Refusinik to Confusnik

Great line in Jeff Pulver's post about why he got an iPhone.

I am no longer an iPhone Refusnik...but rather an iPhone Confusnik.

Me too. On July 4th in the evening, I agreed to buy an activated iPhone from a friend for his cost (not including the AT&T contract). I'll be using it as an iPhod, which is an iPod with wifi, a browser, maps, etc. I am not going to use the phone or the email. I've got a Curve for that. Basically I am replacing my iPod with an iPhod.

I don't have the iPhone yet, but I'll get it this week. But I am already confused about what I'll be able to do and what I won't be able to do.

I am particularly concerned that I'll have to use iTunes to synch music and photos instead of being able to drag and drop. This post explains there is no way to get music and photos onto the iPhone without using iTunes. I've got way more than 8 gigs of music on my laptop and I'd really like to manually drag and drop the music I want on my iPhod.

I think someone should create an alternative iPhone sync program. Apple is starting to use iTunes to lock us all into their world. I don't like to buy my music from Apple and I don't like to be forced to use their software to connect to their devices.

Almost makes me want to go back to being a refusnik.

Comments

[Terry]

Just don't buy their ol' Apple crap then.

[Tony Alva]

I KNEW you couldn't hold out. I should've given odds...

[Z]

Make playlists (or smart playlists) called "iPhone" in iTunes and iPhoto and drag and drop to those... then tell itunes to sync only those playlists... Complete control. Yes, tied to iTunes, but complete control of what goes in there...

[Shripriya]

Wow Fred! That was one of the fastest caves I've seen :) Apparently it is a great device - let us know how it works out for you.

[scotty the body]

I don't see the lock in other than the big fat AT&T lock in -- which is the most insipid of 'em all :-(

[Robert Seidman]

I believe I called that you would cave!

The sync stuff is very annoying, mostly not because of the extra step or so involved, but rather it was just learning a new behavior - one in particular that is very confusing.

I must make playlists for tunes and tv shows and they will sync. But for Movies, I can't even create a playlist -- I have to go through some iPhone sync menu and "check" (or uncheck) the movies I want.

In my mind all of this should've worked exactly as it did with the regular iPod, that it doesn't is annoying. Once I figured it out it was less annoying, but still annoying.

It won't make me a refusnik though. Caddyshack looks beautiful on it...once I figured out how to get it there.

[Tim Marman]

Check out dopisp, which I wrote about back in December.

http://slashstar.com/blogs/tim/archive/2006/12/28/dopisp-adds-ipod-support-in-wmp-11.aspx

Adds device support in Windows Media Player so you can sync an iPod the same as one of the "supported" devices.

I went back to iTunes personally because I wasn't happy with the podcast support in WMP.

There is also Anapod Explorer (http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featpw.php)
which a lot of people loved for true drag-and-drop in explorer.

(Of course, I don't know that either work with the iPhone, but maybe someone who has one can give them a shot).

[John Zeratsky]

I am curious — what application do you use to put music on your iPod?

[Peter Kazanjy]

Fred, get a Nokia N800 instead. If you're not going to use the phone functionality of the iPhone (calls, sms, email), the only value the iPhod has over it is the iTunes integration, and the embedded flash RAM.

The N800 has as compelling a screen, external speakers, a solid media player, and thanks to the new OS update, Skype integration (i've been calling my family's cell phones via SkypeOut on the N800 all morning long, telling them "hey, I'm calling on my Linux internet tablet! Cool eh?").

With the new OS update, the tablet can recognize up to 8gb miniSD chips, so with the two slots, you can get 16gb of memory in there. Battery's replaceable too. (I have two, such that if I find myself without power, I can browse for up to 7 hours on the thing.)

The Opera browser parses webpages exactly how they appear on my Thinkpad (including Google Maps--as a webapp, not as a client), and the browser handles Flash no problem (in fact, it just got upgraded to Flash 9).

If Nokia could get some developers behind this, I could see it being the "anti-iphone."

Right now, the only problem is, the thing is somewhat orphaned when there's no wifi. It does support bluetooth dial up networking with a BT enabled cell phone, but I haven't gotten it work with my Blackberry Curve yet.

