What would you consider the worst piece of software you have used?

I have stuck with XP!

At least with one pc at home.

Vista was pure bloatware.

Then, well, it had to be done. iMac.

But I don't use iTunes for anything other than backing up my phone :-)

For crap software Skype takes some beating.

Great for a while, then seizures, locking out of keyboards, bsods, refuses to 'click' on anything, you name it - it does it. Last week it would not even let me switch the damn pc of - had to pull the power cord in the end. How can that happen? Poor old PSU sounded like it was going to explode.

Old versions of Norton were 'amusing' for slowing down the pc experience.

Another vote for iTunes. It's perhaps the worst piece of software I've ever used. I have an iPhone and iPod, use a laptop and home PC, and it's been a nightmare keeping it all together.

It's just crap.

I think iTunes is just fine.

I agree... Especially when used with Pure Music or Amarra

Worst?

Samsung Kies. Piece of Sh*t.

Pity the s/ware blows as the hardware (Galaxy S2) is awesome.

Siebel CRM.   Yeah, ok, it is this big, corporate monstrosity that costs millions to implement, and all the biggest manufacturers use it..and it is universally despised.  Impossible to do the simplest thing without 13 screens and 27 discrete steps.  It is the most obtuse, convoluted, and unnecessarily complex bag o' shite ever dropped on to a computer.  OMG it is such CRAP!

Hook

PS - Yes, I was trying to feed the bloody CRM monster this evening, so the wounds are still fresh.

When I discovered - fresh iTunes user - that iTunes won't load cover art on WAV files, that you have to subscribe to iTunes store and open an account with your CC number to use some of its features, that you have to compile a normal CD as playlist to be able to write it on a CD-R, and so on, well I haven't loved it hugely.

I understand Apple is not a benefactor, but to impose restrictions on the customer buyer, at the same time persuading him he's the most cool and privileged and unique user in the world (among millions of identical others), well this is genius...

 iTunes

Windows

Adobe flash I think - the flaming thing seems to need perpetual updating every time I go near the internet.

Windows Media Player would have to be up there (assuming we're not talking about operating systems), closely followed by any version of Internet Explorer up to IE8 (and I expect to include IE9 once I've had the dubious pleasure of trying it out).  I've lost track of the number of times I've tried playing music on my office PC, just music, and ended up with some stupid animation, no way to navigate songs etc. etc.

iTunes (I actually started with SoundJam&hellip is probably the piece of software I love the most - it's easy to use, and brings together my music with my hifi with my iPod/iPhone etc.  It's second only to Safari in terms of 'most used' on my computer.  

There can't be many music apps out there that haven't been inspired by iTunes, maybe removing some of the platform-specific and iTMS integration along the way… it's been a genuine game-changing piece of software.

Simon 

[EDIT: good to see hoop.la can't parse keyboard characters… that should have read as 'Soundjam...)']

Thanks for the replies.

I think one of the best tests of both software and hardware is when something goes wrong. With I-tunes the disc with the library crashed, you have to buy a separate piece of software to copy back the files, and then when you try to synch, it makes you wipe the I-pod, then gives more errors than is worth carrying on with, so I am starting from scratch. 2000 tracks, and as I am a fan of Tangerine Dream and Yes, amongst others, quite a few of those are two or three track albums.

Also when trying to sych a damaged track, it doesn't give the option of cancelling, it just hangs for minutes before giving an error message, or sometimes crashes Windows, brilliant.

Didn't I have a backup, yes on the I-pod and on my CD shelves, and I have better things to do with 40gig of disc space.

All I-tunes has to do, is make a series of directories in which it puts some files, then plays them back, plus access a few data base files. I do this all the time on film and TV projects with much more complex amounts of data.

Because the record industry is paranoid that people could swap files between each other, Apple have taken a very simple thing to do, and completely f***ed it up. As Maxbertola points out, they have also added in a Apple vs Windows layer of corporate pig headedness to make Windows files awkward to use.

