Friday Fun: Last person to understand iTunes dies

I consider myself a fairly technically adept person, even at the advanced age of 52. But yesterday I was listening to an album on my laptop using iTunes -- something I actually fairly rarely do, as I mostly only use iTunes on shuffle on my phone -- and after I tried to figure out how to get to the shuffle play setting back for my whole music library.

Well, there must have been a way, but the five or six things I tried just didn't work; I seemed only to be able to shuffle the album. In disgust, I shut down iTunes and then restarted it. Once restarted it was trivial to get back to library-level shuffle.

But I curse iTunes for being so counter-intuitive. Never mind the frustration whenever I refresh the music on my phone and have to figure out how to do that all over again.

Which brings me to News Biscuit's hilarious Last person to understand iTunes dies.

Patrick Wilbert, believed to be the last person in the world who understands how iTunes works, passed away yesterday, aged 39, after a stress-related illness. Wilbert had dedicated the last 14 years of his life working out how to get music on and off his iPod via iTunes. He was successful with nearly every version of the app, and there is evidence that he was even able to use iTunes with the Windows operating system.

It's very funny. You should read the whole thing.

"It’s thought he even knew the difference between synching and backing up, but was never able to put it into words."

*snort*

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This confirms what I've always said about every frigging update to every piece of software invented. Here's how it goes down:

Senior management sends the word down from on high: we need to change things up! We need to get people excited and get them to buy, buy, buy!!!

Somewhere, in a deep, dark hole sit the software people. None is older than 21. They all spend their days changing stuff up...just because. Is it easier to understand? Does it work better? Does it make the software more user-friendly? No! No! No!

But it's different, which makes it fun. Or should I say, funner, for all those sleep-deprived, sun-deprived programmers.

I hate them with a passion (except for the one sitting across from me right now, who's an ex-programmer, anyway).

Thanks for making me smile – in an unfunny context.
I have maintained for a long time that iTunes has the worst user interface known to man.

By Douglas Brotchie (not verified) on 23 May 2015 #permalink