iTunes iSucks

I bought an iPhone. This isn't exactly news worthy, except it was a big thing. I'm not a big Apple fan, I hate their computers and despise iTunes. Other than iTunes, I like my new phone. I'd like it more if I'd thought to make a list of what was on my old phone before I traded it in. Whoopsie. Things like my grocery list. And all the notes. And my calendar. And the apps I use... I suppose I'll get it all figured out eventually.

The first thing I did was drop it so that it totally black screened on me and wouldn't do anything. FAN-tatic. I did a little googling and managed to reboot it. Then I immediately ordered an Otterbox, which should be here Wednesday.

 And I still hate iTunes. I think part of the problem is that we have four computers (including a home server), an iPad2 and now my iPhone all trying to sync. It's not working. It took Greg, who is a geek, entirely too long to figure out how to get the music off our Amazon cloud into iTunes. He finally got everything moved and synced then I discovered that you can't easily create ringtone on idevices. Nope. On my old Android phone it was a couple of clicks and any song you own can be a ringtone. With Apple products you have to use a song you bought from iTunes and blah blah blah then sync it to your phone. Or, the easiest way, pay another $1.29 to download a premade ringtone even though you've already paid to buy the song itself. That's what I ended up doing, even though I was pretty ticked about it. But then I spent 20 minutes getting a "can't download this item" error on my phone. I ended up downloading it to my laptop and synching it to get my ringtone. Except that screwed up my playlists. I want to scream. I still don't have it fixed, but Greg got it to play my music and said as long as I don't push any other buttons to make it exit that screen I'd be fine. Fantastic. I thought idevices were supposed to be simple to use?

On the bright side, I'm happy to have access to several apps that weren't developed for Android. Like Ticket to Ride, a game Greg and I love to play on the iPad and with the board game. Now we can play against each other as long as he has the iPad close by. Eventually he'll get an iPhone and it'll be even easier! I also downloaded things like Instagram and the Pinterest app. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

The truth is, I'd never really wanted an iPhone until I heard the reasoning behind why the company that makes Ticket to Ride refused to make an Android version. It's all about quality control. Since Android is an open platform, anybody can make a phone that runs it and that gives you lots of options. It also gives you a wide variety of quality and specifications on each phone. It also means if you buy a phone today it'll be outdated in three months because another company will release a better model. For this reason, a lot of new apps wouldn't run on my old phone because they were geared to newer models with faster processors. App makers have no control of the finished product because it varies depending on which phone you own. For more complex games, like Ticket to Ride, you don't want people thinking your app sucks when in fact it's the quality of their phone. Making apps for idevices makes it easy, there is a very limited number of options for the device it runs on and you pretty much know specs you're developing for. That makes sense. Then I read the biography of Steve Jobs, which was a much better book than I had expected, and while it didn't make me want to drink the Apple kool aid, it did make me appreciate the quality behind the iPhone and iPad. I understand the idea of the closed system and I understand how it promotes a higher quality product. I don't like the idea that consumers are too stupid to make the right choices in technology and therefore shouldn't be given a choice of hardware, operating systems, or system software.

And I still hate iTunes.