Upgrading To iTunes 7:0? You Might Want To Wait
If you haven’t upgraded your iTunes software yet, you’re probably one of the lucky ones. There are many reports of bugs in this new version. There is no word yet on when they will be fixed, but with the general unhappiness of iTunes customers, I am guessing that will be relatively soon. No matter how long it takes, you’re better off waiting.
Experienced computer users know that using just-released versions of any software poses risks, but Apple really made some mistakes this time. Just take a look at the Apple discussion boards to get an idea of how many unhappy users are out there. On a thread discussing Apple 7.0 bugs at the Apple website, there are over 15,000 views with over 200+ responses. To check it out, start at Apple Discussions. If you’re like me and don’t have an Apple user I.D., you’ll get an error message. At this point click on the login button, and on the next page click on the cancel button. Believe it or not, after clicking on cancel, you will be at the correct page. From here you can read comments, but can’t post without an I.D.
Now you’re almost to the “bugs” thread. Scroll down to iTunes, then Using iTunes for Windows. The Apple 7.0 thread is located here. If you’ve already downloaded iTunes 7.0, you’re likely to find somebody complaining about whatever problems you may have already experienced.
If you’ve already downloaded and are finding all of your music distorted, check out GeekZone for a possible fix. If that’s you’re only problem and this fix works, consider yourself lucky.
At least one user found problems with missing music. He wasn’t just missing a song or two; his entire iTunes collection was gone after he upgraded. (This customer is actor Will Wheaton. Apple replaced his music.) Other users lost individual songs. More commonly, downloading the newest version resulted in skipping music or the distortion mentioned above.
The new version of iTunes boasts a “gapless playback” feature, designed to eliminate the gap between songs. There is speculation that this is responsible for some of the issues, though it clearly not the cause of all of the problems.
Now we’ll really be able to see how well Apple serves its customers. Will those who lost music get it back from iTunes? How quick will all these bugs be fixed? As one article asked, doesn’t Apple test this stuff before letting an unsuspecting public download it?
Several users were so frustrated that they started asking for help converting back to the older version of iTunes. If you’re happy with your current version, save yourself a hassle. Watch for a new release, and even then don’t download until you know that Apple has really fixed the problems.
Fortunately, I’m not among those with the new software. There are also those who have posted on internet boards saying they have upgraded with no problems. How many of you have downloaded iTunes 7.0? If you have, tell us how it’s working (or not working.)
I hope we have a fix soon. Apple has always ranked high in customer service; now lets see how quickly they can please their customers again.
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I updated my MacBook Pro and two MacBooks on the day of release. Using a stand aloe download of iTunes because the update wasn’t showing up in the Software Update control panel. Same way with the Quicktime update using a stand alone.
Not one issue for any computers for me. I have over 1200 purchased iTunes tracks. The day of release I downloaded a couple of movies and also some seasons of tv shows. All work fine.
So all good and fine for me.
The only issue I haad was movies and tv shows I ripped yself for use on my iPod, and all played perfectly was, iTunes 7 wouldn’t transfer them over to the iPod on sync. Where as these movies always played fine and were already on my ipod.
The solution turned out to be, after much experimenting was, I noticed the new Video tab using Get Info on my movies, I had to fill in the information there of “Show”. Then on sync, all my movies were put back on my iPod. That was a pain too because you can’t batch change this info. I had to do it individually. All in all it took my about two hours to figure it out and to change th information.
But all is good overall
I have a 30+ gb library including a couple hundred purchased from iTunes. No issues here…. seems to work well. The interface seems much more polished than before.
I’ve had no problems except that previews on movies (View Trailer) will truncate many times far short of finishing with no error notices.. as if I had told it to browse back to the previous page.
I’ve had absolutely no issue whatsoever. I upgraded through “Software Update,” and quickly got the new version along with its QuickTime counterpart. The only “issue” that I have involves my own stupidity. I downloaded (bought) the iPod game “Vortex” for my iPod nano with the understanding that the game would work with all 5G iPods. Apparently, the nano is NOT a 5G iPod. It’s a 1G nano. Sounds like semantics to me, but I bought a game I can’t use. My bad.
