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iTunes in 64-bit?
- Thread starter macfanboy
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Possibly. iTunes was they only app that didn't get an update to 64-bit I think. Lets see what iTunes 9 brings 
It's possible that Apple had a slight dilemma to deal with:
- Make iTunes 8.2.1 64-bit (might not have been possible, a lot of effort)
- Wait until iTunes 9 is released (possibly at their next iPod event) and make that 64-bit
Of course it's more likely that iTunes 9 will come out and still be 32-bit.
- Make iTunes 8.2.1 64-bit (might not have been possible, a lot of effort)
- Wait until iTunes 9 is released (possibly at their next iPod event) and make that 64-bit
Of course it's more likely that iTunes 9 will come out and still be 32-bit.
To be 64-bit without significant effort, iTunes would have to be rewritten using Cocoa (it currently still uses Carbon). The current speculation places iTunes 9 as being rewritten using Cocoa (=faster) and natively 64-bit (drivers as well). I personally speculate that this'll also happen for iTunes 9 on Windows, following the tradition of Whatever-The-Hell-Safari-Uses (on Windows; I call it Chocolate Milk ).
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iTunes X?
To be 64-bit without significant effort, iTunes would have to be rewritten using Cocoa (it currently still uses Carbon). The current speculation places iTunes 9 as being rewritten using Cocoa (=faster) and natively 64-bit (drivers as well). I personally speculate that this'll also happen for iTunes 9 on Windows, following the tradition of Whatever-The-Hell-Safari-Uses (on Windows; I call it Chocolate Milk
EDIT:
iTunes X?
What if they skip iTunes 9 all together ( like they did with quicktime) and give us iTunes X at the september event..
And hopefully they say iWork and iLife go 64-bit
Maybe so. We'll be waiting a while on iWork and iLife, though, considering their year-type updates. I'm new to this, however, so I don't know when
usually releases them. I'm pretty convinced that 9/9 will be all about iPod and iTunes (and tablets ). No "One More Things", IMO.
If they had time to rewrite finder and almost every other standard app, I bet they already have a 64-bit build ready to roll out for the 9/9 event. It makes more sense to reveal it then since historically they've almost always released new iTunes/iPod related things at that event.
Plus, I'm sure they're going to need to release something big if all they're doing is adding a camera to each iPod
On the other hand, the iLife suite is a bigger beast. It's functional now in 32-bit, and since it's a bit larger they're probably still working on it. I'd expect a release early next year.
Plus, I'm sure they're going to need to release something big if all they're doing is adding a camera to each iPod
On the other hand, the iLife suite is a bigger beast. It's functional now in 32-bit, and since it's a bit larger they're probably still working on it. I'd expect a release early next year.
Ya and we also saw a matte back on the iPhone 3GS floating around for several months but that was not true!
Who cares? What is 64-bit going to do for iTunes that 32 doesn't?
And as others point out, it will require a Cocoa rewrite. So wish for that first. It will probably fix whatever it is that is bothering you now.
64 bit in iTunes is going to substantially speed things up. Especially considering how iTunes deals with loading the library data upon start up, etc.
A lot of users on older/slower machines notice a lot of lag time on start up of iTunes as well as generally laggy behavior throughout. This is much more noticeable for those with large libraries.
If a 64 bit iTunes ran 50% faster on SL than 32 bit iTunes it would be a very big deal to quite a lot of people, I can assure you.
I guess we'll see. Apple isn't going to drop iTunes on 32-bit, so we'll be able to test. I suggest that 64-bit makes no difference. Re-write in Cocoa will make the difference.
What does Snow Leopard have to do with it? 64-bit iTunes won't run on Leopard? Why?
Possibly. iTunes was they only app that didn't get an update to 64-bit I think. Lets see what iTunes 9 brings
DVD Player and a few small things are still not 64-bit, but will be coming in a future Mac OS X Update.
While I agree that 64 bit will probably make no real difference, you know they're going to rewrite it in Cocoa with 64 bit support just to say they did. Fits into the new OS features list better than a 32 bit Cocoa version
For the same reason that all of the other native Apple applications that have been rewritten to 64 bit specifically for 10.6 don't run on Leopard?
The reason is likely that any new 64 bit iTunes application will make use of Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, etc, to get part of its performance boost.
These things don't exist in Leopard.
I would suspect that there will be two versions of iTunes, one that is 32 bit and compatible with previous OS X versions and an optimized one for Snow Leopard that is 64 bit and probably, as you indicate, re written in cocoa.
Apple would probably like nothing better than to show off some major iTunes performance enhancements that are made possible by Snow Leopard technology such as multi-core CPU performance boosts with Grand Central.
I suppose they don't run on Leopard because Apple doesn't want them to. If someone would provide some proof that ANY of these apps use GCD or OpenCL, I'm waiting.
I can't think of any iTunes bottlenecks that are going to benefit from multi-thread CPU performance. You can't do parallel loading of an app. You can't do parallel loading of a library or database. Any of the likely bottlenecks are not parallelizable. Simply being rewritten with better algorithms and Cocoa will give you the speed improvement.
It will also be interesting to see how Apple manages the Windows ports of these apps. Carbon apps were much easier to port to Windows. Cocoa, GCD, require Objective-C.
I would be ok with 32-bit if it were written in Cocoa. I didn't know it was still written in Carbon.
iTunes can be a resource hog sometimes. I can tell of "mini-lags" while listening to internet radio and trying to surf the web, although this seems less noticeable now with the new Safari on Snow Leopard.
64-bit might improve CD burning or importing.
iTunes can be a resource hog sometimes. I can tell of "mini-lags" while listening to internet radio and trying to surf the web, although this seems less noticeable now with the new Safari on Snow Leopard.
64-bit might improve CD burning or importing.