iTunes update

There it is... it is interesting to note the icon doesn't change until you run the new version. Then you are asked to elect to get album arts automatically or not ?



I went for a yes, hey it might be pretty - and shallow good looking lack of substance is what us mac users are derided for.

The library has become much neater. There is the much hailed yet widely predicted Movies category.

The podcasts link automatically shows the number of new podcasts. I bet though this can't be tweaked so as it shows those that haven't been played, so I'll still need my "New Pods" smart play list.

The new Downloads link under Store shows what is current being downloaded a feature much missed in previous version one used to have to click through the list in the main display, in the same location as the old graphic equalizer.

This version also gives a decent collection of information regarding remaining time for download and size information. This is a basic tenet for the movie download model - you've gotta let people know how long is left - it is claimed you can also start watching dl'd movies after only a few minutes downloading. I still don't think 640x480 is enough to get me to download movies. I don't have an iPod and that is not good enough to be displayed on my 42" HDTV - it has to be DVD quality and have a price point that matches the cheap $5 DVDs at Wallmart. Or for brand new movies a discount based on the idea that there is no hard copy, now box and no inlay information.

I think an entire section devoted to Shared music is, I think, overkill. When I was in the Hotel in San Francisco I discovered two other shared play lists neither of which I could get music from.


When first run iTunes go through all the music you've got determining any gapless playback information. Again something classic music and pink floyd fans have been dying for. This I believe is the only player, and I know Pepperpot has derided the Sony offering she uses for this very problem.

During this process iTunes also gathers the album art if you selected that option on start up.


Here is a quick pic of cover flow - I'm a bit disappointed that it's prett slow to get the picture. Despite several of the albums in this shot being from the ITMS - is that now the ITS ? I've also read about some weirdness regarding the storage of these album covers. Inside an extra folde rather being embedded in the ID3 tags of the music itself. Which is where old art that I chose manually is stored, and indeed is the purpose of the Album Art tag. Taking a standard and meddling with it so it breaks it on other platforms, sounds like a job for Microsoft to me, office XML anyone ?

What is good, is when you seperate the sections using the music link in the library it divests the list of podcasts. Except those that have delivered mis tagged mp3 files - Inside Mac Radio, is one such sinner.

I did like the new movie controls that appear bezel like on the player. This enables easy navigation through the media and the simple full screening from the movie. Previously you had to go seraching around iTunes to full screen a video podcast.