{"slug": "itunes", "name": "iTunes", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 10, "warners": 5, "score": -0.982, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-11-20", "latest": "2026-10-27", "why": "Because with iTunes, I could and did have regular playlists and smart playlists using conditions like ratings, last played, play count", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 5}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Because with iTunes, I could and did have regular playlists and smart playlists using conditions like ratings, last played, play count", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["iTunes"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 783807585, "item_id": 48987974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987974", "by": "FabHK", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "iTunes has smart playlists which I love", "excerpt": "BTW, there was a variant of this discussion with the iPod and mp3 players back then. Some people wanted to manage music \"by hand\" in the file system, and had various schemes for doing so (folders for genre, then artists, then album, etc.), and wanted that reflected 1-to-1 in the mp3 player. iTunes (and the iPod) had a different idea: The app takes care of file management, and you have a frontend supported by a databa", "context": "", "use_case": "music library management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}, {"id": 775194000, "item_id": 48449625, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48449625", "by": "titzer", "date": "2026-06-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still can't believe they killed iTunes. I used to have my entire digital music library in iTunes.", "excerpt": "I still can't believe they killed iTunes. I used to have my entire digital music library in iTunes. Most of that was music I had ripped myself from CD, but I had a handful of albums I bought of iTunes and even some TV shows. When they wholesale abandoned iTunes and deleted from Mac OS in favor of...whatever Apple Music is, I knew I'd never trust them again. I searched for some decent mp3 players for a while, and even", "context": "", "use_case": "music library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop the Apple Music app from launching"}, {"id": 753672464, "item_id": 47104529, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47104529", "by": "moon2", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the Cover Flow design from older iTunes.", "excerpt": "I have a collection of Macs from the 2000s, including the iBook G4 and the iMac G4. The iBook G4 still connects to wi-fi, and I've seen this update prompt on my iMac G4 (which is connected to Wi-Fi using a mini wireless access point). I use my iMac G4 to play songs on iTunes, I keep my music library on a server with Samba installed and I mount the volume with the files. I love the Cover Flow design from older iTunes.", "context": "collects 2000s Macs", "use_case": "playing music on iMac G4", "switched_from": "", "story": "27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates"}, {"id": 735936864, "item_id": 45996054, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45996054", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2025-11-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Because with iTunes, I could and did have regular playlists and smart playlists using conditions like ratings, last played, play count", "excerpt": "Because with iTunes, I could and did have regular playlists and smart playlists using conditions like ratings, last played, play count, number of times skipped (so that it would automatically be removed from a playlist if I continued to skip a song on my iPod or computer), genre, year released, etc. You couldn\u2019t have that metadata with just file syncing. Later when iTunes was introduced, it had to support DRM. Later ", "context": "", "use_case": "music library and playlists", "switched_from": "", "story": "Android/Linux Dual Boot"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 804173968, "item_id": 50260873, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260873", "by": "radicalbyte", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The people working on it don't care about UX or performance.", "excerpt": "iTunes. Skype. Windows File Manager. It has been a thing for a long time in consumers software from the big guys. The people working on it don't care about UX or performance. Now a lot of the small-company software we used to use has been replaced by slow bloated and buggy apps usually running on Electron (Slack et al) so we're seeing it everywhere as opposed to in a couple of bad apps.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible"}, {"id": 803389888, "item_id": 50211868, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50211868", "by": "8by3", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "all UK purchased content was gone from my itunes account", "excerpt": "Not if you move countries. I moved from the UK to Canada, updated my payment method and all UK purchased content was gone from my itunes account And yes, there is some elaborate workaround to create a brand new account and share the original with the new but fundamentally I could no longer access what I purchased because I moved. And no, I didn't get a refund for the years of purchased content.", "context": "moved from UK to Canada", "use_case": "buying movies and TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Disney Raising Prices Days After Confirming Ads Will Now Show Up on Every Tier"}, {"id": 791127344, "item_id": 49445459, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445459", "by": "jack1243star", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "iTunes is trash on both of the jobs you mentioned though.", "excerpt": "iTunes is trash on both of the jobs you mentioned though. Still waiting for a worthy alternative to foobar2000 on either Mac or Linux...", "context": "", "use_case": "music library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 791062560, "item_id": 49441410, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49441410", "by": "koyote", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "iTunes (which was awful; some of the worst software I've used) did the same thing to me", "excerpt": "One of the many reasons I moved away from ipods is because iTunes (which was awful; some of the worst software I've used) did the same thing to me just before I went on a trip. I thought to myself: \"I better add these two new albums to my ipod so that I can listen to them while away\". I plug in the ipod, itunes loads up, I walk away. I come back 10 minutes later and it had not finished yet and I wonder what is going ", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing iPod", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}]}], "who": [{"by": "moon2", "context": "collects 2000s Macs", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47104529", "date": "2026-02-21"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["music library", "buying movies and tv", "syncing ipod", "music library management", "music library and ipod sync", "playing music on imac g4"], "compared": [{"slug": "apple-music", "name": "Apple Music", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "spotify", "name": "Spotify", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "foobar2000", "name": "foobar2000", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49433292", "title": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48447935", "title": "Stop the Apple Music app from launching", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066241", "title": "27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257548", "title": "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205934", "title": "Disney Raising Prices Days After Confirming Ads Will Now Show Up on Every Tier", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48986091", "title": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-08": {"warn": 2}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"warn": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804173968, "item_id": 50260873, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260873", "by": "radicalbyte", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "warn", "quote": "The people working on it don't care about UX or performance.", "excerpt": "iTunes. Skype. Windows File Manager. It has been a thing for a long time in consumers software from the big guys. The people working on it don't care about UX or performance. Now a lot of the small-company software we used to use has been replaced by slow bloated and buggy apps usually running on Electron (Slack et al) so we're seeing it everywhere as opposed to in a couple of bad apps.