simra.net Doing stuff since 1973

The reasoning behind Apple's lack of attention to key features that would make everyday iTunes users happy is simple:

iTunes is a music management/player software that Apple created for a single purpose - to allow users easy access to the iTunes Store, where they can easily download and listen to thousands of different songs.

For that purpose, iTunes excels. You buy the music, you listen to the music, you burn a compilation CD is you like to do so. Those things are incredibly easy to do within iTunes, most people will agree.

That those things are what Apple NEEDS the software to do in order to make them the most money. So long as consumers can easily access, download and listen to their music with ease, Apple is happy.

That's why Apple puts marketing focus on using iTunes with your iPod - they want consumers to buy iPods and then buy iTunes music, because it puts more money in their pockets.

So of course they're not going to focus on making it easy to add your own music, content not from the iTunes Store. It doesn't make them any extra money, and although you could say that that functionally might appeal to consumers considering buying an iPod to use with iTunes, consumers with that mindset are of far less importance to Apple than those consumers actively purchasing music from the iTunes Store.

So if you want a media player with all those features that Apple could care less about, look elsewhere. If I might suggest, the open-source Mozilla media-player, Songbird is looking mighty fine.

Apple says "Think Different."

Almost sounds like a call to think about something besides Apple - hey, I'm already doing that...