Do you think iTunes is bloated?

[kirkmc]

My guess is that some of you use iTunes. Since I've seen this comment, that iTunes is bloated, in a number of forums, I want to look into this and write a Macworld article about it.

I'd appreciate if anyone who has anything to say about this would drop by my blog and post a comment saying why they think this is the case:

http://www.mcelhearn.com/2010/06/08/do- ... s-bloated/

Comments on my blog, please, would make it easier for me to collate all of this.

Thanks!

[ross]

Yes, it's hugely bloated. Compare with, say, Winamp 2.0, which contains all the features I want in an mp3 player. It's not that iTunes has a lot of features I don't use, it's that (a) these features slow down the application (e.g. gapless playback, which if I don't disable prevents iTunes from even loading my mp3 library in less than days), (b) all of that complexity hides or removes features that I do want (e.g. have a randomly-sorted playlist, jump to a particular song quickly, play that song, then continue in the playlist. I can do that in Winamp 2.0, but I don't know how to do that in iTunes, if it's even possible), (c) the excess features require a lot of RAM, making the application slow to start up (Winamp, even on a 486, started pretty much instantly) and constantly swapping (my Mac Mini, which I use as a media center computer, has only 512mb of RAM—more than enough for a lightweight mp3 player similar to Winamp, or even mpd, which is what I actually use, but iTunes is completely unusable unless it's the only thing running).

I hate iTunes with a passion. I have very few requirements for an mp3 player, and iTunes manages to not only fail at most of them, but is also "bloated" in the ways I've described above. It is one of the most useless applications on my Mac.

Apologies in advance for responding here rather than on your blog, but I think it's an interesting enough topic to discuss here even if it's more difficult for you to collate all the responses.

[kirkmc]

Yes, it's hugely bloated. Compare with, say, Winamp 2.0, which contains all the features I want in an mp3 player. It's not that iTunes has a lot of features I don't use, it's that (a) these features slow down the application (e.g. gapless playback, which if I don't disable prevents iTunes from even loading my mp3 library in less than days), (b) all of that complexity hides or removes features that I do want (e.g. have a randomly-sorted playlist, jump to a particular song quickly, play that song, then continue in the playlist. I can do that in Winamp 2.0, but I don't know how to do that in iTunes, if it's even possible), (c) the excess features require a lot of RAM, making the application slow to start up (Winamp, even on a 486, started pretty much instantly) and constantly swapping (my Mac Mini, which I use as a media center computer, has only 512mb of RAM—more than enough for a lightweight mp3 player similar to Winamp, or even mpd, which is what I actually use, but iTunes is completely unusable unless it's the only thing running).

I hate iTunes with a passion. I have very few requirements for an mp3 player, and iTunes manages to not only fail at most of them, but is also "bloated" in the ways I've described above. It is one of the most useless applications on my Mac.

Hmm, where to begin...

First, you can't "disable" gapless playback, so I don't know what you mean there.

Second, if it has features you don't want, they don't slow things down.

Your playlist question: select the playlist, type the name of a song in the Search box, double-click it, then click the X in the search box.

Application slow to start up? Now that's the first time I've heard that on a Mac. You say you have only 512 MB RAM; that must be an old Mac mini, and you have way too little RAM. So don't blame iTunes for that. I have a Mac mini with 4 GB RAM, and library of 55K tracks, and it takes maybe 10 seconds to start up and load the library. I'm guessing that what happens is your lack of RAM means that the OS has to create swap files which is slowing startup. I really think your problems are RAM-related; also, how fast is your Mac mini's processor; if it has that little RAM it must be pretty old.

[kirkmc]

Application slow to start up? Now that's the first time I've heard that on a Mac. You say you have only 512 MB RAM; that must be an old Mac mini, and you have way too little RAM. So don't blame iTunes for that. I have a Mac mini with 4 GB RAM, and library of 55K tracks, and it takes maybe 10 seconds to start up and load the library. I'm guessing that what happens is your lack of RAM means that the OS has to create swap files which is slowing startup. I really think your problems are RAM-related; also, how fast is your Mac mini's processor; if it has that little RAM it must be pretty old.

Well, it is in the nature of bloated software to make heavy demands on the hardware.

I'm thinking here it's more a question of hardware that's too old to keep up with the software.

[oren]

I'm thinking here it's more a question of hardware that's too old to keep up with the software.

By this definition nothing can ever be bloated.

[kirkmc]

I'm thinking here it's more a question of hardware that's too old to keep up with the software.

By this definition nothing can ever be bloated.

No, but if the hardware is a few generations old, given what computers have taken on in recent years, then it won't keep up. We no longer need to worry much about processor speed, but RAM can be an issue. I couldn't conceive of using a computer with 512 MB of RAM today. (OK, maybe with some Linux distributions that are designed for low RAM needs...)

