iTunes 7.0 is a Laggard
September 18th, 2006
Like 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.
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).
But 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? o
September 18th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
I’ve upgraded to it on my Inspiron with T2500 and 2 GB of RAM, and I don’t notice any particular speed difference from 6, or any issue with crossfade (yet). I’m not super-impressed, but I have a gen4 and don’t watch videos on my iPod (nor do I want to). It did take me a trip to the Help to discover where they moved the Import CD button to (why did they, exactly?). When you’re used to something…
September 19th, 2006 at 12:07 am
I have an iBook with half the RAM you do and a 1.2 processor and I’m not having the issues you’re having with iTunes 7. Yes, there is a little lag, but it’s very, very slight. Not a problem. I just upgraded and haven’t tried making a playlist with a jam-packed hard drive and 6 programs open. If the lag increases it could be an issue.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:09 am
Hey Doc,
On the Mac version there’s no longer a need for an import CD button. iTunes asks you if you want to import in a pop up window.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:10 am
When I upgraded, it re-imported all my music, so now I have two copies of every song I have. When I play an album, it now plays every song twice in a row: Track 1, Track 1, Track 2, Track 2…etc.
I can’t even fit my music onto my iPod now, so I can’t say how it works with that.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:29 am
i love the new itunes! the visual element of the entire program is much nicer and cleaner. i think it makes using an ipod much easier, and opens the doors to new markets. love the review!
September 19th, 2006 at 12:30 am
I just upgraded to iTunes 7, and my admittedly aged Toshiba Satellite is having some issues. Everything is just great unless I attempt to actually play music
For now I’m still so enamoured with my new iPod that I don’t really care about stuttery playback and lagging on my PC, but I’m sure that it will be very annoying, very soon…
September 19th, 2006 at 1:37 am
I think the new iTunes is pretty swanky. I never knew that there was an import CD button, as I always had it set to automatically import cds when I put them into the CD drive. But that’s just me.
As for iTunes being the driving force behind the iPod selling so well? I disagree. The fact that any joe schmoe can pick up an iPod and figure out how to use it is the number one feature, IMO. The *only* thing I use iTunes for is to copy music onto the iPod. And even then, I’m only using iTunes because the Winamp iPod plugin (which lets you copy your music OFF the iPod as well as ON, and doesn’t require you to wipe your iPod if you try to connect it to a different machine) doesn’t seem to work properly with my gf’s iPod. But then, I don’t listen to music on my PC, so…
September 19th, 2006 at 2:10 am
Thanks, Jon, for confirming my reservations. For various reasons I’ve been putting off upgrading, and may not until there’s more clarity on the issues you raise. I frankly never liked CoverFlow (I far prefer the flexibility of GimmeSomeTune + Growl) and don’t want it built-in, particularly if it’s going to gum up the works.
Question: anyone know how I can disable the nag-window to upgrade to 7.0 that pops up EVERY TIME I open iTunes?
September 19th, 2006 at 4:15 am
Sent your post to my hubby. He downloaded 7.0 to his pc and said it gave everything in his library a cheap tin sound. He also lost his library when he trashed it and went back to his earlier version.
September 19th, 2006 at 5:59 am
I upgraded to it on my iBook G4, and I’m also still running a 4th Gen. 60GB Photo iPod, so the video stuff? Meh. But still, I like the upgrades and new features.
However…it won’t recognize my Address Book app anymore. Every time I try to get the thing to sync up contacts, it tells me I have no contacts in my Address Book (Lies…all lies…) and that I need to open the Address Book and add some contacts. I’ve even tried clicking on the Open Address Book button that dialog box gives me and then just entering a couple of test addresses to see if maybe that would trigger whatever link needs to be there, but no luck. It’s highly annoying — I’d gotten very used to using my iPod for on-the-go phone numbers and addresses.
If that would resolve itself, I’d be very happy. Haven’t had any processor problems at all — everything seems to be running pretty smoothly so far.
September 19th, 2006 at 6:18 am
To: s gazzetti
With iTunes, ver 6, the nag-window has a checkbox for “do not ask me again” and it worked on our PC w/XP …. sort of an iPeach.
