experience varies. BUT (big but) there are alternatives. To move things on/off my iPod touch and iPad under OSX I mount the devices using an app called Phone Disc. Under XP, I mounted it as a drive. Thats about as basic as it gets.

The other side of iTunes is the backend app store infrastructure. This goes beyond purchasing music. The app store is the big one. Apple got that right. The Zune and Android marketplaces have a lot of catching up to do to get close to the backend support that Apple have for their devices.

[phatlip]

I wasn't a fan of iTunes on the PC, but I have no problems with it on OS X. You can certainly rip a CD into iTunes as well. I'm not sure if you knew that or not (it sort of sounded like you didn't, I'm sorry if I misunderstood you).

Given my experience, most people don't use iTunes to it's full potential. I never had an issue with iTunes getting my album art, but if it can't find it, it's very easily to get it yourself. Just find the album online and drag the image into iTunes. Done deal. Smart playlists is another nice way of keeping your music organized.

Above all, it's nice having an iTunes app for the iPod Touch/iPhone. It's really nice that you can hear a song on the radio or Pandora, and buy the same song all on the same device.

The Zune is a really nice device. I would recommend it to anyone who wasn't interested in getting an iPod Touch. But the iPod is still the better device IMO. I do like how the Zune store offers subscriptions though. I wish iTunes would implement this feature (but still allow for users to actually buy songs). I REALLY like the idea of iTunes subscriptions for video content. That would be sweet.

[davmoo]

I'm rather meh on iTunes (the app, not the store). I've never had problems with it hosing my machine or anything, but at times it is rather stupid...insisting it can't find a file it just found 2 minutes before and crap like that.

But the iPod itself is second to none. I hate fanboys, and I think Steve Jobs is the Fidel Castro of the computer world. But they got their mp3 player right.

And when combined with the XM radio Skydock, its absolute heaven in the car.

[bobv13]

I'm thinking of creating a new user on my PC just for iTunes. I hope that way itunes will not interfear with my current desktop and gum things up.

one more thing, can itunes be loaded on a linux system?

[tokenuser]

I have heard of earlier version of iTunes (7.x for Windows) running under WINE in Ubuntu. Not sure how that would go with newer versions though.

Native Linux support via gtkpod (and similar) is fine for regular iPods, but needs a jailbroken iPod touch or iPhone.

A cloud based iTunes interface is coming, which should make everything iTunes (desktop app) independent, and run through a regular browser (might be restricted to a Webkit based browser such as Safari and Opera) ... but it hasn't been released yet.

For now, it might be worthwhile trying the WINE option and see if it works with the current iTunes release.

Originally Posted by phatlip

I wasn't a fan of iTunes on the PC, but I have no problems with it on OS X. You can certainly rip a CD into iTunes as well. I'm not sure if you knew that or not (it sort of sounded like you didn't, I'm sorry if I misunderstood you).

Yes, you did indeed misunderstand what I was trying to point out. Of course I know you can rip CD's in iTunes. I'm also sure if you are on OS X, you won't have any problems at all. I know from my own experience and some other people I know have had problems with iTunes software on Window's PC's. What I was pointing out is that the strong suite of Apple is it's App store (beside the ipod Touch player itself). It seems the majority that like the App store use it to buy their actual music and videos. (Yeah, I know, the Zune has one too, but I don't buy my music or videos from them either. I'm also aware the iTunes app store has other things as well). For me, the apps aren't that important. I just want my songs and videos to play in the right order and cover art. I just want my player to be able to play songs and a few videos with a touch surface, that's it. Again, that's just me. If you want apps, by all means, get a ipod touch.

[bobv13]

It's arrived and sitting at my frount door, so says FedEx, let the fun begin