HN user
Seriously? No credible alternative? CDs are a credible alternative. Seriously. Not to mention any number of music managers, archos, sony, zune etc.
I mean, they might SUCK, but some people think cars that aren't beemers SUCK, it's hyperbole to say that sony isn't credible.
You can buy a sony product, download mp3s from amazon and listen to music.
What makes that not a credible alternative?
Sheesh, honestly this is far afield but why do people keep lumping not having a feature in with evil?
Aren't most of you people software developers? Do you sell software to people? Regular humans who can blow out your profit with a single helpline call?
Choosing to not support a scenario is about as far from evil as you could possibly get.
Do you seriously look at all of the things that itunes doesn't do, all of the things that it does poorly or all of its bugs and think "apple is evil"?
Isn't it clear that they, despite having some great talent, are resource-constrained like everyone else?
Have you ever used a bug database? Tracked a bug count? Tested? Shipped a product?
OK, I'm trying not to be insulting or personal here but let's be clear: not supporting file system access aka supporting only the sync model INDISPUITABLY saved engineering resources. That feature you want is not free. If you can't see that then we're done because the only response would be insulting.