Thursday, May 13, 2010

My Love Hate Relationship With Apple Continues

I broke down this weekend and actually called the Apple store at Westfarms. If they had the iPad model that I wanted in stock I was driving over to get it. But luckily they didn't have it, and I'm glad. I got all caught up in the thrill of it while out in San Fran. I went over to the Apple store and fondled one and half of the thousand people attending that conference had one. It was impossible not to sit next to someone completely engrossed in one. Then flying home I sat next to, not only one guy, but two with iPads. Three people in the row, one a hip graphic designer and two nerdy guys and I'm the one without an iPad. What was wrong with that picture? I tried really hard to focus on my old fashion book. I stared at the same page for an hour while my eyes were shifted to the side, completely spying on the guy next to me. How could you not be drawn to that beautiful piece of art?

But I have since cooled my jets. I know there are other products coming down the pike and I'm truly disgusted by the Apple vs Adobe battle going on. I am fiercely loyal to Adobe and totally got a kick out of their new ads that appeared today. Click image to enlarge if you want to read.

I've said this a million times . . . I don't approve of Apple's arrogant business practices. So today when I found this news of a Google/Verzion tablet posted on a blog, I was thrilled. These new tablets will be sure to run on the Android OS and that is more than likely what I will end up for a phone. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a phone and tablet using the same aps? I'm thrilled that I didn't buy the iPad and can not wait to see all the other products that will soon flood the market.

And this evening sealed the deal. I just got my new little Sansa mp3 player. Sansa was the first mp3 player I ever owned and continues to be my favorite. I'm sick of running while holding the iTouch - fearful that I'm gonna wipe out and smash it (although I would be doing myself a favor). So I bought this new little gadget just for running. I came to the iMac to load my music and guess what? All the music that I ripped lately (most of my CD collection) is all in a Mac-only format that will not transfer onto my Sansa. PERFECT. Freakin' Mac! Why does the company that makes the best products have to be so controlling? I just don't like it. It's like they want to make your life easier, but only if you conform to living your life the way they say you should.

2 comments:

lgaumond said...

OK, take a deep breath...

Now open iTunes. Go to Preferences. On the General tab, toward the bottom, click the Import Settings button. When the new window pops up, drop down the box that says AAC Encoder, and change it to MP3 Encoder. Click OK, OK, close all of that.

Now select all of the music you want as MP3s, go to Advanced (on the menu bar) and choose Create MP3 Version.

Phew! All set. Now quit the Apple hating.

You now have MP3 versions of all of your music in your iTunes Library folder now. (FYI-It won't let you convert music you purchased, but CDs you burned are fine.)

Unknown said...

Can I just ask one stupid question. How do I know which songs I need to convert? I'm looking at a huge list of songs in iTunes and of course Apple doesn't show you the file extensions. So how do I easily select just the m4as to convert them?