iTunes 7.0 is a Laggard

060918_itunes7.jpgLike every other possibly drooling nerd, I downloaded the latest iTunes release from Apple. For the most part, it’s the biggest upgrade to the software in some years. Probably since the iTunes Music Store was added. My belief is that without iTunes the iPod would be an also-ran. I’m sure you have statistics that tell me otherwise, but without iTunes and it’s tight iPod integration, there would be no compelling reason to use an iPod. Few
seem to get that, but others nail it dead on.

There have been a number of reviews/walkthroughs, tuaw, CNET 7.8/10 and Ars Technica, which if I were to parrot, would cause a hemorrhage or aneurysm or embolism of some kind and a redundancy quotient higher than we’re comfortable with.

060918_graph.jpg

Managing an iPod has never been easier. The iPod tabs get a huge makeover and the visual graph that shows how much space each type of media takes is a great way to instantly see the storage status. If you want to, you can set quotas for whatever you want; more space for music v. videos? No problem. Very nice.

Also very nice is gapless playback. If you have a 5th generation iPod, this works out of the box. There have been reports of it causing problems for Windows users, but I believe if you mess with your crossfade settings, that may be a cure for some users (like turning it off then on again or turning the audio “Sound Enhancer” off then on again).

060918_browse.pngBut then there is the issue of Cover Flow, the whimsical and addictive media cover browser that Apple bought and includes right inside iTunes 7. The only problem is that if you don’t have some killer hardware, it’s slow as shit clicking the new browse buttons. My once snappy iBook with 1.5 gigs of RAM turns into a Commodore VIC-20 with cassette drive. Do any of you people even know what cassettes are? And once I click one of those buttons, the entire interface turns to laggy sludge. Stopping playback, skipping tracks and selecting playlists causes a wait like nothing I’ve seen since at least the first Clinton term.

If you have upgraded to iTunes 7, do you like it? Is it slower than version 6? Does make you want to kick something as hard as you can and then run right to the airport and buy a one way ticket to Cupertino (except that Cupertino might not have an airport serviced by the major carriers so you’d be stuck in San Jose or San Francisco and the traffic, God, the TRAFFIC! making you angrier) where you’ll spend 37 minutes carrying your PowerPC 7200 and it’s 1 gig hard drive into the lobby and hurling it at the first person who walks by resembling Steve Jobs?

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  • http://www.ransom-note-typography.com jon deal

    pat, if Jon starts torturing you with bad 80s music when you call for tech support, you can call me. :-]

    My favorite thing about the new iTunes extravaganza is the iPod upgrade.

    They have greatly improved scrolling through my list of thousands of bad 80s tunes. It used to be that when you scrolled quickly, the iPod would skip (i.e., scroll faster) to get you down to the bottom (ZZ Top in this case). That’s the same, but now a letter pops up to tell you *where* in the list you are. Just try it, it’s easy to see than it is to explain.

    And I’m not even going to bother installing iTunes 7 on my home machine until I scrounge up more RAM.

  • dylan

    I love the new itunes! I’m in a temporary housing situation, and the new Video features, and quality, and better playback options make it useable to use my new 20″ imac as a nice TV. The new layout, the gapless playback, and the ipod integration all rocks! and yes Jon, I agree with you that without itunes the ipod isn’t any better, and itunes makes ipod as great as it is.

  • http://www.dahlshouse.com dahl

    i think it looks pretty, but my big pet peeve of itunes is still there — i like in windows media player how you have the now playing list so that you don’t actually have to create a playlist for a one-time thing. and it seemed to have lost my settings in syncing with the ipod.

  • http://www.auniverseaway.com areyouwishing

    I think cover flow has little practical use. I moved my collection digital so I don’t have to sift through album art. Im not a huge fan of iTunes 7, but I don’t hate it as much as most it seems. Running all intel and G5s has it’s benefits. Just be glad you don’t have a PC, it’s wicked slow on them.

  • Joel

    Yes, yes I do. And I also remember 8″ floppies and the R-S TRaSh-80. I even remember how excited I was when the first computer I bought myself (6th grade) had a whopping 640k RAM on the motherboard, a color CGA monitor (with switch to flip to amber, green or white mono) and dual 5.25″ double density floppy drives. I even convinced myself that dual floppies would be a decent compromise over spending an extra $2k for a 10mB hard drive. Oh, and don’t forget the 9 pin dot matrix printer that cost a cool $800.

  • http://www.omarphillips.net omar

    I’m a lover of the iTunes. I haven’t had any of the performance issues you mentioned (1.5 ghz PowerBook G4, 768MB). I did have an issue with updating the software version on my iPod, though. It wouldn’t let me just update it, I had to reset the iPod, update the software, then re-add all my movies/music/photos.

  • Sebastian

    iTunes 8 only slows down a little with the hologramatic projections. Oh, wait, I’m on Leopard. ;)

    Having ripped over 500 CDs (mostly 80’s British new wave and lots of Devo coincidently) it’s with great satisfaction that iTunes 7 found most of the album art so I don’t have to scan them in.

