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Instant Expert: Secrets & Features of iTunes 7.5
ilounge.com — Last night Apple quietly released the iTunes 7.5, the latest version of their digital media management application. Most recent major updates to iTunes 7 have been released primarily to introduce support for new Apple hardware devices and features related to these devices. This version on the other hand has been released primarily to provide...
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- supermajic, on 11/08/2007, -26/+6How do open source projects come about? Someone should make a free open source music manager like iTunes, except good. I'm not Microsoft fanboy, but personally I use the Zune software (and no I definitely DO NOT own a zune) and it's much faster than iTunes and feels much more stable. When you have 20 000 songs, you certainly do not want to view album art via cover flow..
- melmyfinger, on 11/08/2007, -2/+18http://www.songbirdnest.com/ is open source, powered by Mozilla.
- Kakcoo, on 11/08/2007, -2/+18And very very unstable :-/
- Kazenodeku, on 11/07/2007, -0/+1Really? I'm using it right now. I only use it to play music, sure, but I've experienced no problems thus far.
- HonoredMule, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2Songbird's performance and stability is in my opinion very poor, but it's latest implementation of behavior and design is exactly what I feel iTunes SHOULD be (and once upon a time was, but less functionally so). It's also build on a strong foundation. Like so many other open source projects, songbird's growth will be slow and methodical. But I feel it's one of the "just right" applications that will become a major standard and gain widespread popularity, much like firefox or apache. And, OS-agnosticism. YAY!
I haven't let songbird show its feathers for a little while except for the occasional quick peek, so it's probably time to give it another serious review. I expect it's greatest failing for me will still be trying to manage an iPod Shuffle with it. - cwgannon, on 11/08/2007, -0/+2Of course it is unstable. A quick peek at the page shows Songbird is currently at v .03, a developer pre-release.
Open source music manager? Try Amarok ... if you're running Linux.
- Kakcoo, on 11/08/2007, -2/+18And very very unstable :-/
- supermajic, on 11/08/2007, -7/+2Wow thanks.. downloading right now. This looks amazing + iPod support through the plugins it seems + at least by the little screenshots looks good. I'll let you know how it goes.
- natedouglas, on 11/08/2007, -1/+3You can turn off Coverflow... since you're using Windows, I definitely wouldn't recommend iTunes. I
- HenkPoley, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2I like uncompleted
- TennisElbow, on 11/08/2007, -1/+29Ummm, you do know that coverflow is an OPTION in iTunes, right? The button to toggle the view of album art from coverflow to regular list view is right there in your face all the time at the top of the iTunes window. What kind of idiot are you that can't figure that out?
- aviazn, on 11/08/2007, -1/+1Also try Foobar2000, which is an excellent minimalist player, but with awesome extendability.
http://www.foobar2000.org/
Here's a mod that adds media library functionality:
http://www.fooblog2000.com/2007-03/fofr-configurat ... - brufleth, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1Winamp is still my music manager of choice. Works faster and better with iPods than itunes and handles large libraries much better.
- melmyfinger, on 11/08/2007, -2/+18http://www.songbirdnest.com/ is open source, powered by Mozilla.
- dhmlco, on 11/08/2007, -3/+50If you're a 17-year-old with 20,000 songs, then you've got more serious problems ahead than dealing with Cover Flow.
- Nameless1, on 11/09/2007, -0/+3I can see the headlines. Man sued for $ 30 billion.
- supermajic, on 11/08/2007, -4/+7actually i just realised it's a lot less than 20 000.. more like 15 000.. i spent a looooong time putting all my cds to my family computer (basically my whole familys collection of cds, which is huge.)
- DaffyDuck, on 11/08/2007, -9/+5Uh huh, so you can listen to your dad's Mel Torme and Mom's Niel Diamond. Most people don't have 15,000 songs. You are right that iTunes is a bit bloated but it's not that bad with "normal" sized libraries. It loads in about 5 seconds on my PC here at work.
- natedouglas, on 11/08/2007, -0/+8His parents are probably more of the X/Lynyrd Skynyrd generation, at this point, if not the Metallica/Sonic Youth generation.
- sockpuppets, on 11/08/2007, -0/+26My mom was kidnapped by pirates, I have to use utorrent to communicate with her now.
- DaffyDuck, on 11/08/2007, -9/+5Uh huh, so you can listen to your dad's Mel Torme and Mom's Niel Diamond. Most people don't have 15,000 songs. You are right that iTunes is a bit bloated but it's not that bad with "normal" sized libraries. It loads in about 5 seconds on my PC here at work.