September 19th, 2006 at 6:56 am
I have an ANCIENT Powerbook (3 years old, same as my ancient iPod - good lord it has buttons! black and white display!) and, well, you should have seen it try to process 21,000 tracks for gapless playback. The saddest thing is that I really love the CoverFlow technology. I had the old program and everything, but was hoping to see the lag issues addressed. It didn’t work as it should have then, and it doesn’t now, either. Time to start saving for a new MacBook, I guess.
September 19th, 2006 at 7:14 am
I’ve got an iBook G4 with 1gb RAM and I’ve not had any trouble with the cover flow slowing down playback or seeming laggy otherwise. I tend to flip wildly in cover flow view, too… it’s new and fun and I can’t help myself. I love the new iTunes!
September 19th, 2006 at 8:12 am
I’ve downloaded it, I have an older iBook G3 and while I like the looks of the new iTunes, it’s not getting along very well with my iPod. So, off to the Apple Store I go, to see why my iPod is now “corrupt.”
September 19th, 2006 at 8:14 am
I upgraded on my Power Book G4 and I LOVE my iTunes and I would die without my iPod. Die, I tell you. Of course I’m also in love with my new Dashboard from upgrading my system, and am greatly distracted by the Yahtzee someone put on it . . .
September 19th, 2006 at 8:29 am
The Cover Flow works beautifully on my Alienware laptop. And I haven’t noticed any glitches running iTunes 7 on windows.
September 19th, 2006 at 8:34 am
I downloaded 7 the day it came out. I am quite proud of my mac nerdery. I have not had any problems with it and have been very pleased with all the changes. A guy at my work who has a g4 powerbook has had some issues with it being slow, but at the same time my laptop at home seem to run it fine (also a G4 Powerbook).
Anyways I agree if you feel like you have a slower mac you might want to hold off on it or get a new computer.
September 19th, 2006 at 8:34 am
yes. yes. and yes. I think I have the same iBook, but iTunes and iWeb both make it run slower than $%^&. In fact, I don’t think I’ve really used it since I upgraded (I usually have it on in the background at all times). I haven’t synced (sunc?) my iPod to it yet. And I don’t like the way the window looks (as in: not like Safari any more
).
September 19th, 2006 at 8:35 am
iBook 1.2 GHz with 1.25 gig of RAM = zero problems. No hiccups and no fidelity loss. A sweet and painless upgrade as far as I’m concerned (same goes for the duel 2.0 GHz with 3 gigs of RAM at home).
I LOVE having artwork a part of my listening experience again. I forgot how much that adds.
Quite frankly, I think that the problem is you Jon. IT doesn’t like you. IT thinks you are inferior. IT thinks you are mean spirited in your reviews. IT was baptized Mormon a few months ago and is mighty thin skinned and testy about your Mo-hatin’.
September 19th, 2006 at 8:44 am
Not a single issue on my 2×2ghz G5. Cover Flow is “smooth as buttah” here. I spent some time cleaning up my library and adding more art, and discovered a lot of music I had forgotten I had.
September 19th, 2006 at 8:46 am
patatomic, next time you call for tech support, you will be treated to hold music. Featuring hits of the 80s.
September 19th, 2006 at 8:53 am
Looking forward to it…I just love those Devo fellas, and that Madonna. Isn’t she a gas?
September 19th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Jon, if you’re looking to torture me then just dip into Heather’s Brit Rock collection (minus the Radiohead).
Don’t worry…this is my last comment.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:07 am
I love the new look, mostly. I miss being able to see exactly what is on my iPod, but other than that the new intergration is great. It sucks if I want to play music on the computer — slow and stuttery (and my computer is neither old nor slow), and I’m debating rolling back until the first update appears.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:24 am
My smallest but angriest gripe: I hate that the new icon is blue instead of green so that it blends in with my Windows taskbar AND looks a lot like the Internet Explorer icon. When I think iTunes, I think “little green musical note”!
September 19th, 2006 at 9:26 am
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:38 am
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:25 am
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:43 am
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:51 am
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
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
September 19th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
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!
September 19th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
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.
September 19th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
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.
September 20th, 2006 at 9:04 am
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.
September 20th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
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.
September 20th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
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.
September 21st, 2006 at 6:40 pm
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.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:04 pm
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.
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:25 am
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.
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:31 pm
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.
September 24th, 2006 at 9:59 pm
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.
September 25th, 2006 at 3:01 am
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
September 28th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
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