DailyTech: iTunes 7 is a Lemon Say Users

[Jason Eaton]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4174' target='_blank'>http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4174</a><br /><br /></div><i>“Just days after the release of iTunes version 7, Apple is facing a barrage of user complaints and reports about iTunes being well, not much of an upgrade. Steve Jobs demonstrated the new release at the special conference to an amazed audience on Tuesday, showing off features such as free downloadable album art, new view and sort methods, and gapless playback. Unfortunately, some core features of iTunes have now become broken.”</i><br /><br />The collective sound of Apple programmers slapping their heads and shouting 'D'oh' might be making some Redmond executives smile these days. I belong to the old school thought of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' so I haven't seen these problems first hand. Have you been bitten by the iTunes 7 bugs?

[ctmagnus]

I haven't had any issues yet. Grabbing album art is well worth the upgrade, imo, as the vast majority of my MP3 collection predates my use of iTunes.

[EscapePod]

iTunes 7 is truly a major disaster -- not just for Windows users, but for Mac folks, too.

Check the issues listed on just these two Apple sponsored forum threads:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=639439&amp;tstart=0

and

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=3133292#3133292

I went back to ver 6.0.5.

[Janak Parekh]

Nope, works great for me. I ain't going back. Nevertheless, here's to hoping that Apple will release a point release in the next few days.

--janak

[Tim Williamson]

Here's an 11 page thread discussing bugs/problems...

http://forums.ilounge.com/showthread.php?t=173579

I still won't use iTunes as my Media Player until it can monitor my media folders.

[Phronetix]

Works A-OK here.

[Jason Eaton]

Good to hear. It sounds more like a glitch where just a few people are having a problem, albeit a serious one. I would still recommend a back up of the iTunes music directory just to be safe before installing.

It always happens to the other guy right before it happens to you. :D

[Janak Parekh]

I still won't use iTunes as my Media Player until it can monitor my media folders.
That will never happen, and that's because iTunes works fundamentally different from WMP. The idea behind iTunes is that you don't use the filesystem to manage your music -- you use iTunes and let it handle all the manipulations behind the scenes. Its integration with iPod is designed specifically in this model.

I was resistant to this idea at first, but letting iTunes manage my music is actually quite handy -- especially when correcting tags. Not only will it update the ID3 tags, but it will also fix the files' directory, filenames, etc. automatically for you. I actually don't venture into the Music folder anymore.

Of course, it's up to you whether you want to adopt this model, but if you really want to give iTunes a shot, then you have to try it and see how it works before writing it off. ;)

--janak

[Dyvim]

No problems here with iTunes 7. And I used it to load up a new 80 GB iPod and a new 8 GB iPod nano.

But then disaster struck - the wife blew a gasket when she found out I'd just spent $600 on new iPods, so both of them went back to the store. Oh well, there's always Xmas...

[Jason Eaton]

... so both of them went back to the store...

That's like... the saddest story... ever. :puppydogeyes:

Did you get a chance to play with them? Maybe snap some comparison pics with the other iPods?

[Tim Williamson]

That will never happen, and that's because iTunes works fundamentally different from WMP. The idea behind iTunes is that you don't use the filesystem to manage your music -- you use iTunes and let it handle all the manipulations behind the scenes. Its integration with iPod is designed specifically in this model.

That makes sense, I still like to micromanage where my actual music files are placed though, and I don't necessarily want iTunes moving them around, but I do like the idea that iTunes can fix the tags and add the album art.

Maybe I'll give it a shot one of these days. :)

***long quite trimmed by mod JD***

[Janak Parekh]

That makes sense, I still like to micromanage where my actual music files are placed though, and I don't necessarily want iTunes moving them around, but I do like the idea that iTunes can fix the tags and add the album art.
Well... you can micromanage the file system, but iTunes isn't really designed for that. I used to be a micromanager, but I gave it up. I'm actually happier now. Of course, you may have other reasons for wanting to maintain the file structure.

Maybe I'll give it a shot one of these days. :)
What you can do is to set up a small test library with iTunes, and keep your existing library apart and untouched, and then play around with the manipulation features. That is, if you want... no one is forcing you to. There are other tools.

