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iDriveX · Jan 20, 2003, 07:06 AM

I've been able to test final versions of both iPhoto 2 and iMovie 3 for the past few days and love them. But I'm not here to tell you about them at all. What's I'm here to tell you about is what everyone is going to be up in arms about come Saturday: iTunes integration into iMovie and iPhoto.

Steve made it seem, on stage, that as long as you had music, iTunes, and an iTunes Music Library file, you'd have integration into iPhoto and iMovie. That is wrong. There's a fourth variable to the equation: The iTunes Preference "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized". This must be turned on for integration to work. If you have your own way of organizing music, you will give up the integration aspect of iLife and have no way to select any music, except for the music that Apple provides inside the applications.

Why did Apple do this? It's Apple's part to prevent piracy, IMO. If you have music from a CD and only music from CDs put into iTunes, Apple's organizational scheme would be very exceptable to you. But if you are just downloading singles off of Napster all day long, you wouldn't like Apple's organizational scheme much and it would make things very inconvenient for you. What Apple has neglected to think about are the people that take the best songs off of CDs and organize the music in a way they want to, like myself. To have iTunes reorganize my favorites on my hard drive leaves much to be desired. That is why the preference is "pre-checked" for you when you first install iTunes, because if you leave it with the factory settings, iLife integration will work as described.

So bottom line, for those of you who know what you are doing, and like to organize your music on your hard drive in a way you see fitting, unless you decide to give into Apple's organizational patterns, you won't see any integration between the iApps when it comes to music.

willed · Jan 20, 2003, 07:20 AM

Personally I find iTunes' organisation convenient for my needs, but I can see this would be an annoyance. Don't really see why Apple did this.

IEEE1394 · Jan 20, 2003, 07:37 AM

I don't know why you wouldn't want iTunes to organise your music. Having it put everything into Artist/Album directories based on ID3 tags is very convenient.

iDriveX · Jan 20, 2003, 07:57 AM

For as many people that like this, there are that many people that hate this.

It's the same thing with Themes. Apple wants you to use Aqua and Brushed Metal. They do as much as they can to make sure you see what they want you to see. And some people don't like this. I love Brushed Metal, I don't know why everyone doesn't love brushed metal. I guess it's in the eye of the beholder.

Marook · Jan 20, 2003, 08:15 AM

Personally, I can think of no reason for not using this feature i iTunes. Ones the file is in your library, why not keep it organiced? Ones iTunes looses the 'connection' to the file, you will Hate yourself for not having it put in the artist/album order.

Remember that this does only apply to files Copied into the Library. If you don't copy files into the Library, it will not be organiced.

BTW: Why would this not be useful for single/part-of-album tracks??? Having 1 folder with 2000 songs in it would be a complete mess!

Simon Mundy · Jan 20, 2003, 08:22 AM

What a total PITA. Imagine having restrictions on (mostly) free software. How insane to organise music in a manner not dissimilar to most real-world music libraries.

Boohoo.

MrBS · Jan 20, 2003, 08:38 AM

Originally posted by iDriveX:
...iTunes Preference "Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized"...
Why did Apple do this? It's Apple's part to prevent piracy, IMO. If you have music from a CD and only music from CDs put into iTunes, Apple's organizational scheme would be very exceptable to you. But if you are just downloading singles off of Napster all day long, you wouldn't like Apple's organizational scheme much and it would make things very inconvenient for you.

Actually, IMO, it's probably a plot to make us completely dependent on Apple's sorting scheme. After relying solely on iTunes to sort our music in simple, effective and logical ways for a few months, we'll find ourselves unable to see patterns or make simple choices ourselves. That's when the aliens (or the Russians, I'm not quite sure which yet*) who have infiltrated Apple and are controlling Steve under threat of being force fed a hamburger will swoop in a highly organized fashion and take over the world.

Either that, or it's a simple way to automate an otherwise laborious task. One of the two.

~BS

*I think they may be using the airport to accustom us to the 'flying saucer' shape. This would seem to bolster the aliens theory. BUT, that might just be what the Russians want you to think.

MrBS · Jan 20, 2003, 08:45 AM

Originally posted by Marook:
BTW: Why would this not be useful for single/part-of-album tracks??? Having 1 folder with 2000 songs in it would be a complete mess!

He's stealing all his music from Windows users whose ID3 tags typically look like this:

Code:
Title: 03-Britney_Spears-My_Crappy_Single-THEALBUM.mp3
Track Number:
Album:
Artist:
Year:
Comment: Ripped by 1337 WarEz C |2 3 \/\/

Winamp still can't even put an album in order by track number.
~BS

AJ · Jan 20, 2003, 08:49 AM

Why wouldn't you want to have iTunes organise your music directory???? It is logical, well thought out, and more convenient on a number of levels.

