Apple Releases iTunes 10.2 With Support for iOS 4.3 and Improved Home Sharing

[bpaluzzi]

Please Apple, instead of making all these tiny incremental changes to iTunes, redesign the whole thing. It's awful. It's one of the least intuitive things they've ever designed. Using multiple devices (iPod/iPhone) etc. with it is often just bewildering. Okay, so feel free to call me stupid and lacking in tech knowledge, but it's not good.

The Spotify App for Mac is so much better in terms of music. Easy to queue songs, easy to navigate, dare I say 'fun'. iTiunes is not fun. It's like using a Sage accounting system.

To each their, own, I suppose. To me, the Spotify UI is absolutely awful. Almost to the point of unusable. If the service itself wasn't so awesome, I'd steer far clear.

iTunes needs a total redesign and rewrite. In 64bit. That is that.

Please, explain the virtues of iTunes being 64-bit. Actually, I suppose you could just be saying "iTunes needs a rewrite from the ground up, and if you're going to do a rewrite, do it in 64-bit". Which, I suppose is a bit better, although still not necessarily necessary. Not sure about redesigning for the sake of redesigning, though. People on this board seem to like that. For hardware (MBP, Mac Pro, iPad, take your pick) and consumer-facing software (iTunes, iOS, OSX). Thankfully most of the people using the professional software understand that the constant-redesign mentality is usually a bad idea (as seen in the Final Cut Pro thread)

That's true but Software Update will bug you endlessly about not updating.

So turn off auto updates.

 

[eco7077]

Jeebus, if they could crank out iOS updates at the rate they force me update iTunes we'd be on iOS 8,000 or something.

LOL, thanks to you i am now cleaning my screen from all the coffee i spilled on it when i laughed!!!!!!

 

[Eolian]

That's true but Software Update will bug you endlessly about not updating.

In System Preferences you can deselect the automatic "Check for updates", and then just check manually at your discretion.

You can also choose to "Ignore" any update presented and you will be bothered by it no longer, until/unless you decide to reset this.

There are pros and cons to automatic updating, but I've always preferred to retain control over it. Sometimes (sadly) updates can be more trouble than they're worth.

 

[jonnysods]

It does seem a little faster, much less beachballing today, which is great. iTunes is such a fat bloated little piggy.

 

[Cinnabar]

To each their, own, I suppose. To me, the Spotify UI is absolutely awful. Almost to the point of unusable. If the service itself wasn't so awesome, I'd steer far clear.

Interesting. I've spent a lof of time using Spotify now, and a lot of time using iTunes, and I do much prefer Spotify. But you're right, each to their own.

It al boils down to how cluttered the iTunes interface is. And syncing? Did I mention syncing? Why can't I just drag and drop stuff onto my iPhone/iPod? There's no real easy answer to this question.

 

[bpaluzzi]

Interesting. I've spent a lof of time using Spotify now, and a lot of time using iTunes, and I do much prefer Spotify. But you're right, each to their own.

It al boils down to how cluttered the iTunes interface is. And syncing? Did I mention syncing? Why can't I just drag and drop stuff onto my iPhone/iPod? There's no real easy answer to this question.

I use Spotify a ton too -- I'm probably on it more than iTunes, just because I have a premium spotify account and am always grabbing new albums to listen to. It's an absolutely brilliant service. A lot of it may be the "what I'm used to" effect, to be honest. Have been using iTunes for a long time, and I know what to expect from it. Even the weirdness/gotchas

You can drag and drop stuff onto devices, btw. Just click "manually manage" on the device details screen.

 

[Cinnabar]

I use Spotify a ton too -- I'm probably on it more than iTunes, just because I have a premium spotify account and am always grabbing new albums to listen to. It's an absolutely brilliant service. A lot of it may be the "what I'm used to" effect, to be honest. Have been using iTunes for a long time, and I know what to expect from it. Even the weirdness/gotchas

You can drag and drop stuff onto devices, btw. Just click "manually manage" on the device details screen.

Hey, this 'manually manage' stuff sounds like a good tip. Much obliged to you

I think that I was a latecomer to iTunes, so maybe that doesn't help and I'll get to know its foibles in time. I too am a premium Spotify user, and don't often sray too far from there. What puzzles me about my own experience with iTunes is that it doesn't reflect lots of the stuff that's great about using OSX, which is a shame. For so moany people worldwide, there first contact with Apple software is the iTunes interface. You'd think it would just be a lot cleaner somehow *shrugs*.

Hmmmm, but now I come to think of it... Finder, iCal, Mail.... these things aren't exactly stellar either. Maybe iTunes does reflect the wider Apple experience accurately

 

[boa]

2 things I've noticed:

1) You can configure a dark schema for the grid view via preferences.
2) Synced playlists now are listed under your device too

Were these features on previous versions and I did not see them or are completely new?