[Marcus]

I'm thinking here it's more a question of hardware that's too old to keep up with the software.

By this definition nothing can ever be bloated.

No, but if the hardware is a few generations old, given what computers have taken on in recent years, then it won't keep up. We no longer need to worry much about processor speed, but RAM can be an issue. I couldn't conceive of using a computer with 512 MB of RAM today. (OK, maybe with some Linux distributions that are designed for low RAM needs...)

Interesting ... I used 256M RAM on my WinXP box up until a year ago (now using 1G, which is more than I ever need, I think). I had no problems with any of my software, though I admit I tend to use small apps more than anything else, and am not a photographer or animator.

That being said, I always prefered Winamp to iTunes on that box, because it did everything I needed and was faster, not to mention less intrusive-feeling to my PC. The only reason I upgraded the RAM was because the sticks were free.

[Suji]

I'm running Windows 7 with 4 gig of RAM and Itunes still takes several seconds to start up. I personally feel that Itunes is the best mp3 player out there, so I can't really complain about it taking forever.

[ross]

First, you can't "disable" gapless playback, so I don't know what you mean there.

See, for example:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=60679

The "disabling" bit is by "clicking the little X in the song title/status thing on top".

Second, if it has features you don't want, they don't slow things down.

I specifically gave an example of how gapless playback computation slows down the application. Do you not believe me? I can take a video of it if you persist in your disbelief.

Your playlist question: select the playlist, type the name of a song in the Search box, double-click it, then click the X in the search box.

How do you randomly sort the playlist, though?

Application slow to start up? Now that's the first time I've heard that on a Mac. You say you have only 512 MB RAM; that must be an old Mac mini, and you have way too little RAM. So don't blame iTunes for that. I have a Mac mini with 4 GB RAM, and library of 55K tracks, and it takes maybe 10 seconds to start up and load the library.

Why not blame iTunes when other programs perform so much better? Winamp could start up and load thousands of tracks in well under 10 seconds (which I consider abominally slow). I just tested mpd and it starts up in less than a second with my library of ~4k songs. Other "just-an-mp3-player" programs start up in a similar amount of time. So there's no reason why an mp3 player can't perform perfectly well on 512mb of RAM.

I'm guessing that what happens is your lack of RAM means that the OS has to create swap files which is slowing startup.

Obviously that's what's happening--I mentioned it specifically in my point (c). But that's pretty much the definition of bloated software--it takes a lot of RAM to run, so you may not see any issues on the newest hardware out there, but if you try to run the program on a computer that's several years old, it's constantly swapping and unusable. If programs with a similar niche or featureset are able to run in considerably less RAM (as other mp3 players are), then your software is bloated. The fact that it happens to run smoothly if you feed it enough resources is irrelevant.

[daal]

I'm thinking here it's more a question of hardware that's too old to keep up with the software.

By this definition nothing can ever be bloated.

No, but if the hardware is a few generations old, given what computers have taken on in recent years, then it won't keep up. We no longer need to worry much about processor speed, but RAM can be an issue. I couldn't conceive of using a computer with 512 MB of RAM today. (OK, maybe with some Linux distributions that are designed for low RAM needs...)

Sounds like bloating to me. I've been a hater of itunes since it re-organized my music files without asking, so I removed it from my computer a few years ago, but even then I found it on the whole irritating. So irritating in fact that I'm happy years later to get the chance to diss it. I admit, I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to figuring out software features, and by my scale upwards of 90% of all software is bloated, so anything that causes my 6 year old laptop pains or crankiness gets deleted. Sorry for not really contributing, but you probably know what you want to write already anyway.

[ross]

Sounds like bloating to me. I've been a hater of itunes since it re-organized my music files without asking, so I removed it from my computer a few years ago, but even then I found it on the whole irritating.

Oh yeah, I forgot about iTunes' default behavior of copying your mp3s to its own Library. That's certainly another unwanted feature that slows things down as compared to other mp3 players. It may be a feature that some people want, but for me it's just bloat.

[kirkmc]

First, you can't "disable" gapless playback, so I don't know what you mean there.

See, for example:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=60679

The "disabling" bit is by "clicking the little X in the song title/status thing on top".

Second, if it has features you don't want, they don't slow things down.

I specifically gave an example of how gapless playback computation slows down the application. Do you not believe me? I can take a video of it if you persist in your disbelief.

Your playlist question: select the playlist, type the name of a song in the Search box, double-click it, then click the X in the search box.

How do you randomly sort the playlist, though?

Application slow to start up? Now that's the first time I've heard that on a Mac. You say you have only 512 MB RAM; that must be an old Mac mini, and you have way too little RAM. So don't blame iTunes for that. I have a Mac mini with 4 GB RAM, and library of 55K tracks, and it takes maybe 10 seconds to start up and load the library.