Accessing your mp3s is abstracted by iTunes, and no longer a Finder based task (thank gawd), and you can always ask it to show where it has stored the file (try right clicking).

Sorry for the lack of sympathy.

AJ

jasong · Jan 20, 2003, 09:13 AM

That's it, I'm getting a windows box

Apple!

-- Jason

rogerkylin · Jan 20, 2003, 09:14 AM

I like to keep a copy of all of my multimedia in a place that Apple does not touch. For example, I download digital photos to a directory, and then have iPhoto import them. Yes, this is less convenient, but it seems iPhoto doesn't import at the full resolution because the pictures never print out as well as if I use another app, working directly on the original photos.

Similarly, I have iTunes import songs from a directory (not my music folder, or iTunes foler. I turn off the copy to music folder option, because I already have about 24 gigs of music, and I don't need four copies of every song (originals, plus 3 family members). By the way all of my music is ripped from cd's I own.

I don't understand why iLife can't just use the objects (pointers ?) that exist in iTunes as the basis of the music-integration. That would seem to be the most efficient thing.

iDriveX · Jan 20, 2003, 09:17 AM

No, No, No, I think you are misunderstanding. I am not complaining, I am just not used to this sort of method that Apple has chosen. I just felt that a lot of people will be in the same boat as me and it will be met with resistance.

sushiism · Jan 20, 2003, 09:33 AM

Originally posted by iDriveX:
For as many people that like this, there are that many people that hate this.

nope I think its more of a case of most people go "WOWZAS much more organised than shitty winamp was" and of course a few people moan, wlel its your own fault if you do, personally I LOVE the organisation

MickS · Jan 20, 2003, 09:45 AM

Hmmm.... I do have my library organised how Apple do it, because I used iTunes to rip the CDs, however I have the MP3s stored on a network mounted drive rather than on my laptop (>20GB of Music doesn't play well on a 30GB drive if I want to do real work). So if this is that case I can't use any of my Music?

This sucks so badly. It's my music, ripped by iTunes, that I share between the computers in my house. Why should Apple place this bizarre restriction on it's use?

poocat · Jan 20, 2003, 09:56 AM

the organization in itunes is great (once you make it place it where you want instead of in it's own folder...

but the self sorting stuff is great!
if you don't like it, that sucks, and i do always hate not having options, but...

oh well.

pc.

chris v · Jan 20, 2003, 10:07 AM

Or, if you listen to local, self-produced, independent music not listed in the CDDB database, you too can have fifty folders on your hard drive labelled

unknown artist/unknown album/1 audio track.

That's handy!

CV

mpmchugh · Jan 20, 2003, 10:13 AM

Originally posted by iDriveX:
It's Apple's part to prevent piracy, IMO.

Uh. Maybe it's a bug. Do you know for certain that this is an intentional restriction?

So bottom line, for those of you who know what you are doing

This is rather condescending. I know what I am doing, and I do like Apple's organization scheme, because it's logical, follows the MP3 tags and saves me a lot of time and effort.

Besides, Apple built-in a very handy tag in iTunes 3 called "Part of a compilation' that lets you very easily override the standard /Artist/Album scheme for both store bought compilations and ones your make yourself (legal or otherwise).

Database driven software is often fraught with compromises. It's the nature of the beast. The very fact that you are trying to organize something means that you are going to butt heads with SOMEONE's idea of how best to do that. Apple chose a very logical way of doing things that is possibly a lot easier to code for iLife integration purposes. I would think organized integration is a lot cleaner than integrated chaos.

Then again, it could be a simple over-sight, that may be addressed in future releases.

Regardless, you seem to be overreacting to something you think you know the reasons behind, when in fact you don't.

-mpm

legacyb4 · Jan 20, 2003, 10:16 AM

Ah, but the beauty of iTunes is that you can edit the song titles in the iTunes viewer and have it update the file names automatically.

Run a few MP3 tags on multiple-selected songs and you have instant organization... that is, of course, unless your indies run around calling themselves "Unknown Artist" playing the "Unknown Album". ;-)

Originally posted by chris v:
Or, if you listen to local, self-produced, independent music not listed in the CDDB database, you too can have fifty folders on your hard drive labelled

unknown artist/unknown album/1 audio track.

That's handy!

CV

ARENA · Jan 20, 2003, 10:18 AM

I am really obsessive about my MP3 collection order, and i preferer to sort them myself rather tahn letting iTunes do it automatically. So i have the 'Keep iTunes music folder organized' off and i still get all my iTunes music from iPhoto 2.

as2 · Jan 20, 2003, 10:53 AM

I use iTunes to sort my music, as I've got loads of it, and my housemates play it from my computer via windows file sharing.

The iTunes organisation makes it easy for them to find what they want.