--janak

p.s. I finally ran into the static problem on a Windows box today. Pausing and resuming cleared it, but I am looking forward to Apple fixing this. Macs are my primary platform, and I've still had no issues there.

[ctmagnus]

Someone mentioned album art...

I've got an album whose album art iTunes was unable to locate, and I have a jpg of the album art. However, iTunes will not let me associate the jpg with that album, no matter how I go about it. Any suggestions?

[EscapePod]

What usually works for me when I'm adding the album art to iTunes (ver. 6.0.5) is to find the album jpg file using windows explorer, and while iTunes is open, drag the file into the small window in the lower left corner. Hopefully, your iTunes is set up to have that windo showing. As soon as you drag the file into that corner window, the album art shows up immediately.

I hope iTunes 7 retains that feature.

[ctmagnus]

It does have the album art window, but it won't let me add the artwork by that means either. :(

[MitchellO]

I have been using iTunes 7 since it came out and it seems ok. A bit slower than iTunes 6, but still ok. I had to upgrade because I bought one of the new 8GB nanos (which is absolutely fantastic BTW :D). The iPod management interface is a lot nicer and streamlined than the old one as well.

[MitchellO]

I have been using iTunes 7 since it came out and it seems ok. A bit slower than iTunes 6, but still ok. I had to upgrade because I bought one of the new 8GB nanos (which is absolutely fantastic BTW :D). The iPod management interface is a lot nicer and streamlined than the old one as well.

[Dyvim]

That's like... the saddest story... ever. :puppydogeyes:

Did you get a chance to play with them? Maybe snap some comparison pics with the other iPods?

Yeah - it was pretty sad - but infinitely better than the consequences!

I did get some chance to play with them, but no pics. The 80 GB is basically exactly the same (dimensions and weight) as the 60 GB 5G iPod it replaces, just with more storage and better battery life and a couple new features. The overlay letter when you scroll through lists quickly works well as does the search function. Didn't get a chance to check gapless on the iPod although it is working through iTunes. And I didn't try any of the new games.

The new 8 GB black nano is super sweet looking. The matte black aluminum feels great in the hand and I like the concave center button. It's just a hair thinner than the original nano but feels sturdier thanks to the aluminum. But the best thing about it is just having double the storage. I know it's under-featured compared to the Sansa e280 at the same price, but I'd take the new nano any day because the design and feel is just so great.

[Jason Dunn]

I've got an album whose album art iTunes was unable to locate, and I have a jpg of the album art. However, iTunes will not let me associate the jpg with that album, no matter how I go about it. Any suggestions?

Does iTunes read embedded album art? If so, go get Media Monkey from www.mediamonkey.com and use it to embed your album art.

[MitchellO]

The new 8 GB black nano is super sweet looking. The matte black aluminum feels great in the hand and I like the concave center button. It's just a hair thinner than the original nano but feels sturdier thanks to the aluminum. But the best thing about it is just having double the storage. I know it's under-featured compared to the Sansa e280 at the same price, but I'd take the new nano any day because the design and feel is just so great.

Yeah I have one of the new 8GB nanos and it is absolutely sweet.

[ctmagnus]

Does iTunes read embedded album art? If so, go get Media Monkey from www.mediamonkey.com and use it to embed your album art.

It did in v6; I expect it likely still does. The problem I have with embedding, however, is that (afaict) WMP uses the folder.jpg means of displaying album art and if I start embedding all my album art, what happens if I decide to switch to WMP in the future? If I have a folder.jpg in a folder that contains MP3s with embedded album art, which album art gets displayed in WMP?

[Tim Williamson]

Isn't it better to have the art embedded in the ID3 tag, that way the art always goes with the file. It should be a standard for programs to embed the art in the file rather than use a .jpg in the folder.

Dunno which WMP reads first though.

[Janak Parekh]

What usually works for me when I'm adding the album art to iTunes (ver. 6.0.5) is to find the album jpg file using windows explorer, and while iTunes is open, drag the file into the small window in the lower left corner. Hopefully, your iTunes is set up to have that windo showing. As soon as you drag the file into that corner window, the album art shows up immediately.

