I am big fan of audible.com – the premium audible book place. I’ve used them forever. No complaints – until now.
I use my phone to play books. But I wrecked my phone; I’m using a non-smartphone (dumbphone). So I need to burn to CD.
To burn to CD, Audible requires Apple’s ITunes. Dude, seriously, I am not going to install Apple software on my machine.
But the problem is, I needed to listen to these book. I wanted to. I was trapped. I installed ITunes. Now, I can burn to CD.
Of course, the UI was confusing and clunky. But I’m pretty bright. I figured out the ITunes’ developer’s intent. I got it.
Now, I don’t want to go too far here. I don’t freakin’ love ITunes. But, I have never used music software as feature rich. Ever.
Let me start with Genius. That’s the feature name that auto generates playlists. It’s great. The visualizations are mesmerizing, and it finds 99% of my missing artwork. Good job.
That’s why I hate Apple. If people hate Microsoft ‘cause they write the software people use, I hate Apple for the same thing – but maybe more because they make make me like it.
I’m not comfortable in ITunes yet. I don’t see me going out to buy an IPod. But, I’ll likely not be using WMP much more.
In the end, this is just software. So it’s frustrating. Couldn’t MS have spent a few $M and given me the same thing? Seriously?
The same could be said about Internet Explorer and Zune.
The same could NOT be said about Xbox, WLM (including Hotmail), Office, Visual Studio, the Microsoft Mouse, MSDN, Windows (especially 7), and Image Composer (that’s just me).