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Software may be getting worse, but it used to be horrible"}, {"id": 803389888, "item_id": 50211868, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50211868", "by": "8by3", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "warn", "quote": "all UK purchased content was gone from my itunes account", "excerpt": "Not if you move countries. I moved from the UK to Canada, updated my payment method and all UK purchased content was gone from my itunes account And yes, there is some elaborate workaround to create a brand new account and share the original with the new but fundamentally I could no longer access what I purchased because I moved. And no, I didn't get a refund for the years of purchased content.", "context": "moved from UK to Canada", "use_case": "buying movies and TV", "switched_from": "", "story": "Disney Raising Prices Days After Confirming Ads Will Now Show Up on Every Tier"}, {"id": 791127344, "item_id": 49445459, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49445459", "by": "jack1243star", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "iTunes is trash on both of the jobs you mentioned though.", "excerpt": "iTunes is trash on both of the jobs you mentioned though. Still waiting for a worthy alternative to foobar2000 on either Mac or Linux...", "context": "", "use_case": "music library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 791062560, "item_id": 49441410, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49441410", "by": "koyote", "date": "2026-08-25", "stance": "warn", "quote": "iTunes (which was awful; some of the worst software I've used) did the same thing to me", "excerpt": "One of the many reasons I moved away from ipods is because iTunes (which was awful; some of the worst software I've used) did the same thing to me just before I went on a trip. I thought to myself: \"I better add these two new albums to my ipod so that I can listen to them while away\". I plug in the ipod, itunes loads up, I walk away. I come back 10 minutes later and it had not finished yet and I wonder what is going ", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing iPod", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra"}, {"id": 783807585, "item_id": 48987974, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48987974", "by": "FabHK", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "iTunes has smart playlists which I love", "excerpt": "BTW, there was a variant of this discussion with the iPod and mp3 players back then. Some people wanted to manage music \"by hand\" in the file system, and had various schemes for doing so (folders for genre, then artists, then album, etc.), and wanted that reflected 1-to-1 in the mp3 player. iTunes (and the iPod) had a different idea: The app takes care of file management, and you have a frontend supported by a databa", "context": "", "use_case": "music library management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Jellyfin founder Andrew leaves team"}, {"id": 775230960, "item_id": 48451935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48451935", "by": "RgrTheShrubbr", "date": "2026-06-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to use iTunes in place of the Apple Music app for my library and connecting my old iPods", "excerpt": "For everything that Apple does great. They really do drop the ball on the dumbest things. I used to use iTunes in place of the Apple Music app for my library and connecting my old iPods, and now with Retroactive being discontinued I haven't found a great alternative other than just buying an old Mac and I unfortunately don't have the space for one.", "context": "", "use_case": "music library and iPod sync", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop the Apple Music app from launching"}, {"id": 775194000, "item_id": 48449625, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48449625", "by": "titzer", "date": "2026-06-08", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I still can't believe they killed iTunes. I used to have my entire digital music library in iTunes.", "excerpt": "I still can't believe they killed iTunes. I used to have my entire digital music library in iTunes. Most of that was music I had ripped myself from CD, but I had a handful of albums I bought of iTunes and even some TV shows. When they wholesale abandoned iTunes and deleted from Mac OS in favor of...whatever Apple Music is, I knew I'd never trust them again. I searched for some decent mp3 players for a while, and even", "context": "", "use_case": "music library", "switched_from": "", "story": "Stop the Apple Music app from launching"}, {"id": 753672464, "item_id": 47104529, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47104529", "by": "moon2", "date": "2026-02-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the Cover Flow design from older iTunes.", "excerpt": "I have a collection of Macs from the 2000s, including the iBook G4 and the iMac G4. The iBook G4 still connects to wi-fi, and I've seen this update prompt on my iMac G4 (which is connected to Wi-Fi using a mini wireless access point). I use my iMac G4 to play songs on iTunes, I keep my music library on a server with Samba installed and I mount the volume with the files. I love the Cover Flow design from older iTunes.", "context": "collects 2000s Macs", "use_case": "playing music on iMac G4", "switched_from": "", "story": "27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates"}, {"id": 753208800, "item_id": 47075550, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47075550", "by": "paulrpotts", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "warn", "quote": "until Apple broke iTunes home sharing functionality", "excerpt": "I have a 2008 Mac Pro that was my daily driver for video and audio production for 16 years before I had to give up on it. The only real reason I had to give up on it was that I couldn't upgrade the software and all the certs were expiring. I was using it for a network music server as well, until Apple broke iTunes home sharing functionality. It's sitting in the hall in my basement. The hardware still functions perfec", "context": "", "use_case": "network music server", "switched_from": "", "story": "27-year-old Apple iBooks can connect to Wi-Fi and download official updates"}, {"id": 735936864, "item_id": 45996054, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45996054", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2025-11-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Because with iTunes, I could and did have regular playlists and smart playlists using conditions like ratings, last played, play count", "excerpt": "Because with iTunes, I could and did have regular playlists and smart playlists using conditions like ratings, last played, play count, number of times skipped (so that it would automatically be removed from a playlist if I continued to skip a song on my iPod or computer), genre, year released, etc. You couldn\u2019t have that metadata with just file syncing. Later when iTunes was introduced, it had to support DRM. Later ", "context": "", "use_case": "music library and playlists", "switched_from": "", "story": "Android/Linux Dual Boot"}]}