Re: Where do you get your music?
Figment: no, I'm really not wrong, you simply want a feature out of the box that iOS devices don’t provide. Download Dropbox from the App Store, and put your music and videos in your Dropbox. Now you have music and videos, without iTunes. Or install VLC, which also supports iCloud. There are local disk apps too which pretend to be file servers, SMB client apps for your network shares, public streaming services like Spotify or Apple or Google Music, and of course any protocol that allows remote access will work (Stream To Me, Transmit/SSH, etc). Finally, if it's about the cable, there are still other options for accessing the media folder itself (but not the structure) such as DiskAid, although these rely on understanding a closed protocol. And various alternative media managers, specifically MediaMonkey, support iOS directly, albeit less well than iTunes can. You have, as I said, more choice now than you've ever had. The wonderful irony, of course, is that you are absolutely correct that Apple were once blocking competition; the original iPod was a mass storage device and Apple locked out competitors by encrypting the database file with secrets only known to iTunes, and added insult to injury by inviting you to use that iPod in "Disk mode" to access any free space, which presented an empty drive with a hidden directory on it to operating systems, but no music. That's impractical today because mass storage requires exclusive access to the filesystem, so nobody does it. Happily, nowadays you only require iTunes for the making of local backups, and if you're willing to forego even those, there's always iCloud. It's also the only way to fully restore the firmware on your device, if the need arises, and to access iTunes Match if you want to store your music in the Apple cloud for use by the Music app, which is another effective way to cut the chord. It's honestly a shame iTunes is such a useful piece of software; I'd love nothing more than to see it torn to pieces, so people could pick and choose the bits they want. Perhaps, if Apple ever figures out how to derive all information from file structure, it could be copy-paste-compatible or iOS could move to MTP like Android does (currently unsupported by Mac OS without third-party tools, BTW). Until then the best you can do is tag your files and transfer them using the iTunes manual sync mode. And much as I believe Apple deserves bad karma for lock-in, this doesn't strike me as in any sense anti-competitive; at best it’s just particularly annoying to Windows users.
Interesting history you had there with Apple. FWIW, I had a brief encounter with OS 9 (a musician friend of mine) and it all seemed very parochial then, too. I think that Apple rightly earned its reputation for being, in essence, AOL for computer users. At this time, Apple did not have an accessibility solution of its own. But I didn’t move to the Mac until OS X Leopard in 2008 (I was distinctly unimpressed when Tiger first came out with VoiceOver), when Microsoft were still trying to figure out how to do user interfaces and becoming very envious of the competition with the disastrous result that was Vista, and Apple were simply changing the rules on accessibility with a rock-solid general-purpose OS, and that was a very good time indeed to be an advocate. Not sure I could still say that, but I guess the prove is in the pudding, since I’m not using Windows or Android. There was no contest in the smartphone wars either; by the time Android came out with TalkBack, iOS was already streaks ahead.
Nowadays, I think Apple’s business priorities are distinctly less pro-user and distinctly more pro-business with the success of its stores and iOS and the resulting “iOSification” of OS X, and with the new leadership, I’ve been trying to get off the addiction. Apple’s grasp of accessibility is very good, though, so it’s quite difficult to justify. As things stand, going back to Windows just hurts my head, iOS is buggy but still the best, Android is in what seems to be a perpetual state of near-readiness and OS X is stable and robust, has fewer choices and is clearly in decay as iOS takes it over, but is still a great joy to use. I’m largely all right with the iOS and OS X integration, although I’m increasingly annoyed by Apple’s dumbing down of OS X to meet the needs of iOS users. I’m not convinced this can be totally ignored, but it can definitely be worked around. Even without considering accessibility, I’m a big believer in going with what your needs dictate. It sounds to me like your objections are primarily based on principle, and maybe you’d benefit from looking at the landscape again yourself with an eye out for more practical concerns, to see which actually suits you best. Choices aren’t always optimal. Personally, my sympathies for the positive points of the Windows accessibility market are more than hurt by Windows’ continued lack of user interface flexibility for those who dislike the direction MS are taking, the Win10 disaster and the disrespect for user privacy; likewise for Android’s flexibility as compared to iOS, but for its complete lack of usable accessibility and user privacy. FWIW, I still objectively feel that Android is inadequately accessible at the moment. There are presumably other discussions on here (and ones you could start) to find recommendations for making your Android "Experience" as comfortable as possible, but I'm afraid I don't think Google's commitment in that department is concrete enough, even with version 5 which is undoubtedly a big step forward. You could try Chrome+ChromeVox and ChromeOS, though. It's cheap enough to do, and it's quite good, if a little steep learning-curve wise. Familiarity with VoiceOver commands is helpful but not required, in the sense that the commands are different but the strategy very similar, with two-handed navigation that can be converted to single-handed navigation if required. And ChromeOS itself is very simple to understand and use, has very limited diversification, and is very safe. Totally unlike Android, in other words. I have to imagine that it's a superior accessibility experience only because ChromeOS is big in the education sector.
I used Nokia series 60 back in the day. I was smitten, but I see why it had to die out, eventually. It was a smartphone, with full keyboard control and a screen reader (Talks, in my case). There were quite a few useful apps for it, like an instant messenger and a full-featured SIP client. Great stuff.
iOS 9.2 is now out. Install it, then hard reset your device, to see instant speed improvements. If you were like me and had that awful interface slowdown post-upgrade, the hard reset should fix it.
Backups don’t require libraries. Just choose “Back up” from File > Devices. You can just cancel when you are asked to sync with this library; it’s not important.
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