Dang it, iTunes!
In a land far, far away, I used iTunes. It was great for organized my music, setting up tags, getting the artist, album, song title, all correct on my music. I really enjoyed importing my songs from CDs (and I had quite a collection) and now those thousands of songs are just the way I like it.
Then I get an iTunes update. Sure, why not. Apple hasn’t done me wrong before. Why would this install do anything differently, right? so I let it run and go about my business. Then iTunes fails to install properly. Huh? What? I try the install again. Again it fails. The version I have on the computer, it also doesn’t run.
I uninstall iTunes and try again by downloading it from the website. Some Apple service fails to start*, therefore doesn’t allow iTunes to start. I restart my computer. I go about uninstalling EVERYTHING Apple, I restart, I download iTunes again. It fails because of some missing service.
At this point I grumble and go about reading online about people having this issue for years (oldest I saw was from 2008). Well, I’m not about to be outdone by a piece of software. Oh no I’m not! I went about installing an older version of iTunes. Yeah. You can guess how much success I had with that.
So after two and a half hours (when I could have been writing) I give up. I read forums and they’re recommending all sorts of hack to get iTunes to just work. Well, I’m mad, unhappy, and not about to try and hack some software to work when their installer failed me. Oh hell no!
So I did a google search. “windows software like itunes”. I got a bunch of hits and lists showing multiple software like iTunes. Given that WinAmp is no longer supported and really didn’t give as robust an interface as iTunes, I felt the need to find something new. Something that felt like iTunes, but wasn’t iTunes.
There on a list, I saw MusicBee. I cried. The screenshots really didn’t look like iTunes. I really liked the iTunes interface. But I decided to read about MusicBee because all the others looked like players without much more. Like winamp. Sure, you could adjust tags and what not, but it wasn’t as clean. Building playlists weren’t as good.
But reading about MusicBee, it imported things like playlists from iTunes. You just told it where iTunes was installed and BAM! done. So I figured why not. I’ve already wasted enough time, if I don’t like MusicBee, I could always uninstall it, right?
So in went MusicBee. I told it where iTunes was (and currently sitting there and not working because it doesn’t love me any more). I liked the little bee. It was cute. Looks like it’s farting a musical note. So I was hopeful. I really was.
The interface came up and looked nothing like iTunes. At first. I clicked buttons, clicked menus, found my music, my playlists! it was all there I modified the columns to look like what I had in iTunes. I put the music in one big list. I saw where some songs I still hadn’t updated and I was able to update it just like I had in iTunes. The music played. The EQ worked. I discovered SKINS! So now instead of the gray and white of iTunes, I have some blues that looks really nice and don’t burn into my skull.
I’m only a week in, but I don’t think I’ll be reinstalling iTunes. Sure, it’ll be on another computer in case the wife or my favorite daughter (who both have iPhones) need to pull off pictures or whatever. I won’t be using it any more. I’ve got MusicBee. It seems to do all I need (and so much more). Hopefully it won’t go the way of WinAmp.
After a month, I will revisit this topic and let you know what I think of MusicBee. If I’m still happy with it, I’ll be going back to their site and donating. The software is free to download and use (as was iTunes) but if they make me happier than iTunes ever did, I will be sending some love their way. 🙂 Sorry iTunes, you’ve been replaced!
What do you use on your PC to play music? Have you found something other than iTunes? Still using iTunes? Let me know!
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
* this is the message I got:
Service ‘Apple Mobile Device” (Apple Mobile Device)
failed to start. Verify that you have sufficient privileges to
start system services
Posted on January 31, 2014, in Blog Post and tagged Apple Mobile Device, failed to start, iTunes, itunes replacement, mp3 player, musicbee, winamp, windows, windows music player. Bookmark the permalink. 6 Comments.
J.R. Murdock 
Looks interesting. I love iTunes but I’m always in the lookout for something new as sometime iTunes is just too slow. Does it allow playlist folders?
STEVE! Thank you for stopping by. Yes, from what I can tell MusicBee does everything (as a music player) that iTunes does without actually being iTunes. I think the biggest benefit is it doesn’t have the iTunes store which seemed to lock up my computer on a regular basis.
Fab. I will defo be checking this out.
Just downloaded this. Em amazing. So fast, has airplay, has folders, last.fm scrobbling, imports all my counts etc. Only downside is that it doesn’t import in folder format, only playlists and I’ll need to tidy them up. Not a real biggie as it gives me chance to organise and listen to music – dream come true for me. Haven’t checked all the features or iphone syncing yet but v impressed so far. Reblogged on Steve-Says.net
Just wait until you discover the mini-player, single click from the system tray, skins, THEATER MODE!
There’s so much more to MusicBee that I WISH WISH WISH iTunes would implement.
For now, it’s a much cleaner, easier to use music player that doesn’t screw with me after each upload. It’s made me very happy.
Enjoy!
Reblogged this on Steve Says…. and commented:
I’m very impressed with this so far!