    Even cooler is that it searched the entire store and pulled album art from all over Europe for my more esoteric albums. Now if only it could tell the difference between Boingo and Boi-Ngo.

    Oh, and Blurb, I’ll be in Cupertino next week if you’d like me to deliver anything.

    Sebastian

  • http://doctortongue.com doctor tongue

    72feetabovesealevel;

    Last night was coincidentally the first time I ripped a CD with the new version, and when the Autoplay dialog came up, I picked “Import CD with iTunes” but it didn’t start importing (so that actually may be a complaint). Hence the button hunt. I’m not sure it needed to be moved from the multi-function location top right.

  • http://tastethehappy.wordpress.com monkeyaker

    I have an iBook too, with half the RAM, like 72feet, and I am also not having any slowing problems. Mine rips along like an Apple IIGS on coke.

  • PaulE

    I installed 7 the day it was released, and I have not noticed any lag on either my 20″ iMac w/ 2gigs ram or on my Windozs PC. On my old dual G4, if it started to run slow I just ran the MacJanitor app, that always seemed to help perk it back up.

  • Beth

    I have a Windoze machine (a Dell…with stuff…yeah) and I’m not having any problems running version 7.0 — in fact, it’s faster than the last version. However, the CoverFlow is slower than midtown traffic at rush hour. Nice concept, but now we all need to get faster machines for it to work like it was intended!

  • http://www.canyonjam.net erat

    Sorry, but I’m going to join the ranks of the iT7 converts. On my MacBook it rocks. On my outdated 800MHz G4 iMac w/ 1GB of RAM it rocks as well. It’s purty, it’s sexy, it’s much better organized than previous versions of iTunes (my opinion, of course), and I loveitloveitloveit.

    If you’re having issues with it, perhaps download Cache-Out X and clear all those cache files, then give it another shot. A theraputic hard drive enema has done wonders for my ‘puters.

  • http://www.mattlandia.com Mr. Mattlandia Himself

    Running AMD64X2 Dualcore 2.2Gz with no playback issues.

    However. I very pissed about losing a key feature. I can no longer use my Ipod as the source drive on other PC’s. I used to synch my iPod with my home collection, then take it to work and essentially slave it to my iTunes at work. Now I can only ‘reverse synch’ the music I purchased from iTunes.

    I know I can hack around this, but still pisses me off.

  • http://www.onecharmedmotherfucker.com Stephen Williams

    I discovered CoverFlow (and LOVED IT!) about one week before Apple launched iTunes 7 with CoverFlow included, and it’s abysmal. The lag time on my 1.25 GHz P’Book G4 is unbearable. The Original CoverFlow would at least let you define an album as “more than x tracks” or “more than y minutes.” But I haven’t found that preference in the iTunes version, and thus it’s digging up album art for waaaaaaay too many “albums.” I also hate that there is a separate cover for each track from an “unknown album.” Other than that, yeah, it’s fuggin’ great.

  • http://davegannon.com dhgatsby

    I was flattened when I read your latest post. I have not seen one ounce of lag since upgrading to iTunes 7. I love the interface and color. I like the display and the intuitiveness. I did, however, have to scan for the import button for a sec, but other than that, no problems just praises.
    good luck, and maybe re-try the upgrade.

  • jenny

    It’s a little slow, but it’s just so darn fancy lookin’! Most of all, though, I listen to a lot of opera, and for me, the best moments are often transitions between the big numbers, which meant they were infuriatingly lost to the crossfade. So I was about at the point that I would sell my soul for gapless playback. I’m definitely at least halfway a convert.

  • http://www.closetuniverse.com A.J. Axline

    Two experiences to share…

    I upgraded my Mac Mini to iT7, and it went without a single hitch. The app seems to be a little bit slower, but it’s not too bad. I like the download monitor and the “by album” view; I dislike the missing equalizer button and the kludgy album cover view. But all in all, it works.

    I upgraded my PC to iT7, and began a nightmare that opened with poor music playback, video podcasts that skipped and/or wouldn’t play at all, my P4 processor pegged at 70–100%, and a gapless playback scan that took slightly longer than one of Stalin’s ‘to-do’ lists to finish; the nightmare continued when I uninstalled iT7, and discovered that I was no longer able to access the external HD that housed my iTunes music library (“Drive has not been formatted,” I was informed) and severely degraded overall system performance; the entire experience ended with me having to burn my system down to the ground and rebuild it, sans my trashed music library, which I will have to recreate from CDs and various other backup media.

    Two machines, two vastly different outcomes. The moral of the story: not all upgrades are upgrades… and beware the ‘point-0′ releases. There may be tygers.

  • http://www.getridofthings.com/blog Samoya

    Wait. Should I or should I not Apple Software Update to easily update iTunes and other Apple software? Oh god, this is where I get cold feet.