Any single tracks I do download just get put in a playlist and the album renamed to New Downloads.

If I download a whole album I just change it when I'm done.

Works well for me. I hardly ever open my music folder anymore. I just drop new tracks directly into an iTunes playlist and it copies thenm to the right place.

Great feature.

Adam

KidRed · Jan 20, 2003, 11:04 AM

I'm confused. I have thousands of mp3s I downloaded from napster, limewire, etc and maybe 20 form CDs. I have iTuens organize my library but I keep and organize all my mp3s myself into their own folders. iTunes remembers or somehow finds them. So I'm confused to how iTunes preference being (un)checked somehow throws off the integration. Mine is checked but I alos organize myself.

piracy · Jan 20, 2003, 11:23 AM

God, what a sensationalist title to this topic. Even if it were true (which it isn't),

1. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, and

2. How in the f*ck would it "prevent piracy"?

Anyway, you definitely do NOT need to let iTunes organize your music library; just don't keep any music in the iTunes Music folder, and you'll be able to access any and all of your music. I repeat: you will have access to ALL of your music, and you do NOT need to have iTunes organization feature checked.

piracy · Jan 20, 2003, 11:25 AM

Originally posted by iDriveX:
No, No, No, I think you are misunderstanding. I am not complaining, I am just not used to this sort of method that Apple has chosen. I just felt that a lot of people will be in the same boat as me and it will be met with resistance.

The only "boat" other people will be sharing with you is apparently the boat of stupidity, as you do NOT need to have iTunes organization feature checked to have access to your music.

Developer · Jan 20, 2003, 11:29 AM

Originally posted by piracy:
The only "boat" other people will be sharing with you is apparently the boat of stupidity, as you do NOT need to have iTunes organization feature checked to have access to your music.

Can I access photos without letting iPhoto organize them?
I don't have a digital camera, so I manually scan my photos. Sorting them by date when I imported them into iPhoto doesn't make much sense. I'd like to use some of the iPhoto features though (like the slide show).

Oneota · Jan 20, 2003, 11:37 AM

Having tinkered with iPhoto 2, I've noticed that it doesn't appear to be putting any rhyme or reason to the order that it displays my playlists in.

I use Smartlists almost exclusively (save for one normal "Sort Me" playlist that I use to assign ID3 tags so that the smart lists'll pick 'em up), and they show up in random order in iPhoto 2. Very annoying.

mishap · Jan 20, 2003, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by KidRed:
I'm confused. I have thousands of mp3s I downloaded from napster, limewire, etc and maybe 20 form CDs. I have iTuens organize my library but I keep and organize all my mp3s myself into their own folders. iTunes remembers or somehow finds them. So I'm confused to how iTunes preference being (un)checked somehow throws off the integration. Mine is checked but I alos organize myself.

well, if you have iTunes organize your music it will copy everything you listen to into the iTunes music folder if it is not there already. So if you download a song and listen to it in iTunes, you can delete it from your download folder because it should be copied right into your Library.

Thus, organizing your music

Eug · Jan 20, 2003, 11:58 AM

I used iTunes to convert several hundred CDs to MP3. Not a single one is in the iTunes directory at this point.

I like my own methods of organizing my files. Thus this will be quite an annoyance if true. I guess I'll have to wait until Sat. to judge though.

Lew · Jan 20, 2003, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by chris v:
Or, if you listen to local, self-produced, independent music not listed in the CDDB database, you too can have fifty folders on your hard drive labelled

unknown artist/unknown album/1 audio track.

That's handy!

CV

You're too lazy to input the ID3 tags yourself prior to ripping the tracks then?

scottiB · Jan 20, 2003, 12:30 PM

well, if you have iTunes organize your music it will copy everything you listen to into the iTunes music folder if it is not there already.

You can deselect that option in the Preferences, so you don't have duplicates. Personally, I like the feature since I had songs all over the place.

Toyin · 08:37 PM

I'm anal about keeping my MP3s well organized and I found letting iTunes do it the easiest way. Also you only have to edit one file, the ID3 tag, which iTunes then corrects in the Finder. I used to spend a lot of time editing the file name in the finder and then heading over to iTunes and editing the ID3 file. To be honest I can't remember the last time I went to my music library to edit anything.

Benefits having ID3 information correct includes correct views and sorting on my iPod and MP3 CDs. Also if you use Playalong you can have the picture of the Album displayed while you're playing an MP3.

As for random downloads either find the correct album information (CDDB or Amazon.com) or make specific compliations. Name the compilations anything you want (ie My Compilation #1, Gym Compilation..etc.). iTunes will place them in the compilation folder and seperate them as albums (ie My compilation #1, Gym Compilation...etc.)

