Friday, April 21, 2017

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Apple and I are not on speaking terms, at the moment.

The only Apple product I own is an Infernal Device -- 12G of storage, in a conveniently sized brick -- which, I'm not gonna lie, I have been very happy with for a surprising stretch of years. But when it finally goes to that Great Landfill In the Sky (*cough*) I will shed no tears as I replace it with something similarly large, but more user-friendly. My biggest kvetch with Apple, following their callous dismissal of their most reliable product to date, is that stinking, soggy sack of bloatware iTunes.

This discontent ramped up to Mexico/US levels of incredulous fury with the latest "update" -- which now locks my computer screen for seven painful minutes with this "I"-less GUI . . .
. . . before surrendering the meanest of user-interfaces that syncs up with my Infernal Device but will not permit me access to the hallowed halls of Apple's glorious digital content. Personally, this is a concern of convenience over content -- most of what I download from iTunes is podcast-based, which can be obtained from other locations. Still, a single location is better than multiple, so I consulted the forums to see if I'd possibly committed to a bad install.

Nope, not really. Apparently, because I have persistently said "No, thank you" to the invitation to "install" (their word) iCloud for Win-doze, Apple is now left with no other option than to bar its storefront doors to me. To which I say, I never liked your freaky fart-stain of a store to begin with.
No place to park, for one thing.
Apple is keen to corral my digital content toward their own storage vault. Everybody is -- I get that. I have even cautiously accepted some invitations to that end -- I've uploaded my most-played music to Google's cloud, along with the extremely-hard-to-get stuff that is still not readily available. But you know I have hard-copies of all of that.

"Hard-copies" -- the day is surely coming when such will be moot. At that point will I go full-Luddite, and content myself with wax platters atop the Victrola and such entertainments as I can pluck from my own base instruments?

4 comments:

Joel Swagman said...

http://joelswagman.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-rant-about-how-im-not-happy-with-ipod.html

I know you've already seen this post, but I just wanted to add my two cents here to your anti-apple rant

Whisky Prajer said...

A complication I didn't mention in your earlier post is the girls in this family all have iPods (in fact, the elder has gone all-in with Apple -- which is fine, as she is now of age and responsible for her own firmware updates). Since iTunes was an inevitability I went ahead and made my own purchase. No regrets, but I'll be relieved when the divorce from Apple is final.

Yahmdallah said...

So, my father called this weekend and asked if I wanted this old stack of his favorite little newspaper some dude in SD puts together with home remedies, repair tips, and nifty little recipes. Dad has to move to where his wife is, who is taking care of her elderly mother, so the house needs clearing for selling. We lamented about these valuable things we collect for that someday, but which tend to go to the bin first, because the bulk of the treasure has rendered it impervious.

I have 2 lucite boxes about 10 inches in length where I managed to cram hundreds of MP3 CDs after taking them out of their jewel cases when I moved after the divorce. The dream had always been to get them all on some terabyte drive so they're all there at the ready. Twice I have embarked on the transfer, but have flagged as the realization that I'm about as likely to play that deep Mastodon cut as I am to dye my pubes in order to achieve the perfect obscene comment on the President's comb-over.

I've decided that I'm going to finish the transfer of only the stuff I'll probably listen too, a vast subset of the whole. But my rogue librarian's heart pre-mourns the eventual chuck into the dumpster as I recall the time and care archiving the stuff in the first place.

So, the younger father has already trod in his father's tracks, because I asked my daughters if they'd ever want the stuff - which was sure to contain some unearthed treasures. They both smiled sadly and admitted it would find the landfill from their hand rather than mine.

I'm left to ponder how many copies of "Dust in the Wind" reside in those lucite boxes.

Whisky Prajer said...

Oof -- I feel your pain. The Infernal Device is just about maxed out with roughly 41 days worth of tunes. These days when I put something new on, I try to remove at least two albums I'm not listening to. It's like pulling teeth -- I KNOW I won't listen to most of this stuff, but I'm still persuaded I need it around.

As for CDs, forget about our various MP3 collections -- I fully expect the pro studio products to diminish in value as our generation slides into the dirt. Just consider the plummeting value of all that Elvis kitsch.