Now we have to bear WINDOWS PROBLEMS on this site, golly gee. Ah well, it’s Apple Software…
I don’t quite see why people on a Windows machine update *any* software without a fresh clone of their system handy. I think all installers for software (on all systems) should come with a big fat blazing red first page saying “DO NOT PROCEED BEFORE YOU HAVE BACKED UP - If you do not know how to backup your system STEP AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER IMMEDIATELY AND DO NOT COME BACK BEFORE YOU HAVE AQUIRED SOME BASIC SKILLS”. The yammering of people who do not have even the slightest idea about what they are doing must eat up terabytes of bandwidth each and every day. They are a problem. They need help.
On a sidenote, Apple of course has to have better QC. On 10.4.7 iTunes 7 works fine. I do not like the colors. I am under the impression that before version 7, command+1 would spawn the main window (can someone <7 please check this?) as it should be, while now it is the same daft crap as with Addressbook, you need to click the icon or select the window from the pulldown menu. It severly cuts ergonomics as you can no longer command+tab your way into iTunes and should be reported as a bug.
you seem to have not grasped the concept of “bugs threads” ;
you see, the people who are having problems post to “bugs threads” where people who do not have problems don’t…
so according to your own numbers, 200 people are having problems , and Millions of people are not….
(even then, the 200 replies are not 200 separate people, but by people that are having the problems replying back and forth)
i’d suggest a little balance next time you suggest people don’t upgrade…
i’d go on step further and tell people to look at the “bugs threads” and see which system types are effected before upgrading… it appears mostly Windows systems with customized Video cards, or extremely cheap video cards are effected….
jon..
jon..
This is the regular hype issue that is evermore present the more people get online. News spreads fast, and bad news spreads even faster. People also tend not to read the facts at all (ahem, just look at what the Pope is up to these days) but rather scream bloody murder straight away.
Oh, and I have just checked.
Command+n doesn not call up a new window as it should (same as in addressbook.app :( )
Command+1,2,3 cycle video sizes when playing video but do not cycle library views when playing music, as one might expect.
That’s pretty stupid, forces one to use the mouse more, and is inconsistent with Finder behavior.
Time for another update, Apple.
my apple computer’s hard drive seems to have died after upgrading to itunes 7 and then upgrading quicktime. i’ve got the whole story over at http://www.imightbeinatree.com/mac.html and on digg at http://digg.com/apple/iTunes_kills_Mac
I found it to be perfect as far as first version’s go but it was a little slow at times. My only complaint is that is seems very grey
I’ve upgraded to iTunes 7 on three different Macs (a G5 PowerMac, a G4 Powerbook and an Intel Mini). I installed using both stand alone and software update.
No problems here at all with my 30GB+ library. I thought I had found a bug initially with volume control to remote speakers, but a simple restart of the app fixed the issue.
I like 7.0. I LOVE coverflow. The new interface is a little more mundane than I’m used to, but I was never a huge fan of aqua, so it’s okay. A lot of thinking went into this release, and it shows. Updating iPods are much more intuitive now. I also like the way the sidebar is broken down now.
The biggest isssue I’ve had was adding art to all my old ripped albums that I either downloaded or ripped before there even WAS an iTunes that accessed Gracenote. It’s been kinda fun, actually. Gives me something to do at work…
I’m having a particular problem with my shuffle, it all stated after the installation of itunes 7 for WINDOWS and for what I’ve read on apple forum many shuffle owners are going trough the same. It’s the error 1418 when they try to restore their ipods… It’s seem to much of a casualty that all of our ipods shuffle have the same error at the same time (post realize itunes 7).
Of the three ipods I have, only the shuffle was sync with my windows machine and itunes 7 and then it died or something like that… the other ipods are safe on the mac kingdom.
Apple has to do something about this one.
I have been a loyal apple costumer, but this lack of response it’s starting to disturb me.
hmmmm I haven’t discovered any problem after my update (at least I don’t think I have lost any songs) however, something funny happens when I listen to my friend’s library via the network: the same song will repeat twice before it plays another one, I did make sure no repeat is on, and my friend indeed does not have two copies of every song. But what is funnier is that it does not always happen. (She upgraded to iTuntes 7 too, but it is a windows version)
i guess it’s mostly a Windows problem. i haven’t had any problems either, haven’t lost a single song…
only thing i think is missing: Lyrics downloader to go along with the album art finder…
and i wish they would just put the album art into the song file so that it wouldn’t take so long to load… of course, that might just be my RAM issues.
IT7 works well on my 12” PB, and for me that’s all that matters. not worth it not to update
iTunes 7 works fine for me—my only complaints is that coverflow takes up a TON of ram and gapless playback can be annoying on songs that should be seperated.