iTunes is a bad neighbor

My brother got an iPod for graduation and he's been using my computer as his docking station. Since Apple must do everything their own way, that means I needed to install iTunes. While I personally dislike iTunes, it does have the ability to listen to Windows Media files. That was very helpful as it meant I didn't have to rip all my CDs into iTunes separately as I've already done that in Windows Media player. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned.

You see iTunes can't actually play Windows Media files like every media player on the face of the earth, including players for Linux and Mac. No they have to "transcode" (which means convert from one file format to another) Windows Media files to Apple's own M4A format. M4A files take about the same amount of space as a Windows Media file so now my music takes twice as much space as before and Windows Media Player and Windows Search finds two copies for every song. That's annoying.

I don't expect iPods to support Windows Media files. What I do expect is iTunes to keep the transcoded data in a format that doesn't double the size of my media library and hide it so Windows Search and Windows Media Player don't find two copies of every friggin' song. Shame on Apple for being horrible computing neighbors. Computers are tools to improve people's lives, not burdens to make our lives more difficult.

John 1:14: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."