I hope iTunes 7 retains that feature.
It seems iTunes 7 does, but only for a single track at a time.

ctmagnus -- If you want to apply art to a collection of tracks: highlight them all, and go to Get Info. Find the artwork field, and drop the JPG in *there*. It should display the JPG and the checkmark box should automatically fill. Hit OK.

Edit: Note that this is still "embedding", not associating. iTunes doesn't allow you to manually associate .JPG files with tracks, AFAICT.

--janak

[Tim Williamson]

Is iTunes actually embedding the album art in the ID3 tag?

[Janak Parekh]

Is iTunes actually embedding the album art in the ID3 tag?
That's a good question, and I haven't investigated. iTunes 7 actually allows for embedding in the music files (again, not sure where) and .JPGs outside of the music files (primarily used as a cache for online album art downloads).

--janak

[ctmagnus]

ctmagnus -- If you want to apply art to a collection of tracks: highlight them all, and go to Get Info. Find the artwork field, and drop the JPG in *there*. It should display the JPG and the checkmark box should automatically fill. Hit OK.

I tried that, and the artwork showed up in the field, but...

Edit: Note that this is still "embedding", not associating. iTunes doesn't allow you to manually associate .JPG files with tracks, AFAICT.

--janak

I have my entire library with the read-only attribute set, so the embedding (thus writing to the files) vs associating is what's preventing the album art from showing up for those files. I'd like it if Apple could allow manually associating album art with a particular album/track in future versions.

[Jason Dunn]

It did in v6; I expect it likely still does. The problem I have with embedding, however, is that (afaict) WMP uses the folder.jpg means of displaying album art and if I start embedding all my album art, what happens if I decide to switch to WMP in the future?

Windows Media Player 11 displays embedded album art, as does Windows Vista (in the shell no less!) so it's a short term problem.

[Jason Dunn]

Isn't it better to have the art embedded in the ID3 tag, that way the art always goes with the file. It should be a standard for programs to embed the art in the file rather than use a .jpg in the folder.

Indeed, I agree completely and feel VERY passionate about this issue. I've had a column on this subject in the draft stage for months...unfortunately, my Zen Vision:M and many other media players do not read embedded album art. :-( Does the iPod?

[Jason Dunn]

I have my entire library with the read-only attribute set, so the embedding (thus writing to the files) vs associating is what's preventing the album art from showing up for those files

Hmm. Read only? Interesting. Why's that? Preventing meta-data adjustments without your knowledge? Wouldn't that also effect things like star ratings, # of play tracking, etc.?

[Janak Parekh]

Indeed, I agree completely and feel VERY passionate about this issue. I've had a column on this subject in the draft stage for months...unfortunately, my Zen Vision:M and many other media players do not read embedded album art. :-( Does the iPod?
Basically, yes. However, it's a bit more nuanced. iTunes will make sure to sync art properly and reliably to the iPod. Since the iPod has a specialized filesystem and metadata, you don't typically copy tracks directly to the drive; amongst other things, this means you typically don't have to worry about music, art, movies, whatever... you just load it through iTunes and it works.

--janak

[Vincent Ferrari]

5 installs (2 Macs, 3 PC's) later and I have yet to have one problem except for one stupid niggling little issue. When you connect your iPod and sync, if it goes to sleep (ie: if the screen dims) you have to disconnect it and reconnect it to sync again. A minor quibble seeing as I usually sync everything once a day anyway, but that's the only issue I've had and I've done plenty of pounding on iTunes 7 to have come across something by now.

I fricking love it. :werenotworthy:

[Tim Williamson]

Indeed, I agree completely and feel VERY passionate about this issue. I've had a column on this subject in the draft stage for months...unfortunately, my Zen Vision:M and many other media players do not read embedded album art. :-( Does the iPod?
Basically, yes. However, it's a bit more nuanced. iTunes will make sure to sync art properly and reliably to the iPod. Since the iPod has a specialized filesystem and metadata, you don't typically copy tracks directly to the drive; amongst other things, this means you typically don't have to worry about music, art, movies, whatever... you just load it through iTunes and it works.

--janak

It doesn't always just work...yesterday I had to do a restore on my iPod and recopy my music to get the cover art to display.