Once I get that working, I might start carrying the N800 around by default, rather than leaving it at home.

And when the N900 tablet debuts, complete with HSDPA radio included to allow always-on data access, even outside of wifi hotspots, things will get REALLY interesting.

That's be the point at which we see whether a handset provider is willing to take the leap into the open market, no longer shackled by carriers.

[hello]

Fred,

I agree with the comment from Z above, playlists or smart playlists is the preferred "drag and drop" mechanism for iTunes-to-portable device transfers.

I have 150+ playlists and 200+ "smart" playlists, managing 90 GB music in my iTunes library. Playlists and smart playlists can be combined or nested to create some fairly complex choices to use when manually syncing your iPod.

Here's an example that I whipped up in less than 10 minutes, just for this post ;) :

Smart Playlist Name: Porgy & Bess: Jazz Standards

As the name implies, this smart playlist will include every jazz track in my iTunes library [1] (instrumental and vocal) based upon or adapted from Gershwin's opera "Porgy & Bess" (1935).

Here are the filters used in this smart playlist:

1) Match all of the following rules
2) Playlist is Gershwin [2]
3) Genre contains Jazz
4) Grouping is "Porgy & Bess" [3]
5) Live updating is selected

My iTunes smart playlist Porgy & Bess: Jazz Standards contains 61 songs, will play for 4.4 hours, and consumes 260 MB.

As I add any song that meets the above criteria, it will be automatically added to the smart playlist.

Obviously I could just as easily create a smart playlist for compositions by Irving Berlin, Jules Styne, Rogers & Hammerstein or Kurt Weill. A smart playlist for all jazz standards adapted from Bernstein's "West Side Story" could be lots of fun as well.

[1] Because I often have access to "unreleased" music, I don't import all audio digital media to iTunes. I am a last.fm power user, and sometimes forget to "pause" my scrobbling submissions. It's easier for me to isolate unreleased music in a separate filesystem.

[2] This is a higher level smart playlist where Composer contains Gershwin.

[3] I use the Grouping field to aggregate any songs from a particular selection of programmatic music, whether that be a classical symphony, oratorio, song cycle or opera; a broadway musical, or a jazz suite.

Hope this helps.

[Eric Marcoullier]

Fred -- the team can't believe that the only reason I won't get an iPhone is because of iTunes. I just hate the software and won't buy anything that's locked to it.

[Brad Feld]

I've decided that I'll get an iPhone when I can run my Windows Mobile apps on it. I feel like such a sarcastic luddite. Seriously - everyone I know says the iPhone is a bitchin iPod, even with the iTunes limitations as long as you suspend your desire for control.

[Joshwa]

Are all of the folks who are mad about having to use iTunes first-time iPod owners?

You've never been able to just drag-and-drop music straight onto an iPod without iTunes, or some other 3rd-party sync software (which will surely support the iPhone shortly).

[Eric Marcoullier]

@Joshwa -- I've never owned an iPod for exactly the same reason. Every MP3 player I've ever bought has been drag and drop at the expense of the slick iPod UI. Control of my music is more important than my control of the player.

[Vincent van Wylick]

To the iPod/iTunes sceptics: why do you think people rave about the iPod? The slick, cool look of the hardware has little to do with it. It's the functionality. iTunes is basically the interface that all other MP3-players have, except it's on your PC or Mac and you have a lot of control over it. You can decide what you sync and what you won't. You can decide to buy music or just drag your music from an explorer-window. You can browse the podcast-universe, all available for free, in what is so far the most comfortable fashion I have seen. There is nothing preventing your from putting any music-content you want on there, and nothing preventing you to delete it either.

Incidentally, I own an iPod for two years and I've never bought a song on the iTunes store. But I could never go back to an alternative player; it just doesn't provide me with the same rich experience.

The iPod is nothing without iTunes, and iTunes is nothing with the pod. I'm sure Fred Wilson will be raving about it after a few days/weeks.

[Michael]

comments were tl;dr, but in case no one mentioned it:

You don't have to sync at all.

Turn off sync in the iTunes preferences and drag-n-drop yourself crazy.

Yer welcome.

[Chris Fralic]

I couldn't agree more - see below...

http://nothingtosay.firstround.com/2007/07/iphone-nation.html