Gonna check some syncing issues with podcasts I had and cross fingers for them to be fixed

EDIT: OMG, they ARE fixed!

 

[QuarterSwede]

2 things I've noticed:

1) You can configure a dark schema for the grid view via preferences.

That's not new.

 

[darknyt]

Homesharing is huge. Man, Im surprised this isn't being talked about more. Being able to watch/listen to anything on itunes running on your computer is finally available? This is a feature that should have existed long ago.

No more need for Streamtome and AirVideo while at home. How will this work anyway? Is it in the iPod app? It must be.

I think you are forgetting Jobs ridiculous restrictions on file formats . . .

AirVideo will always have a home on my iPhone/iPod as long as iTunes keeps on being iTunes . . .

Now songs I will admit are nice, but videos is basically a waste. No way in hell I'm bowing to the demands of iTunes there for multi-TB of movie storage.

 

[ghostlyorb]

I'm excited for home sharing on my new iPad 2 that I'm gonna get next week! Maybe I won't have to put ALL my music onto it... and what isn't on there.. I can just stream! And when I'm not at home.. a simple ad-hoc network from my MBP will suffice!

 

[azcoyote]

Last night I tried out Home Sharing streaming to ios devices after upgrading iTunes on my PC to 10.2 and ios 4.3 GM on my iPad. This new feature is working for me, but I have found a couple bugs that need to be addressed.
First, song play counts and Last Played aren't being updated in my shared iTunes library when streaming music to my iPad. iTunes 10.2 has a setting in Preferences > Sharing, "Home Sharing computers and devices update play counts". It was unchecked by default after upgrading iTunes to 10.2. I turned on the option. When I stream music to my laptop's iTunes over Home Sharing, play counts and Last Played are being updated correctly. Just not when streaming music to the iPad. Not a big deal, but would like to see fixed in the next update.
The other bug I noticed is song ratings aren't being displayed and can't be updated when streaming shared music on the iPad. Every song shows as being unrated during playback. And if I do rate the song on my iPad, the rating doesn't get updated in my iTunes library. Again, song ratings do display correctly and can be updated when streaming to iTunes 10.2 on my laptop. I haven't upgraded my iPhone 4 to ios 4.3GM, so I don't know if these bugs are iPad-specifc.

 

[balamw]

This new feature is working for me, but I have found a couple bugs that need to be addressed.

Have you reported your observations to Apple? We in the forum are in no place to do anything about this, but they are. They won't though if they don't know about the issues.

B

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

If you don't need a newer model then you don't need new features.

Anyone adding features for free to your HDTV, or your lawnmower, or your car?

This is the most ridiculous comparison I've ever seen in my entire life bar none. Does your lawnmower run software? Is your TV set up for software updates? Of course not. Why not just ask if my sink is going to morph into a Terminator while you're at it? And if you think you cannot add features to a car you're crazy. There's an entire after-market for such things from car stereos to turbo charger kits to 23" wheels. You can even make a car run on used vegetable oil if you want, but you cannot make a 1st generation iPhone access a shared library in iTunes.

Do I expect software updates for my Mac or Windows PC? Of course I do. Where did I mention I needed an upgrade for my iPod Touch to be "free" either?????? In FACT, I've had to pay for two updates for my iPod Touch already. Apple doesn't give away anything for "free". What they do do is make devices purposely obsolete to force you to buy newer hardware when your old hardware is perfectly capable of doing the task. Imagine if you had to buy a whole new computer every time you needed to update the Internet browser on it. What's wrong with my old computer? 'Nothing. We just want more money from you!' A good case in point is how iPad V1.0 is not allowed to run iMovie (even if you have an external camera setup) even though the darn thing just came out 8 months ago. Apple isn't making computers anymore. They're making one-off disposable calculators. It's a whole new field. Disposable computers...one use only.

Good Day. Thanks for playing.

Capriciously? There's no other company on earth that supports its devices with software updates longer than Apple does. Your iPod Touch is 4 years old. Noone is 'forcing you' to buy a new one, but at the same time you don't buy these things with the expectations that they're going to be updated forever. There's plenty of android phones out there that don't even support a new OS updates 6 months after purchase (I've been there). You purchased your touch for the features it had on release, and you got that and more. Your expectations are not realistic.

My iPod Touch is a hand-held computer (not a phone). Windows has supported a single version of an operating system (XP) longer than any other company on earth, not Apple, thank you very much. And this isn't an operating system issue anyway. It's an application issue whereby the music player doesn't communicate with iTunes. If this "App" were available from a 3rd party, they could very well update it. Because it's from Apple, you cannot update a tiny software application; they want you to buy a whole new computer instead. Just throw that thing in the landfill even though it still works fine and is perfectly capable of handling such a function. Apple wants to sell you a new one, so start polluting and do it every 8 months or you won't be able to run the latest software (Hello iMovie for the Ipad V2.0 only!)