Random Thoughts on iTunes Randomization and Wifi

I was training using my iPhone as my iPod today, and my love of free wifi bit me in the behind. At my turn-around point, I did a slow arc in the parking lot of a firehouse. The music- Evanescence, dipped in volume and I heard a bing that I associate with my email. At least, I thought it was my email, but I didn't know that email reception would lower the music volume. I rode for about 15 minutes, but since part of the reason I carry the iPhone is in case there is an emergency, and I really don't get many other calls, I stopped.

I'd snagged the free wifi and my email. To my credit I didn't check it.

There's been a lot written about the randomness, or lack of randomness, of iTunes in general and iPods in particular.
1) Random is actually quasi-random, because to generate randomness, you need to use a seed, which in turn, well, what you get is not 'true' randomness. However, the title of the blog is not: This Blog is About Math
2) for all intensive purposes, the iPod is random. However, the human brain hates chaos, and will always try to assign order to random results

So when your iPod seems to hate you, or love you, or whatever, that's you, not it. It's a soulless object and it doesn't like Snow Patrol more than Air Supply- although it should.

I've recently added Air Traffic's Fractured Life to my collection, and proving I have no future as a music critic, I'd describe them as a club band who doesn't want to give up that club band sound even though they've recorded a major label album. And nothing's wrong with that, but as they sound like sort of like Coldplay doing club songs, well, I have plenty of Coldplay.

However, since I added this to my collection, the songs seem to play all the time- at least six in three and a half hours today. When you're in that last hour of your ride and you're trying to hold 20 mph climbing hills, in the wind, I'd rather have angry angst. Give me Staind, which the iPod did, after Air Traffic.

The bottom line- you do control your music. Rate it in iTunes (1-5 stars), then click on 'play higher rated songs more often.'

iTunes and Device Control- Another Opinion

One of my big theories about the internet is that it's always hard to evaluate anything based on what's written on the internet. People who really like things seem to be slugs for the most part, while the haters out there seem to have a ton of energy.

Now don't get me wrong. I hate the record companies as much as the next guy. I'm also a pragmatist. The iTunes store would never have happened without DRM, and the DRM (FairPlay) has never caused me a problem. I've never been unable to play a song when I wanted to and where I wanted to. And I'm way outside the curve. I actually have 5 computers that get daily use- a MacBook Pro, a MacBook, a G5, a Mac Mini, and an HP PC of dubious origin.

The MacBook Pro has, for the entire time I've had it, been my primary iTunes box. It's the machine all my iPods, my iPhone, and my MacTV are linked to. It's also dead as a doorstop due to an odd series of circumstances. I wasted no time moving my portable needs to the MacBook, but with the MacBook Pro on its way to Texas to get some Applecare, I didn't want to set the MacBook up as my iTunes home. For one thing, the hard drive isn't big enough. For another, if the MacBook Pro does come back alive I don't want to have to do all that work twice.

Now, if you don't set iTunes up properly, when you sync your iDevice, it will wipe out whatever is on it and replace it with whatever you've told iTunes to autofill the device with from that computer- usually nothing.

But if you do set it properly, you can still plug in, get a charge- and transfer all the purchased items from the iTunes store that are on it to the computer, but only if you want to.

That device control- which usually gets knocked as a DRM-centric, crippling liability- actually has allowed me to keep my devices charged and full of their own music, and not have to cross-pollinate the different iTunes libraries that are divergent on my different computers.

I like it. I don't feel crippled. i just feel like I have the control that I want.