- natedouglas, on 11/08/2007, -0/+8I really, really wish they'd either 1) allow the user to specify a place for movies and tv shows to be stored, or 2) at least fix the bug that prevents aliases within the iTunes Music directory from working properly.
- stuartjmoore, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3If you move the TV Shows or Movies folder, it will still work in iTunes from there. I'm not sure if new videos are added to that folder, I'm pretty sure they're not.
- rye425, on 11/07/2007, -1/+9Damnit, still no iTunes support for 64bit Vista :(
- jostheller, on 11/08/2007, -7/+8no joke... what's that about? Seriously.. Microsoft needs to pull the plug on x64 bit vista. As if Vista wasn't bad enough, how would you like the 64 bit OS that is not supported by anything? Not even Microsoft's own freaking apps have 64 bit versions. Would it kill them to compile their office source code for 64 bit?
I swear to god... if I can ever convince my wife that she really doesn't need that windows partition, and that she really can easily do everything on the Fedora partition... Microsoft will be cast from my life.- hexydes, on 11/08/2007, -5/+4I split the difference and got rid of both Windows x64 and iTunes, at the same time.
Happily using Ubuntu 7.10 x64 with Banshee now. =)
- hexydes, on 11/08/2007, -5/+4I split the difference and got rid of both Windows x64 and iTunes, at the same time.
- etandrib, on 11/08/2007, -0/+7You're safe(r) from viruses though… right? Well i guess if you can find the drivers to load your system. Sorry man…
- hexydes, on 11/08/2007, -0/+5Sadly, the malware writers are quicker to update their "software" than most of the software industry...
- jostheller, on 11/08/2007, -7/+8no joke... what's that about? Seriously.. Microsoft needs to pull the plug on x64 bit vista. As if Vista wasn't bad enough, how would you like the 64 bit OS that is not supported by anything? Not even Microsoft's own freaking apps have 64 bit versions. Would it kill them to compile their office source code for 64 bit?
- sofaKing812, on 11/08/2007, -3/+6I miss Our Tunes.
- codehkr77, on 11/07/2007, -6/+1Isn't there another program that will manage my music libraries and still sync with iPOD?
- HonoredMule, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2songbird
- brufleth, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1Winamp
- scoobycarolan, on 11/08/2007, -0/+10I have 23,000 tracks in iTunes and still use Cover Flow!
- sparced, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1133,357 in Cover Flow but I prefer the look of middle view, grouped with art work. More like browsing your own store then.
- stalefries, on 11/08/2007, -0/+2For people with huge libraries (like yours), I'd like to check the play counts on songs and see if the songs closer to the beginning of your list are played more frequently.
- zhenya00, on 11/08/2007, -2/+10what a waste of a click. Story deliberately truncated to make it seem like there is something actually new and interesting available. Save the click, last sentence should read: '...primarily to provide international iphone support and a new game.' Wow.
- rheaume, on 11/08/2007, -0/+4How. Dare. You.
- Rethcir, on 11/07/2007, -0/+2My new classic was acting pretty flaky with the last few versions. It sometimes wouldn't pick up the ipod when I connected it, or it would report the ipod as being corrupt. (Note, I am using Vista). Since updating, it seems to be acting much more reliably.
- gaberbruno, on 11/08/2007, -1/+3I've got an ipod touch; I tried plugging in my touch on 64 bit Vista in itunes 7.4 and got a message along the lines of "this iphone is incompatable with this version of itunes." I now get a message in itunes 7.5 along the lines of "this ipod is incompatable with 32bit itunes and that I should uninstall this version of itunes and install a 64 bit version of itunes." (I paraphrase slightly)
Of course this being Windows there is currently no 64bit itunes for Windows; perhaps this is a sign of one to come soon? - timlopez, on 11/07/2007, -2/+3"to provide..."
to provide what?! Ahh damn, guess I'll read the article. - faston, on 11/08/2007, -1/+3They are adding 'events' to the syncing of your iPhoto library. This is one of the few things that I was disappointed with when I got my ipod Touch....now it's fixed and I am happy!
- chrup, on 11/08/2007, -0/+10The story mentions "... take the plunge ..." - what plunge? Usually a "plunge" is associated with having to fork out some $$$ but since iTunes is free, what gives.
- stalefries, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1Some people like to wait to make sure that Apple hasn't made any changes on how iPhones sync, for example.