Why not blame iTunes when other programs perform so much better? Winamp could start up and load thousands of tracks in well under 10 seconds (which I consider abominally slow). I just tested mpd and it starts up in less than a second with my library of ~4k songs. Other "just-an-mp3-player" programs start up in a similar amount of time. So there's no reason why an mp3 player can't perform perfectly well on 512mb of RAM.

I'm guessing that what happens is your lack of RAM means that the OS has to create swap files which is slowing startup.

Obviously that's what's happening--I mentioned it specifically in my point (c). But that's pretty much the definition of bloated software--it takes a lot of RAM to run, so you may not see any issues on the newest hardware out there, but if you try to run the program on a computer that's several years old, it's constantly swapping and unusable. If programs with a similar niche or featureset are able to run in considerably less RAM (as other mp3 players are), then your software is bloated. The fact that it happens to run smoothly if you feed it enough resources is irrelevant.

I'm going to answer all at the bottom; it's easier than inserting quotes.

For the gapless thing, that doesn't disable anything; it just stops iTunes from analyzing the files that time. If you just let it analyze them and get to the end, it won't do it again. You're just wasting time by stopping it each time. After that, it will only analyze new files as you add them. Once it's finished, it won't slow things down again.

To randomly sort a playlist, click the Shuffle button; the one with the two crossed arrows.

You're talking about Winamp, a Windows program, but you're saying you use a Mac. I have 55K tracks, and iTunes starts up for me in about ten seconds. The OS is using most of your RAM, so it's probably paging when you launch iTunes.

I don't see how your not having enough RAM for the OS means that one application is bloated. If you added more RAM, it'd probably run faster. Or you could have just not updated the program, knowing that you had little RAM and that newer versions were likely to run slowly.

But, seriously, let iTunes do the gapless analyzing once, and it won't bother you again.

[kirkmc]

Sounds like bloating to me. I've been a hater of itunes since it re-organized my music files without asking, so I removed it from my computer a few years ago, but even then I found it on the whole irritating.

Oh yeah, I forgot about iTunes' default behavior of copying your mp3s to its own Library. That's certainly another unwanted feature that slows things down as compared to other mp3 players. It may be a feature that some people want, but for me it's just bloat.

That's an option you can turn off in the Advanced preferences. I don't see how an option like that is "bloat."

[kirkmc]

Sounds like bloating to me. I've been a hater of itunes since it re-organized my music files without asking, so I removed it from my computer a few years ago, but even then I found it on the whole irritating. So irritating in fact that I'm happy years later to get the chance to diss it. I admit, I'm not the sharpest knive in the drawer when it comes to figuring out software features, and by my scale upwards of 90% of all software is bloated, so anything that causes my 6 year old laptop pains or crankiness gets deleted. Sorry for not really contributing, but you probably know what you want to write already anyway.

Again, the file organization is an option that you can turn off. If you had checked the program's help you would have found that.

I don't know what I want to write; at least, I don't know what reasons people have for saying the program is bloated. If it's simply that they don't understand it - such as the gapless thing, or the file copying thing - that has nothing to do with some mythical "bloat" but rather with users not bothering to find out what the program is doing and how to change what they don't want.

I'm not saying that it's a simple program; much of my work involves my getting paid to tell others how software works. But the help files are pretty good, and there are lots of tutorials on the web. In my research on this subject, I've been confronted with quite a few examples of things that people don't like that they could easily change, but don't, because they don't bother to look in the help.

[ross]

I don't know what I want to write; at least, I don't know what reasons people have for saying the program is bloated. If it's simply that they don't understand it - such as the gapless thing, or the file copying thing - that has nothing to do with some mythical "bloat" but rather with users not bothering to find out what the program is doing and how to change what they don't want.

I don't know what to write either. You've said, "if you don’t use certain features, why would they bother you?" and several people--including myself--have given concrete examples of why they bothered us. The fact that the features can be disabled or changed or modified doesn't alter the fact that they bother us. It seems like you're not validating our experiences.

Likewise, you've said, "if it has features you don't want, they don't slow things down." I've given you several examples of features slowing things down. The fact that you can disable those features or the fact that they only run once or the fact that if you have 4gb of RAM then the slowdown isn't noticeable doesn't change the fact that these examples directly contradict your statement.

All in all, I'd say your mind has already been made up--you're not interested in understanding why people think iTunes is bloated, you're interested in countering complaints with ad hoc explanations of why those things aren't so bad. As a software developer, I've found this sort of attitude to be endemic in the field. When users complain about some piece of software being difficult to use, even if hundreds of users have the same complaint, the developer's reaction is always, "Oh, that's in the help file," or "Oh, you're using it wrong," rather than admit their software has a flaw. That's not the way to produce quality software.