Apple releases iTunes 12.1

Thursday, January 29, 2015 · 9:18 pm · 19 Comments

Apple today released iTunes 12.1 which introduces a new iTunes widget for Notification Center in OS X Yosemite.

See what’s playing, skip ahead, and even buy songs while listening to iTunes Radio – right from Notification Center.

This update also improves performance when syncing with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

iTunes 12.1 is available vis Software Update.

Categories: Software Update

Tags: iTunes 12.1, Notification Center, software update

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19 Comments

aaAttendee

Thursday, January 29, 2015 - 10:54 pm · Reply

I stopped using iTunes since it seems have turned into Windowsware.
Nishanth

Thursday, January 29, 2015 - 10:58 pm · Reply

I wish they had fixed the Itunes Match issues where in the play count and last palyed dates keeps reverting back to a couple of days sometimes months old. Its a nightmare to manage your Smart Playlists because of this Bug. I am using iTunes without Match enabled for the last couple of months now, which is ridiculous considering that I paid for it and cannot use it / am not using it.
WTFrank

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 12:51 am · Reply

Bring back multiple windows.
- davemchine
  
  Saturday, January 31, 2015 - 2:03 pm · Reply
  
  They are there but hidden. Go to the View menu->Video Playback->and select a new window
Zuno the Clown

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 1:32 am · Reply

I have this strange issue where if I use genre view and sort by artist, about half my albums list A-Z in the top half and then the other half lists A-Z in the bottom half.

This is very weird, especially since the ID3 tags check out in other software. I hope this update fixes the problem.
MaxBay

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 1:42 am · Reply

Somebody could make a lot of money with a great alternative to iTunes. It’s just a mess, now. Instead of intuitive controls, you now have to figure out the little secrets to get things done. And then you have to remember them.

I’m getting the feeling Tim Cook doesn’t use his own products enough to recognize how badly some of them operate. I suspect Steve Jobs would have screamed at the mess off spaghetti that’s iTunes and iCloud, and sometimes Mail.
- Old Tech
  
  Friday, January 30, 2015 - 7:10 am · Reply
  
  Tim Cook by his own admission does 80% of his work on an iPad. In addition, I remember reading that he felt unable to properly test products like Steve Jobs did. Therefore, he relied on the lead developers to test their own products. This is like asking authors to be their own proof reader and editor.
  - mossman
    
    Friday, January 30, 2015 - 11:46 am · Reply
    
    That’s extremely bad if true, especially for company that could hire 1000 senior QA testers at an average $100,000 salary for just 0.56% of their last *quarterly* profit.
- Derek Currie
  
  Friday, January 30, 2015 - 12:09 pm · Reply
  
  Songbird was supposed to be the iTunes alternative. But it’s been generally mediocre and is now stagnating. Aspects of it have also be a huge PITA, like being able to even download and install it without throwing errors. (o_O)
  - davemchine
    
    Saturday, January 31, 2015 - 2:10 pm · Reply
    
    I would LOVE it if iTunes had a competitor but so far there is nothing that can talk to IOS devices and that is essential. I looked at Songbird and I see it was discontinued in 2014.
    - Derek Currie
      
      Saturday, January 31, 2015 - 3:05 pm · Reply
      
      There’s an open source app called ‘aTunes’ that appears to still be active. Almost no documentation. The initial reviews look OK. It does CD ripping as well. Plays several formats. That’s about it.
      
      http://sourceforge.net/projects/atunes/
DJ

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 3:50 am · Reply

I don’t mind the IOS version, but the desktop iTunes is slow, and visually dull.

It’s not intuitive and is a pale shadow of the beauty I used half a decade ago.
breeze

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 8:29 am · Reply

Tim:

Might be a good idea for Iovine to test and have input on iTunes…
- SJBMusic
  
  Friday, January 30, 2015 - 10:23 am · Reply
  
  That’s actually not a bad idea. Not bad at all. Someone certainly needs to spend some time with a critical eye on it.
Spellman

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 9:54 am · Reply

Dangit, they still haven’t fixed the issue of album art not showing up in new genius playlists. Pre-iTunes 12 genius playlists still show them, but new ones created in iTunes 12 don’t, and there’s no option to show them.
DustyMac

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 10:10 am · Reply

I use iTunes pretty much solely for the purpose of managing the music on my iPod classic via smart playlists. It pretty much does it all automatically whenever I dock my iPod. If I want to listen to music, I generally use the iPod.
- Macuser
  
  Friday, January 30, 2015 - 12:12 pm · Reply
  
  I sync my iPhone 6 to my Mac using iTunes 11. Doesn’t sound like there’s any reason to downgrade to iTunes 12.
Mike

Friday, January 30, 2015 - 6:34 pm · Reply

Well, it took 5 years for Apple to update iWork apps, and it was clear that the 2014 apps were gutted of desktop functionality primarily in order to force people to use iCloud. After all, that’s what Google and Microsoft are doing. The faster these companies force people to use their servers for document storage, the sooner these companies can charge monthly fees for you to store your data.

So too it is with iTunes. The reason iTunes has degraded in usability and stability in the last several years is because Apple is in the process of forcing subscription services for media too. Even though millions of people already have extensive music & video collections of our own, Apple wants us to rent our media. To speed the process, Apple is making iTunes progressively uglier and harder to use, while making zero effort at improving file management and sync capabilities. One can’t see what “other” files are clogging up your phone. Syncs fail regularly. Podcast management is a mess. archiving large libraries results in more spinning beach balls than any other application i’ve ever seen.

It is true: Apple’s software quality is declining badly because Apple is more interested in selling iCloud than they are serving longtime customers who know what they want, which is intuitive software that just works. No longer can that be said about Apple software. I’ve said this for a few years now, and it seems finally even the MDN echo chamber is starting to realize that Apple leadership is turning a technology company into a fashion business that doesn’t attend to the details. This is unacceptable to some of us. Apple more than ever needs to get a software chief engineer to right the ship, and get Jony the hell out of there. iTunes 12 is a @#$%$&^% ugly mess.
- davemchine
  
  Saturday, January 31, 2015 - 2:06 pm · Reply
  
  And…You Nailed It