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Comment by why-el | Hacker News Reader

iTunes is absolutely terrible. I did several updates for my girlfriend and friends, and none of them figured out iTunes. Most of them downgraded.

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I've been liking Google Play Music so far.

My only issue with GM is the portability. I work out frequently, and lugging around a large smartphone isn't the best scenario for simply listening to music.

I'm looking into getting a smaller MP3 player and putting my GM library on that to achieve the level of portability I need for my music.

Your entire music library doesn't have to live on your device. Just stream it right from GM or cache the albums you want to listen too.

What really gets me is that some scrappy start-up tried to launch a service like that in the 00's and got totally burned by the labels because it was not 'fair use' but now google does it it is ok.

Yeah, shit like that really does suck. At the very least, we get that kind of service now.

I believe that Apple and Google got permission from the labels to do it.

Fair use shouldn't require permission.

Saying it was fair use is begging the question. It's not obvious that showing I own a CD at one point means I get online access to files ripped off an equivalent CD forever.

Not really. It required you to have the files to be allowed to stream them back to yourself, the most essential functionality was de-duplication + streaming of content that you already had while you were on the move.

And if you own a CD at some point nothing stops you from ripping it and selling the original (that's still illegal, but you could do it) so it's impossible to check.

I don't see why google should get a free pass on this, it seems to have to do with size rather than with the technology or the law.

I think you're thinking of my.mp3.com. They bought a bunch of CDs, ripped them, customers used a desktop application to "fingerprint" a CD they had that would grant them access to the mp3s the company created. They lost in the court because by ripping the CDs they bought, they were offering a service based on copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright holders. While the opportunities for abuse with the "fingerprinting" scheme are obvious, that's not what got them in trouble.

There were then and are now music "locker" systems where every track you can play is from a file you created and uploaded and only your account can access. That's what Google Music is doing (for music you add, not the subscription service or tracks you buy in their store). In so doing you may have violated some copyrights but the operators of the locker system played not part in it. And if they act upon DMCA takedown notices (assuming they operate in the U.S.), they're protected from prosecution under the Safe Harbor provisions of the law.

It's inefficient for such locker systems to have X copies of the same song, one for each person who uploaded it, but I assume more modern storage systems can use lower level deduplication to reduced the space needed while still presenting each user with their "own" copy.

That may very well be the one. I'm a bit hazy on the details because this happened right at the moment camarades.com took off and I had a lot on my plate at the time.

You might consider an Android Wear device. I don't have personal experience with this (I mostly work out on a stationary bike with Netflix), but in theory you can copy up to 4GB of music to the watch and play it back via Bluetooth headphones without the need for a phone.

The ability to upload 20,000 songs and than download local copies is amazing.

I fix my big smart phone with a LG Bluetooth Headset problem solved.

It is increased to 50,000 now.

Its 50,000 songs now. Still free.

Spotify is a possible replacement (even without their streaming and music finding services), but I find that application quite buggy.

Spotify's approach to customer engagement and accountability is a little better than Apple's in that they have a product support forum. But their contempt for the customer seems to be about the same WRT to removing features on a whim.

They removed a deal-breaker feature a couple of years ago (filter a list for a song) and have only just managed to put it back, only half working, now. I don't know how bad iTunes has got (haven't used it in 5 years) but I can't recommend Spotify as a replacement.

If anyone does have any suggestions, I'd be very glad to read them!

spotify is pretty crappy (experiences on android):

* they broke google maps for about 3 months. Originally, when google maps needed to give audio directions, music would pause. It worked. Some moron decided, instead, to make the audio keep playing but make it quieter while google maps was giving audio directions. What he or she actually did is to mute google maps. This persisted for 3 months while assholes there made excuses (how fucking hard is git revert) and claimed bluetooth audio wasn't supported and therefore customers had no grounds for complaint. What was particularly frustrating across the 100 page support threads was the fact that this bug was so obvious that clearly not a single employee uses the android app or gives a damn about the experience.

* spotify added a moronic "control spotify from other devices" feature. What this does in reality is this: listen to spotify on your way to work. At work, set your phone down and start listening to spotify on your computer. The next time you get a txt or interact with your phone (ie enter your pin into the lock screen), the spotify session that's been lurking steals control of your mac and jumps back to whatever you'd been listening to hours ago on your phone. The cure is to always leave spotify in offline mode and/or kill the task when you're done listening to it.

* listening to files you own -- eg a concert recording unavailable in spotify -- while theoretically supported, is just janky.

* If you make the mistake of allowing spotify to go online on your phone, it eats battery life.

* there's a long list of other bugs, but I now wait at least 3 months before installing any updates and archive previous apks so that I can revert their idiocy. I really need to get on figuring out how to import their playlists into something better.

Holy crap yeah, I don't know what other app was put together so poorly as Spotify. It wakelocks like hell, it crashes constantly, none of the menu items make sense, AND aren't consistent with where you are in playing songs, it seems totally random as to whether songs show up in your queue or disappear, your history sometimes stores albums and sometimes songs, it goes on and on. I use spotify mostly as just a grooveshark replacement, but as soon as my trial is up I'm ditching the fucking thing.

How do you avoid updates? Just never quit?

phone: set manual updates only and never approve them;

laptop: archive the entire directory structure and replace it =P

all devices: wonder why the fuck I have to do this and why spotify can't get their shit together

It's SAAS. It's the future. Get with the program.

(Thanks hadn't thought of going to those lengths)

1/ never had that problem

2/ this is the single best feature of spotify vs the others, I love plugin my android smartphone in my audio system, and to control the music from my ipad, computer. The problem you talk about never happens to me, it shows a popup about if I want to continue here, but only if I go into the app.

3/ I had no problem with that, but it would be better if it uploaded the music to listen on other devices, this is the major pain point about spotify.

4/ what ? only if you ask some playlist to be synchronized it download them and then stop, or are you talking about the fact that it shows the currently playing song on others devices, just swipe out the app, but I am not sure it consume a lot.

5/ I didn't had a lot of problem with the android app

Spotify seems determined to force me to listen to albums on shuffle.

After you've tapped a track in the main list of tracks to start it playing, tap the skinny "playing" bit at the very bottom. It should pop up the full screen player. Is the shuffle icon selected (green)?

I had the same issue a while back and I was infuriated at myself for not figuring out the solution.

No I found that, but it switches back pretty often. Can't find a pattern, it's annoying.

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