Losing my iLove

I am not sure what is going on in Cupertino towers lately but I am not entirely impressed with the changes Apple is making to the way their products and services work.

To start with I signed up for iTunes Match and I am not completely sure why I have it or what it is supposed to do… I get that it allows me to have all my music in the cloud, I get that it allows me to backup my current iTunes library (note not all of it as I have too much music) and I get the I can stream or download my music anytime from the cloud to my iOS device etc

but…. This comes at a cost…

I now find my Music on my iPhone confusing. If all the music is visible I have to trawl through to find what is actually on my device. This isn’t helped when I only display what is on the device as all the cloud symbols confuse me and I am not sure what I have on me and what I don’t.

Since I am using the cloud I no longer am able to use Genius – which I didn’t realise I used so much until now.

My wi-fi syncing is slow and takes forever to show any new tracks or selections.

The very worst though (for me) is that I no longer see all my album art. I painstakingly updated my artwork and keep iTunes looking tidy and now more often than not I get that awful generic grey musical note graphic.

Apart from the iTunes match problems this years selection of freebies through the 12 Days of Christmas app have been appalling. I am not sure who Apple is pitching this too but my best guess would be 10 year old girls whose brothers steal their iPhones to play games! The selection has been particularly poor this year and the worst example of a “free gift” was the EA Sports “Need for Speed” racing game which kept prompting you to read ads’ buy add ons and go to the web site. Not great.

I think Apple have done a great job with iTunes and 12 Days in the past (and lots of other things obviously) but I honestly think they have taken their eye off the target and are failing their consumers.

I know I didn’t have to sign up for Match or get the app but if it’s offered then it should at the very least work!

One can only hope that Apple wake up and improve as 2012 progresses.