  • scoops

    I haven’t had any problems upgrading or syncing; that has been all smooth. I went ahead to download a full season of a tv show and don’t like how it is downloading at all. It has really slowed down my iBook tremendously. The new iTunes automatically downloads three episodes at a time instead of one by one. It does have these pause buttons but as soon as you pause one it starts downloading the next one. I haven’t been able to find anything to change my preferences to how many items to download at once.

  • xjanex

    i’m using itunes 7 on a windows machine. ignoring the fact that the first time i opened it after upgrading i had to put all the music back in (was it supposed to do that?) it appears that my ipod mini isn’t supported. was there a memo i missed? i kind of want to cry.

  • http://dooce.migrantroo.com minxlj

    Oh I LOOOOOOOOOOVE iTunes 7!!!!! Using it on a PowerMac G5 2.5GHz. Love the interface, the new design, the visual graph, everything. And the new Cover Flow is soooooooo cool — I spent about 30 minutes after downloading it just flicking through all my album art, LOL. Very snazzy, and seems to run just fine on this Mac, and on my eMac 1.25GHz at home.

    Also the new GAMES — oh how I’ve longed for Tetris on my iPod. It was just a dream, a crazy dream, but NOW IT’S TRUE!!!!!! Couldn’t be happier.

  • http://www.whiterose.org/michael/blog Michael

    I’m using a 7 year old G3 350MHz as a music server & I upgraded. There was an initial delay while it processed the library, and it pops up a dialog while opening because it’s chugging through 14K songs. I can use the CoverFlow view, but only because I don’t use the G3 for anything other than music.

    I agree that the integration is the key thing to the success of the products. iPod+iTunes+ITMS+AirPort Express: all the pieces just plug together and the whole experience is transparent (if you stick to Apple’s stuff). I’m expecting the “iTV” (or whatever they call it) to take the ITMS/iPod experience to the living room TV the same way AirPort Express brings music to my home stereo.

  • http://chloeishere.blogspot.com/ Chloe

    I think some of the new features, are, you know, swell and all, but it definitely isn’t perfect. I’m hoping they’ll have an update for it in a few months, because it does not run nearly as nicely on my machine (and I have a buttload of RAM– 1.37 GB ram on Windows XP) as itunes 6 did. I also experience some lag when I use the cover flip or even just have the cover art displayed as I scroll through my music library. It’s not BAD per say, but it scrolled so very efficiently and smoothly in v.6 that it bugs me. The cover art retriever is not working very well for me, although it has gotten quite a few that I didn’t want to input manually, which is a plus.
    It hasn’t frozen on me, though… and it is very pretty.

  • http://www.fnordinc.com erisian

    I upgraded, then i decided i didnt want anything to do with i-tunes anymore. this doesnt have much to do with the version i was using, but it would have been nice to see some of the below thoughtfully added into the release (or future releases for that matter)

    This is not for lack of funtionality per say, but more for inconsistent and proprietary functionality when formatting mp3s via i-tunes.

    I do not have an i-pod and reluctantly started using i-tunes.. the clincher for actively using it was falling in love with the mass editing and organizational features of it.

    i recently picked up a Creative Zen Vision M (highly recommend i.. all pluses except battery life). It was when i started using it that i ealized the drawbacks to formatting through i-tunes.

    1) it only formatted id3 tags to v2, when industry standard for players is to read v1.1 so nothing read properly.

    2) album art was flagged as “other” instead of industry standard of “Cover — Front”

    3)compilations are only flagged in an i-pod compatible format as compilations. nothing was linked together properly… the correct way of doing so would be for them to go with the industry standard again.. using the “album artist” field to denote it as various artists or some other equivelant and using the artist field to denote the individual groups involved.

    there were other things as well but i dont want to seem any more nit picky than i already do..

    Their software is awesome, but it is far to geared at being proprietary. they have it built to function well for people using the i-pod and people trying to use collections with other devices are left with an initial feeling of “why doesnt this work right, no wonder the i-pod is so popular, it DOES work right” or something along those lines. I was initially concerned that my player could not read all the information i had painstakingly entered into i-tunes in an effort to clean up my collection. now that i know what is going on, i have to go back through and perform additional tasks to bring it all into line.

    after a bit of scouring i found a program called MediaMonkey which has native support for my device as well as i-pod and others, syncronization, all my above listed concerns resolved.. etc. another nice feature was the ability to clone v2 tags over to v1.1 (en masse) allowing for both to be available.. saved me a lot of catch up time. the ability to compare albums of mp3’s against amazon and auto tag everything while simultaneously pulling down album art is a nice perk too.

    basically, for people with an i-pod, i think that they are doing well and i give kudos on an excellent media manager. but for those of us that are not, i have to say they would be good to conform to the industry standard a little more.. make this cross platform AND cross device by doing so.. but still allow functionality like V2 ID3’s that make their product have a superior amount of available data..

    sorry… i am writing a movie script right now and so i am a bit wordy.. blame it on the mindset :)

  • http://annejelynn.blogspot.com/ Annejelynn

    although I love the new blue theme… um, that’s about all I like re: iTunes 7.0 cuz that damn thing’s too slooow

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