Personally I think this is the direction that Apple is taking with managing files and I like it. Customized applications that make managing files simple, while the files are kept organized by the OS. iPhoto is getting there, but I still keep a seperate folder with all my pictures just in case.

sja777 · Jan 20, 2003, 03:06 PM

I like the fact that Apple's software (iTunes and iPhoto) gives me the option to keep my files organised. It means I don't have to. And because this is an option, then we users have no reason to complain either way.

What is a little disapointing is that iLife requires you to have the songs organised by Apple. Remember, though, this is the first version of these apps which are integrated and if this is a big issue for many users it may be addressed in the future, but not if you don't send the feedback to Apple.

Stephen

piracy · 03:39 PM

Originally posted by sja777:
I like the fact that Apple's software (iTunes and iPhoto) gives me the option to keep my files organised. It means I don't have to. And because this is an option, then we users have no reason to complain either way.

What is a little disapointing is that iLife requires you to have the songs organised by Apple.

You ARE NOT required you to have iTunes organization enabled in order to have songs available in iPhoto, iMovie, etc., as I've already said twice.

Remember, though, this is the first version of these apps which are integrated and if this is a big issue for many users it may be addressed in the future, but not if you don't send the feedback to Apple.

A novel idea: wait until the software is actually released before starting to send feedback to Apple regarding topics on which you have no clue.

MikeD · Jan 20, 2003, 03:36 PM

Now what I REALLY hate is how iPhoto organizes PHOTOS!!!!!!!! now that's a PITA!!

kcmac · Jan 20, 2003, 03:52 PM

I have a question, though a little off topic.

I had iTunes organize my music the way it wants to which I really like. I used to have a folder (still do) that is labeled "downloaded music" that my iTunes and the other users on my iMac use.

The iTunes folder made a copy of all of the songs from the Downloaded Music folder.

Can I now delete the Downloaded music folder?

Can the other users on my iMac share this iTunes folder? (Originally, my downloaded music folder was placed in the shared folder in the users section and aliased to the other users.)

I have and iTunes 3 music file and an iTunes music file. Should I just keep the iTunes 3 music file?

For the record, I do like the way iTunes organizes this. It even finds music files from the other users which works well in our household. Very easy to backup.

legacyb4 · Jan 20, 2003, 06:56 PM

Here's an alternative to using file-sharing and setting your own pseudo streaming server.

http://www.turnstyle.com/andromeda/

Add an Alias directive in your httpd.conf file and you are set to share *and* have your wonderful iTunes-sorted library displayed in all its glory...

Originally posted by as2:
I use iTunes to sort my music, as I've got loads of it, and my housemates play it from my computer via windows file sharing.

The iTunes organisation makes it easy for them to find what they want.

Any single tracks I do download just get put in a playlist and the album renamed to New Downloads.

If I download a whole album I just change it when I'm done.

Works well for me. I hardly ever open my music folder anymore. I just drop new tracks directly into an iTunes playlist and it copies thenm to the right place.

Great feature.

Adam

ryju · Jan 20, 2003, 07:09 PM

Well I have it automatically organized by iTunes so I guess I'm in the clear.

pixegenguy · Jan 20, 2003, 07:17 PM

I can understand your dislike for this "feature", however, if this is the only thing Apple does to try and discourage people from stealing music, then you really don't have much to complain about.

In 6 months time, when Microsoft has rolled out their anti-piracy format for CDs and DVDs and implemented the Palladium archiecture, you'll see the true meaning of "restrictions you don't know about"....

jguidroz · Jan 20, 2003, 07:17 PM

I can back piracy up with his statements. I've used iPhoto2 and iPhoto2 can find all my mp3s that are in my iTunes library. I DO NOT let iTunes organize my mp3s. All my mp3s are located on a separate partition from my OS X system.

wataru · Jan 20, 2003, 07:18 PM

BFD

Alex Duffield · Jan 20, 2003, 07:31 PM

Originally posted by jasong:
That's it, I'm getting a windows box

Apple!

-- Jason

Damn right!!!

The Windows version of iLife doesn�t have this silly limitation....

But really, I tunes is a way better "Finder" for Music than the FINDER is.

You can make multiple playlists, and have the same songs organized in multiple ways, without duplicating the file. You cant do this in the finder (Well you can with aliases, but that is just plain stupid.)

And if you want to copy those files off to some removable media, you can just drag the files from iTunes playlist to the finder or Toast or whatever.

The bottom line is that people who have a problem with the way the files are stored are just not comfortable with the direction Apple is going with de-emphasizing the usage of the "Finder" with more media type tailored finders. This is something Steve talked about way back when. Remember, "the finder is just another app..."

If you want to store and organize music files, the finder is iTunes, the image finder is iPhoto...

This works perfectly well, as long as you don�t let yourself become an "Old Dog" and resist learning new ways of working.