“A new version of Apple Computer’s iTunes software released last week appears to be giving many [Windows] iPod owners headaches, according to reports from across the Web,” Alorie Gilbert reports for CNET News. “Complaints about the new iTunes 5 surfaced over the past few day on numerous blogs and discussion boards, including the company’s own discussion board at Apple.com.”
Gilbert reports, “Apple acknowledged the problem and said it’s working on an update. ‘Apple is aware that a limited number of customers are experiencing issues with installing iTunes 5,’ the company said in a statement. ‘We’re working to resolve this and expect to have a software update early next week.’ iTunes is a desktop computer program that comes with the iPod music player and allows people to transfer music to the device. It also represents Apple’s first big foray into designing software that works with Microsoft Windows. People have reported a range of problems with the updated program, while others said the software works fine.”
Full article here.
Behold the beauty of horizontal integration. Isn’t having a range of problems with the same piece of software on one PC – while another PC works fine – an expected feature in the Windows world? If not, the Windows software industry should be notified. We’ll keep our vertically integrated Apple Macs, thanks.
It is good to see Apple acknowledge the bugs and moving to squash them quickly.
Also, iTunes was not Apple’s first big foray into designing software for Windows. Just because Steve Jobs marketed iTunes for Windows as “hell freezing over,” doesn’t change the fact that QuickTime was first by a large margin.
Not to mention File Maker and Appleworks (only Windows-using education customers).
This reporter obviously has no idea what she’s talking about:
“appears to be giving many [Windows] iPod owners headaches”
iTunes isn’t just for iPod owners, it can also be used as a digital jukebox.
“also represents Apple’s first big foray into designing software that works with Microsoft Windows”
Anyone ever hear of Quicktime?
I’m forced to use Windows at work and therefore have iTunes for Windows installed on my PC here. I’ve been using iTunes 5 now for 2 weeks with no problems whatsover. Of course, I don’t sync up my iPod or anything like that up here, I do that at home on my Mac. But for just simple music playback and browsing the store, version 5 has been fine. The problems some are having with it probably has more to do with the hodge-podge of crappy PC hardware out there than with iTunes itself.
With my iBook, I’ve noticed a couple times when doing automatic updates to my iPod with iTunes 5: the program reloads onto my iPod a bunch of songs that were already on it. Seems like it’s maybe the songs I just played on my iBook, not sure. Anybody else noticed anything like this?
BTW, I should have said one week since it just came out last Wednesday…oh well, time flies when you’re having fun I guess. lol
I had tons of problems updating iTunes on my PissCee (yes, I’m forced to own one). I had to remove all traces of QT and iTunes then hack the evil registry, then turn the darn thing off for a few hours. After a few tries over a couple of days I got QT and iTunes working again. On my many Macs it was not a single problem. I think most problems installing something on Windoze is due to that gawd awful registry. Still in a sick twisted way I like playing with the registry – sort of like playing with a rattle snake.
I thought it was just me having a bad week. It completely wiped out my Podcast directory, and some other funky stuff has happened too. 🙁 (sniff sniff) Next time I’ll remember to back up the DB before upgrading (or maybe I’ll be on a Mac by then!!!)
I’ve also had numberous problems on my work PC and my home PC with Quicktime, every since Apple released the first public preview of 7. But as MDN noted, us Windows users are used to and accept such problems as a fact of life.
It’s sad, I know.
I installed iTunes 5 on day one and have no problems to report. The only bug I’ve come across is with older podcasts not getting deleted, presumably because they’re added to the library. Other than that, not a thing really.
I’ve got problems with iTunes 5 too (on my Mac). When I restart it, it tries re-importing my music library.
Problems? Really? I haven’t noticed any problems. I sync up with my iPod, have added songs and podcasts and haven’t seen any problems.
I wonder what problems have been reported.
PC user
(going to change that to switcher soon)
This may be the first time ever that Apple has acknowledged an existing problem with any product the’ve made.
Wow.
iTunes 5 much slower than the previous release. Hangs and locks. (Just my point of view, but uglier.) Resource hog. I am looking forward to that next release. I didn’t have any problems installing though….
PC Apologist:
You would be very wrong in that uninformed assumption. The very fact that Apple often supplies software to revert to previous versions (i.e. QuickTime) and has pulled OS updates and Security Updates off their servers (in a timely manner) indicates that Apple has frequently acknowledged when significant numbers of users have run into issues.
And they fix it fast.
Its OK to be an apologist. But it isn’t OK when you make up your own facts.
I had a problem with iTunes 5 just the other day. It said my Library was damaged and had to make a new one. Not a huge deal really, all my EQ settings were lost, the “date added” was changed to that day for all songs (that one made me mad), and it lost all my Podcast subscriptions. Apple Discussion Boards had several others with the same problem, so hopefully the update will fix it. It’s funny though, it makes a copy of the original damaged Library and calls it “iTunes Library (Damaged)” but so far I haven’t heard of any way to repair it.
At any rate, I’d highly suggest backing up that Library file just in case.
Not just Windows users. I have a Al PowerBook and 4G iPod and it won’t display album art on purchased songs.
One of the problems I’m having is that ImageReady CS2 can’t use the the new version of Quicktime 7 to open movies. And because iTunes 5 is built on the new Quicktime 7, when I downgraded to Quicktime 7 beta, I had to revert to iTunes 4.9
I’m sure it’ll be fixed.
Wow, PC Apologist, are you really an a##hole or do you just play one on the ‘Net? Apple has acknowledged problems with software many times. In fact, the initial release of iTunes for Windows had problems on some PCs, problems that were acknowledged by Apple and fixed with an update.
I downloaded the new version of iTunes on my laptop, and in my home we have 3 computers and a wireless network, each of which we installed version 5 on too. We then could not connect to the internet on any of the computers. We had to uninstall iTunes, and install it again without automatic update (which I have yet to do, I am waiting for the new version).
I have an imac and a PC on a wireless network at home the install of itunes 5.0 was problem free and itunes seemed to work as normal however the PC could not connect to the internet in the following week i resolved this by going back to a previous restore point – all else failed! the imac starting a weird thing of an occasional orange pattern on the screen soon after startup. I have not seen this since upgrading to itunes 5.01 still concerned it may be a hardware faut developing – any ideas???
Anyone else having problems with there cd drive on a g4 powerbook since updating to itunes 5? my drive will no longer play/import discs?