- sandiegojoe, on 11/08/2007, -2/+2I still only use Itunes 6. I tried version 7 a while back and found it to be bloated, buggy, slow and unreliable. Is it any better now?
- DarkDx, on 11/08/2007, -1/+4Wow.
- gmprunner, on 11/08/2007, -1/+2Would someone please explain to me why so many people seem to think that iTunes is bloated? To me iTunes seems quite thin, especially given all the features and capabilities it has.
- stalefries, on 11/08/2007, -0/+5I assume you run iTunes on a Mac. I do to, although I've had experience with iTunes on Windows machines, and it's much worse over there. I imagine it has a lot to do with having to port a Mac-native app to a different platform, and yet maintain the same UI.
- brufleth, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1At least on Windows itunes is f'ing horrible. It is NOT feature rich at all. Doing simple things like finding a specific album some how manages to be a pain in the ass. Startup takes forever, it constantly wants to update this or that. Large libraries take forever to load and often crash even on mid to high end machines. I use winamp for loading things onto my ipod and it is fast and easy.
- hmunkey, on 11/08/2007, -1/+2I just wish iTunes wasn't so slow. By comparison to other software it seems overly bloated. I don't have Apple Tv or an iPhone, so why should I have to download their software too?
- NStuart88, on 11/08/2007, -2/+3I hate ITunes...Every time I load it up it tells me that a newer version is available...So in my opinion wait until version 7.6 comes out tomorrow (Please do not hate and get technical by saying "Actually Apple releases Itunes update blahblahblah) because I do not care.
- gmprunner, on 11/08/2007, -1/+2Is it really iTunes' fault that you only load it up when new updates are available? And what's bad about it notifying you?
- brufleth, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1When all you want to do is load a new album onto your ipod that's what the f'ing software should do. None of this automatic updating and slowing everything down BS. Many people (myself included) just need something to take music from computer to music player. All the rest is just annoying.
- gmprunner, on 11/08/2007, -1/+2Is it really iTunes' fault that you only load it up when new updates are available? And what's bad about it notifying you?
- LeeVal, on 11/08/2007, -2/+2I installed iTunes 7.5 last night. i dont see any of these features.
- SoundScape, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3Update worked fine for me. Most obvious update off the bat is the battery life indicator for my iPod.
- dualaudi, on 11/08/2007, -0/+2When can I stream more than 5 people in a day!?
- PittPanthersFan, on 11/08/2007, -1/+8This is an article about iTunes. Please stop whoring Foobar, Winamp, etc.
Seriously, people...- brufleth, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1People ask for alternatives and so people respond with alternatives. I've only seen people responding to questions like, "itunes is bloated, isn't there anything else I can use to load music onto my ipod?" mentioning alternatives.
- mfearby, on 11/08/2007, -0/+9What's with the 50 - 60MB updates every week or so? That's insane. Why on earth can't Apple figure out how to do smaller updates like everybody else? Is it just laziness!
- gmprunner, on 11/08/2007, -1/+6Wouldn't laziness = NOT doing updates?
- SoundScape, on 11/08/2007, -0/+4No, that would just make them LAZIER.
I'm an iTunes defender, but their update size is a bit ridiculous. There's nothing difficult about only updating the program files that have changed since the last version.
- SoundScape, on 11/08/2007, -0/+4No, that would just make them LAZIER.
- brufleth, on 11/08/2007, -0/+1Better question, why is a music player and library manager so big?
- gmprunner, on 11/08/2007, -1/+6Wouldn't laziness = NOT doing updates?
- Reeze101, on 11/10/2007, -9/+1Why does anybody use iTunes any more i mean seriosly it's bulky, expensive and cruddy, and there are tons of programs to sync with your ipod don't use itunes!
here cheap songs
www.legalsounds.com
www.mp3fiesta.com - themoosejuice, on 11/08/2007, -2/+2Weird, i cant open the story link without Firefox crashing
- olaph, on 11/10/2007, -2/+3sounds like apple is turning into microsoft LOL
- Bokista, on 11/08/2007, -0/+3I'm pretty sure this is a new feature, but now iTunes will let you know if you're going to add duplicate songs to a playlist and gives you the option to skip them.
- realbadass, on 11/08/2007, -0/+152 MB ?? no thanx
- sylbud, on 11/08/2007, -1/+0Super stronka dzięki!
- ckbreece, on 11/09/2007, -0/+0hrmmm prior to reading this I would always just upgrade to the newest iTunes as they rolled in. Now, I think i will check reviews before hand. Sounds like there have been some pretty scary upgrade gliches in the past...
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