[Vincent Ferrari]

Nothing always "just works" but I'd say for the most part, iTunes is pretty reliable.

[Tim Williamson]

I copied my music library to a separate directory and have been experimenting with iTunes managing my music. It looks like it will be good for organizing, but the thing is I have hundreds of songs with incorrect or no tags, is there a quicker way to add the tags rather than manually fixing them?

Also, if I edit a song's tag outside of iTunes, will it pick up the new info, or do I need to reimport it?

[Vincent Ferrari]

I don't believe iTunes continously reads tags off your songs, and instead pulls them out of its library, so I think you might be out of luck there... The only reason I think so is because when I moved from a PC to a Mac, I lost titles and albums to a lot of my music...

[Dyvim]

Also, if I edit a song's tag outside of iTunes, will it pick up the new info, or do I need to reimport it?

You don't need to do a reimport - you just need to force iTunes to read the info from the tag and it will then update its library with the changed info.

e.g. play the song or if you have the Show Artwork pane visible and set to show selected song (not currently playing), just select the track in the list and it should refresh (when it hits the file for the artwork it will also read the tags). I think doing a Get Info on the track will also work. When I have a bunch of modified tracks, I use the Show Artwork trick and just scroll quickly through the listview to get it to update.

The problem with dropping it and reimporting it, is that the track will be dropped from any dumb playlists that it is a member of.

[Tim Williamson]

I see...at this point I don't use playlists, so that wouldn't be a problem.

Here's another situation...if I manually delete files from Windows Explorer, what's the easiest way to get iTunes to drop these songs from the library?

[Vincent Ferrari]

It doesn't work that way, unfortunately...

That's the problem most people have with iTunes. They think it's convoluted, when actually it's quite simple. You manage your files within iTunes, not using Explorer / Finder. Delete it from iTunes and it should then ask you if you want to take the actual file with it...

[Tim Williamson]

It doesn't work that way, unfortunately...

That's the problem most people have with iTunes. They think it's convoluted, when actually it's quite simple. You manage your files within iTunes, not using Explorer / Finder. Delete it from iTunes and it should then ask you if you want to take the actual file with it...

That will be a difficult habit to break... :oops:

I'm going to try to commit myself to using iTunes for a month though, then decide if it's worth the trouble, or whether to go back to WMP/Winamp. :D

[Vincent Ferrari]

Well, I think that depends mainly on your MP3 player. If you don't think you're gonna be buying an iPod or buying from the ITMS, don't waste your time with iTunes because you won't get much of a benefit out of it and it'll be a bit of wrangling to get your stuff back in order in WMP / Winamp.

[Tim Williamson]

Well, I think that depends mainly on your MP3 player. If you don't think you're gonna be buying an iPod or buying from the ITMS, don't waste your time with iTunes because you won't get much of a benefit out of it and it'll be a bit of wrangling to get your stuff back in order in WMP / Winamp.

I already have the iPod, but won't use ITMS. The issue I was running into is, the 3rd-party programs or plugins for transferring music to the iPod sometimes didn't work correctly or weren't transferring the album art. That's why I wanted to give iTunes a try. I made a backup of my whole music folder, so it'll be no problem to switch from iTunes. Thanks for the tips!

[Tim Williamson]

Does WMP11 have the ability to transfer to the iPod (or do you guys think it will ever have that ability)?

[MitchellO]

Does WMP11 have the ability to transfer to the iPod (or do you guys think it will ever have that ability)?

Not officially. Someone may make up some kind of plugin that would allow iPod users to use WMP, but I haven't heard of any such thing yet.

[ctmagnus]

It doesn't always just work...yesterday I had to do a restore on my iPod and recopy my music to get the cover art to display.

iTunes has a checkbox to transfer cover art. My cover art had only been partially copied, so I unchecked the box then rechecked it, and all the cover art went over. iirc the checkbox is in one of the tabs in the screen that shows your iPod info.

[Tim Williamson]

It doesn't always just work...yesterday I had to do a restore on my iPod and recopy my music to get the cover art to display.

iTunes has a checkbox to transfer cover art. My cover art had only been partially copied, so I unchecked the box then rechecked it, and all the cover art went over. iirc the checkbox is in one of the tabs in the screen that shows your iPod info.