Put another way, it is like you deciding to play an Abba album, you walk over to the CD rack, look under A, take the case over to the CD player, put it in the player and hit the play button, simple.

But for I-tunes, it will not do it, as your wife has moved the shelves to the left when dusting, it has torn up the cover as it doesn't approve of artists on the Epic label, and because of all that it insists that you unwire and re-wire all your hi-fi before you can put the disc in, and then you find it scratched the CD when tearing up the cover art.

I have sympathy when a programme is trying to do something very hard and fails, but to mess up something so simple, and to deliberately do so, is beyond belief.

Windows is the worst piece of software I have ever had to use.

Adobe Flash is pretty awful too - glad to see it is being phased out.  

iTunes on OS X works faultlessly for me (or has done since I first encountered it on OS9), I think it is a very good program, it just works.  I've never used it on Windows, but I suspect all the problems people report are down to Windows and its use of dynamic link libraries. Move to OS X and you'll never look back. 

Jamie 

I have my iTunes library on a separate disc, which I backup to another inexpensive disk; should the disc ever crash then I can just use the other disc. I can't really blame iTunes if a disc crashes. This will be the same with other software too. If you don't back-up a UnitiServe and the disc crashes then the files are gone. 

The only negative thing I can see with iTunes is that it doesn't automatically use the correct sample rate and it won't play FLAC, but nothing is perfect. At least if I phone Apple they try to help me ... not like another software company I could mention. 

You may find it better though to use something else if you don't like iTunes .... though I think you'll find you'll have the same underlying problems as they are down to the operating system, which is what controls the file system. 

I hope you get the problem sorted

All the best, Guy 

I don't use WAV at all. Don't see why you'd want to. Most software has trouble with meta-data and WAV.

I subscribe to iTunes for other reasons (buying music isn't one of them), so that's not an issue.

I don't ever burn CD-Rs. Again, I don't understand why you'd want to.

So it is horses for courses. iTunes does just fine by me.

I only use iTunes formyI devices, with Windows 7.  never have any great problems.

As for CDR, my in-car system isradio/CD, so I tend to burn them for that purpose.  Don't talk to me about thosed abominable littlthis gas which generate an Fm signal from iPods etc.  Never found one that sounds anything other than dire.

Hi Jamie,

I gave up with iTunes (on PC) when I discovered this Windows Media Player plug in. http://www.mgtek.com/dopisp/ It allows you to synch your iPod with your media player library,  I think it cost me about US$20 about 5 years ago and I've never needed iTunes since. I was unwilling to hand over CC details just to be able to download cover art that had already been downloaded by media player when I did my original rips. The only caveat I'd have is that if I plug my iPod into my other half's Mini you can't seem to control the iPod so maybe this could be a deal breaker for you. Worth checking out though,

Good luck 

Scott

Hi Hook,

I would have sworn you were writing about SAP BusinessObjects. I understand it used to be quite usable when still owned by BusinessObjects but now that SAP have got their hands on it and attempted (almost) to integrate it with the gazillion other bits of software they have bought over the years there is no commonality, lots of obsolete functionality, lots of redundant functionality, hopelessly useless documentation where every variance demands that a new separate document is written and on and on and on. It remains the only piece of software I have ever used where I have to resort to vendor support to allow me to understand it.

Cheers

Scott

Any of those big ERP business systems are ridiculously crappy. It is unbelievable to me that SAP and others have been peddling the same unstable, unusable junk to businesses for billions of dollars, over and over again for 30 years and no-one has called them on it.

Some of the early CAD software was delightfully mad in the way it worked, but it is interesting to read about Siebel and SAP causing grief to users and support staff. These things are usually chosen by people who never have to use them other than to consume the reports they generate so the horrors are not usually seen by the man who pays the bill.

Back on topic:- any Unix application ported to windows is going to be a bad experience.

Jono

Nail. Hammer. WHACK!. 

John

Thought that was a given!