Why I Hate Apples on Windows

I hate Apples on Windows for the same reason that I hate blogger.com's new "add links feature" because it is not well thought out.  The new blogger feature hides text in the post with a stupid icon.  Well, that's not helpful at all!  Ugh!  Idiots!  Someone thought, oh well, we'll automatically add links to search stuff in these blog posts, but while doing that we'll hide the blog post.  I think that is the definition of idiot.

I hate Apple(s) on Windows because Apple folk don't really think in Windows speak.   I learned this years ago when I spent hours trying to figure out how to use iTunes to transfer music to my iPhone.    I don't remember what the problem was but it just turned out to be something simple but not obvious.   Since those yesteryears, I stopped using my iPhone for music, mainly because I stopped listening to music in my car.  I switched to audiobooks, which came with their own iPhone app, and also that meant I didn't have to deal with iTunes.  Well, except a year or two ago I had an .mp3 audiobook that I wanted to play on the iPhone and ended up engaging iTunes to copy the .mp3's again, I think with only half the headache I had the first time...

Well, today with a similar situation, a desire to copy an .mp3 audiobook to the iPhone, I tackled the problem again...  I was on a different PC than the last time, and when I went online to check the best way to copy it over, I was told that instead of using iTunes, I (or i) should use Apple Devices on Win 11.  I said, okay, and installed Apple Devices.  I opened it.  I clicked on the "Music" option, was informed that I actually needed to use the Apple Music app to manage music on my device, so I installed that...  After it opened it wanted me to sign up for an Apple Music subscription, and that's all it seemed to want to do was get me to sign up.  Not interested, and I think I got around the advertising but then looking at the App it was like iTunes upside down or something, and I kept thinking I really don't want to deal with this, I basically didn't want to learn a whole new process to do something I already new how to do with iTunes, so I went to see if there was version of iTunes for Win11 and damn if there wasn't, so I installed it...  And ultimately the process of copying the new audiobook was pretty much as I remembered it, and that part I accomplished in a handful of mins; maybe, only half a handful.  "Great!", you might say.

The problem is that when I went to look at what iTunes showed was on (or available) for my iPhone, it was showing the audiobook that I had previously copied over and which I subsequently removed/deleted from the dev(il)ice.   I couldn't figure out why those .mp3 files were still showing and ultimately this drove me to the edge of insanity, as there appeared to be no way to remove the items from the listing.  No "remove", no "delete", no "clear", no "kick this behind the couch", no "hide" , no "fuck this", option for getting rid of them, and blast me if that did rub my obsessive compulsive mind the wrong way.  The odd thing is iTunes was aware they were missing because when I tried clicking on them or copying to my dev(il)ice, it would show an (!) indicating it knew there was a problem...

Well, long story short, or short story long, I ended up spending about 90 mins trying to puzzle what the problem was.  First I thought it was because somehow or other they had been saved in the iCloud, and Google AI suggested that was a likelihood.  So I tried looking in the iCloud.  Apple of course didn't believe I was who I was and it kept making me run between my iPhone and my PC (in sort of two different locations in my living room...), and I think it took all of 25 or 30 minutes to get logged in only to find there's actually no way to see anything about the iCloud data via the website anyway.   Patience wearing thin, I googled and googled and googled and googled and googled.   Ultimately google indicated I should go to the dev(il)ice summary page (had to google how to go there...) in iTunes and scroll down oodles of pages to find a setting that google suggested would be one thing but which turned out to be something else and then I was supposed 'sync'.  Well, voila, when I synced, it said, "Oh, by the way, this dev(il)ice is synced to a different PC..."  (A PC that is now defunct.  The PC, that I'd used to load the old audiobook.) "... do I fucking want to sync anyway?"  Why the hell iTunes didn't mention the other PC when I connected the dev(il)ice, or at least when it displayed the (!), I can't say, but that also is a very good definition of 'idiot'.  I mean if you can identify the fact that syncing might be a problem, but not mention it when loading or identifying missing files then what else would you call it but 'idiot'.   I guess PC's never die in Apple's mind, though I nearly did fussing over this crap.

Now you might think it ended there.  I sync'd.  The old PC got forgotten.  My obsessive compulsive mind calmed.  I copied the new audiobook over, but...

Well, I forgot to mention that when iTunes loaded it mentioned there was a newer version and asked if I wanted to upgrade.  I said "Yes".  The dialog went away.  I proceeded with using the old version, assuming that new version was loading in background, else it would've closed the running version if it needed to when upgrading, or else it wasn't actually upgrading...  I didn't really care.  But when I closed iTunes, 90 mins later, I noticed another query dialog about the upgrade and I clicked: "Proceed."  The upgrade took a fair amount of time, about 25 mins.   I shook my head, but I'd moved on and was doing other stuff, but then decided I needed to look at the upgraded version when it was done.  Well, lo, and fuck all, when it loaded it announce that most of its features had been replaced with the Apple Dev(il)ices and Apple Music apps, but it still could do something worthless, I don't know what, but now I could no longer copy .mp3's to my iPhone using iTunes.  New iTunes was now useless to me.  OMG!  Again, not wanting to learn Apple Music (or buy the subscription...),  I said, "Well, this is stupid."

I uninstalled the new iTunes.  I uninstalled Apple Music.  I uninstalled Apple Devices.   I re-installed the un-upgrade iTunes version.   I planned to 'not upgrade' when the old version loaded.  All good.  All done.  Open iTunes.  It complains that some data file it uses was created by a newer version of iTunes so it could not load.  Ugh, I uninstalled old iTunes.  I went and deleted the damn file it was complaining about.  Removed all my local apple folders.  No apple on my Windows.  Re-install the un-upgraded version again,  and voila, stuff seems to be working again.  Hooray!

Now I know the whole world, save a loser or two like me, just loves learning to do something they already know how to do, just as long is the new way is wearing a new coat, but I have to say this is why I hate Apples on Windows, because I just don't see the reason why the new coat is necessary.

Ugh, and double ugh.  Bye.