What makes Apple computers so popular is their supposedly intuitively-to-use software. I have to admit that I can’t comment on “native” (read: MacOS) Apple software, but I can comment on Apple’s Windows software and my comments aren’t exactly favorable…

A few days ago, I installed Apple’s latest iTunes software for Windows. I had already played around with a previous version of iTunes (4.x I think) which I didn’t like very much then, because it was “sluggish” even on fast computers (because it obviously didn’t make use of multithreading so it blocked every now and then,) not very well integrated into the Windows desktop, etc.

Unfortunately Apple didn’t make their homework. iTunes still is very sluggish to use (at least on my 1.2 GHz, 1 GB RAM machine,) and it’s also not very intuitive to use. Let me give you an example: I configured iTunes not to use the “1-click buy” feature, but to use a shopping cart. I bought a song and wanted to download it. I searched around, but couldn’t find the shopping cart, no matter where I looked. I finally found it in a different iTunes window, that was laying around under the current window. Hey, is this intuitive???

Another thing I strongly dislike is that you obviously can’t deauthorize PCs you don’t have any access to anymore. I recently had to reinstall my complete PC because I lost a hard drive by hardware failure. Therefore I had to reinstall iTunes, too. I noticed that two PCs are authorized, namely the original installation plus my new installation. There doesn’t seem to be any way to deauthorize the destroyed installation. What I find even much more serious is that there doesn’t seem to be a way to re-download my previously purchased songs. Hey, Apple, do you listen??? Do you really expect me to buy the songs again???

No, thanks. If that’s the so-much praised Apple software, I think I don’t need to switch. I can have that kind of “quality software” under Windoze, too. 🙂

Update 2007-07-28: I complained to iTunes support about the fact that I can’t redownload the songs purchased. Here’s their (German) response which, quite honestly, was a very pleasant surprise for me:

Apple erlaubt Ihnen diese Artikel erneut kostenlos zu laden. Wir machen Sie darauf aufmerksam, daß es Ihnen nur einmal möglich ist diese Einkäufe zu laden. Dies ist eine einmalige Ausnahme.

Here’s the English translation:

Apple allows you to redownload these articles for free. Please note that you can only download these purchases once.

Thanks, Apple!