Apple Releases iTunes for Windows Update With Option to Listen to Podcasts and Audiobooks

[jtrenthacker]

ALAC is not an appropriate substitute or direct replacement for FLAC, so no, I will not just convert my files. Rather, I will continue to ask why Apple is the only one with trouble supporting a widespread industry standard audio file format no other developer seems to have a problem with.


And as for the USB 3 speeds, I used the appropriate cable - the current version of iTunes as of the iPhone 15 Pro’s release absolutely did not transfer data at anything even slightly faster than USB 2.0’s speed of 480mbps

Both ALAC and FLAC offer identical sound quality, but FLAC generally provides slightly better compression, resulting in smaller file sizes.

 

[MrRom92]

Both ALAC and FLAC offer identical sound quality, but FLAC generally provides slightly better compression, resulting in smaller file sizes.

Better compression ratios is one benefit but there is also the fact that FLAC by default stores a checksum for the audio data, whereas ALAC has no facilities for this whatsoever. Making it completely unsuitable as an archival quality format. I’d sooner hit delete on my entire library than convert to such a half-baked alternative, just to play nice with Apple’s software.

 

[boswald]

I still miss safari for Windows

I’d use that in a heartbeat.

 

[boswald]

And here I am wanting Apple Music for Windows. I’m running music.apple.com in Edge while I work as I refuse to install iTunes on it. I’m just so used to AMs UI now on all my devices I can’t re-adjust.

There’s a “preview” release of Apple Music for Windows on the Microsoft Store. It’s not perfect, but it works just fine (and even supports AirPlay).

 

[jimimac71]

Welcome from 2023.

When we want to use the music we already have, we just place mp3's (or lossless format files if you're picky) in a cloud service folder.

Most modern cars can also playback music from USB thumbdrives. There's a lot of space on these things. Way more than what you can fit on a CD.

I'm talking about transcoding CDs to digital.
Yeah, I used the wrong term with burning CDs.
I'm an old-timer at 66.
No need to welcome me to 2023.
I love old fashioned analog audio.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Apple Music has been available on the Microsoft Store for a few months now. It's essentially still in Beta but works ok.

There’s a “preview” release of Apple Music for Windows on the Microsoft Store. It’s not perfect, but it works just fine (and even supports AirPlay).

Cool, I must have missed it. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[uk1simon]

Apple Music preview on the Microsoft Store.

Apple Music - Free download and install on Windows | Microsoft Store

With Apple Music you’ll get unlimited access to millions of songs and your entire music library. All completely ad-free and available across all your devices. Try one month free today. Availability and features may vary by country or region. Active Apple Music subscription required...

www.microsoft.com

 

[inuragon]

Would be nice if they released an update to icloud that actually makes it work next.
Atleast with my setup involving a NAS i have to use wayback machine to download an old version because the microsoft store version never works no matter what i do.

 

[simon the diver]

Be cool if this was available for Mac eh?

I have iTunes installed on my 14 inch MacBook Pro. Theres an installer called Retroactive out there that lets you install old Mac software ( Aperture, iPhoto, iTunes, FCP 7 etc) on modern machines. - I use music for music but I've a large audiobook collection and storing that locally in Books app is not viable. iTunes allows me to store my audiobook library on an external drive

 

[Crow47]

iTunes is probably the worst for burning CDs
EAC is the only program I know of that accounts for drive write offset

I had to Google 'drive write offset'. I learned something today, thanks for that!

The fact that I've successfully burned hundreds of audio CDs over the years with iTunes and never, not once, had to concern myself about 'drive write offset' shows what a meaningless, strawman of an argument you have offered in this thread.

 

[MrRom92]

I had to Google 'drive write offset'. I learned something today, thanks for that!

The fact that I've successfully burned hundreds of audio CDs over the years with iTunes and never, not once, had to concern myself about 'drive write offset' shows what a meaningless, strawman of an argument you have offered in this thread.

On the rare occasion I still need to burn a disc these days, iTunes would not cut the mustard, so drive write offset is a valid concern (all discs will fail verification procedures without them, which is a major consideration in my use cases) however even not taking that into account there have been better programs for writing discs even going back 20 years. The Nero burning suite for example, or Roxio. IMGburn specifically for data disc images. Etc.

iTunes was particularly useful for burning audio discs from DRM’d iTunes purchases back in the day but not much else.

 

[buttercookie42]

Music and Podcasts at least in the same place makes a lot of sense.

While I don't listen all that much to podcasts as such (and now my music player a.k.a my phone has its own internet connection, I don't necessarily need to download all podcasts via my computer, either, except I for the very few I really want to archive), I've always found the Podcasts section of iTunes very useful for managing my collection of Radio comedy that I scrounged together from all sorts of places.

The neat thing about iTunes is that you can simply manually set the media type of any file from "Music" to "Podcast" and voila, it stops cluttering up my music library and gets treated like a native podcast with the listened/unlistened episode indicator and all.

So I've been thankful that on Windows so far I haven't been subjected to the Music/Podcasts split, because having to run my own fake local podcast feed just for managing my collection of radio comedy would seem rather annoying. At least on Windows iTunes isn't tied as tightly to any OS upgrades as on a Mac, so I guess I just can keep on using the last version as long as the connection with the iTunes store keeps on working.

 

[sjsharksfan12]

I think Apple broke Apple Music with the update. I can't get play counts or last played to update now, and Marvis pro is starting to be a little unreliable. If this goes on, I might just move over to Spotify, even though the user interface (for my needs) is not nearly as good.