Yeah I saw that, and it was checked.

It was odd because the iPod thought the art was there, when I'd press the middle button to go to the cover art screen it would just show a blank white screen, as opposed to a song without art where it won't even display the cover art screen.

All fixed now though! :)

[Janak Parekh]

It doesn't always just work...yesterday I had to do a restore on my iPod and recopy my music to get the cover art to display.
Okay, well, that is true. However, I have heard elsewhere that the toggle advice espoused by ctmagnus works.

In general, iTunes sync is far more reliable than anything else out there.

That will be a difficult habit to break... :oops:
You'd be surprised. I thought I'd never get out of it, but it took me a day or two. Just don't go to the file system. Go into iTunes and manage everything there. The best part is the metadata updates. While you can't "automatically" fix things (although there may be plugins that do), you can certainly fix things in batches. Then, watch as you plug in your iPod and the fixed tracks, and only the fixed tracks, are synced.

Finally, you've tried browse mode, right? (The eye either on the upper-right in iT6 or in the lower-right in iT7.) I love that UI for playing and managing music.

--janak

[Vincent Ferrari]

I remember in the oldern days when iTunes was new to the PC. My wife loved it and I hated it.

Then, as time went by she kept getting annoyed with me for using WMP, so one day I reinstalled iTunes and started over. It took a solid month for me to not reflexively use WMP, but I adapted and totally love it now and have gotten used to its UI and not touching the My Music folder anymore.

The only thing I don't use iTunes for now is as my default player for music and media I don't want on my iPod. For example, if I play a clip on my desktop, I don't want it to play through iTunes. For that I use Quicktime (on my Macs) or WMP (on my desktop) but other than that, I'm 100% a convert and wouldn't even think of sullying my lilly white hands touching the file system anymore.

[Tim Williamson]

The best part is the metadata updates. While you can't "automatically" fix things (although there may be plugins that do), you can certainly fix things in batches. Then, watch as you plug in your iPod and the fixed tracks, and only the fixed tracks, are synced.

Yeah, I've found it's easy to update in batches, but I don't use sync since I only have an 8GB iPod with a 40GB music library. Is there a way to tell it to only sync specific albums?

[Vincent Ferrari]

Use the "Only update checked songs" feature. That should make it easier.

Or

Even better... Do what I did with my wife's shuffle...

Just make a playlist called "Nano" and only sync that one playlist...

I don't know how big you are on playlists so that may or may not work for you.

[MitchellO]

Even better... Do what I did with my wife's shuffle...

Just make a playlist called "Nano" and only sync that one playlist...


This is what my sister does on her 512MB Shuffle.

My music collection is about 6.3GB, so it completely fits on my ultra thin 8GB nano :D

Regarding iTunes sync, I have never had a problem with it personally. It just seems to work.

[Tim Williamson]

Is there a way to only view "checked" songs in iTunes?

[Tim Williamson]

Ok, I think I've fallen in love with iTunes smart playlists. :) I just realized that they're dynamically updated on the iPod, I thought you'd have to sync everytime you want a smart playlist to update on the iPod.

So now I'm syncing by using a playlist called "Tim's Nano", and have a couple other smart playlists syncing.

I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to tell iTunes how to sync the music that I want, and aren't sure if it's better to use the checked songs or the sync playlist. The advantage I see of syncing the playlist is I can immediately see all songs that are copied to the iPod. But with checked songs, I don't know a way to only view checked songs in iTunes. Any way to do this?

TIA

[Janak Parekh]

I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to tell iTunes how to sync the music that I want, and aren't sure if it's better to use the checked songs or the sync playlist. The advantage I see of syncing the playlist is I can immediately see all songs that are copied to the iPod. But with checked songs, I don't know a way to only view checked songs in iTunes. Any way to do this?
I personally ended up using a playlist, although I can see the advantage of the checkbox. As to see only checked songs, create a smart playlist and tick the box labeled "match only checked items". Oh, and do note that Browse mode does work on playlists as well.

And yes, smart playlists are great for helping stuff music onto a small nano. :) Plus, now that you're using automatic sync, metadata fixes will automatically migrate...

--janak