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Topic: Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows (Read 36732 times) previous topic - next topic
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Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

EDIT: iTunes 4.1 is now available for download for Mac OS X and Windows NT & XP. Among the noteworthy features in the Macintosh version is "error correction" when ripping CDs. I just tested it on an old burned CD, and it seemed to work quite well. For Windows, the most noteworthy new feature is it's existence

Apple just had a press event where they announced a new version of iTunes, probably iTunes 5, for both Mac and Windows PCs running XP or NT. It will probably be on the iTunes page later today. The full story from MacMinute:

Quote
MacMinute is covering Apple's Special Music Event live today, which takes place at 1:00 p.m. ET from the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Apple is expected to debut iTunes for Windows, as well as other iPod enhancements. Stay tuned for full coverage. Incidentally, the iTunes Music Store is presently down, which makes sense in light of Apple's expected announcements. Click here for up-to-the-minute coverage.

  • iTunes is built into AOL - 25 million users

  • Apple says 100 million songs to be given through the Pepsi promotion

  • Apple intends to sell 100 million songs before April 2004

  • Grateful Dead now online -- only place you can buy their music

  • New version of iTunes for Mac and Windows available today

  • Apple intends to seel 100 million songs before April 2004

  • There is only one store -- both versions accessing same servers

  • New recommended "essentials" section

  • New sorting options for albums - alphabetically, best sellers, and release date (for Mac too)

  • Going over general navigation of store

  • New exclusive Rolling Stones EP

  • Moves on to iTMS; buying Black Eyed Peas song from iPod commercial

  • Shared music from Mac to the Windows machine

  • Going over features (showing visualizer, equalizer, smart playlists, radio stations, etc)

  • Jobs giving demo of iTunes from a Windows PC for first time

  • iTMS is "gold standard" for usability rights

  • iTMS just like Mac version -- exact same store

  • Windows iPod users wanted iTunes

  • iTunes - full speed, cd burning, MP3, sharing via Rendezvous - all free

  • MusicMatch - Slower until $20 upgrade fee

  • Microsoft Windows Media Player - No MP3 support

  • Comparing with Microsoft and MusicMatch software

  • Runs on Windows Xp and Windows 2K; best jukebox on the platform now

  • iTunes for Windows is "the best windows app ever written"

  • Looks exactly the same as Mac version

  • Jobs: "Thought this feature wouldn't be added until hell froze over." -- iTunes for Windows

  • "One more thing..."

  • Showing off refined new homepage for iTunes store

  • New Celebrity Playlists feature; showing Sting's, Dave Brubeck's

  • New "Allowance" feature - for parents letting children buy music, lets them buy but has spending limit

  • Sent by e-mail with "redeem now" button

  • From $10-$200 in increments of $10

  • New gift certificate feature - hit a button, fill out short form

  • Perfect round tripping with iPod (knows where you left off)

  • One-click book buying

  • Showing audiobook store interface; sorted by genre

  • 5,000 books available; free previews

  • Made multi-year exclusive deal with Audible.com

  • Putting them right alongside music

  • New Audio Book support

  • 200 independent labels signed

  • Talking about being selective about quality of music

  • 400,000 tracks by end of this month

  • Introducing "second generation" store

  • iTunes share of legal downloads is 70%

  • Talking about neilson ratings

  • Over 600,000 songs sold a week -- "and this is Mac-only"

  • Over 13 million songs sold through iTMS

  • Started with 200,000 songs

  • Going through the benefits of iTMS vs. illegal services

  • Now discussing iTunes Music Store (iTMS)

  • New iPod ad debuting tonight - Rock instead of current Hip Hop

  • Thanks Chiat/Day advertising firm

  • Showing iPod ads; great reaction

  • Up to 20,000 photos on 40GB iPod

  • Keeps individual rolls, syncs with iPhoto

  • Card reader connects to dock connector

  • Photo storage - Belkin accessory

  • Up to 670 hours on 40GB iPod

  • Microphone/speaker for voice memos

  • Voice recording - Belkin accessory - $49

  • New features for dockable iPods

  • No. 1 in both units and revenues

  • iPod market share (last taken July/Aug) was 31%

  • 2.5 iPods sold every minute

  • One millionth iPod sold last quarter

  • Going over third generation iPods

  • Photo of Johnny Cash on big screen

  • Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage

  • Johnny Cash - "All My Life" (Beatles cover) playing

  • Event appears to be a little behind schedule; showing the crowd

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #1 –
It's out for Windows now.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #2 –
I can't get the darned program to run (on Windows). It starts, tries to access the Internet in the background (so says ZoneAlarm) but all I see is an error message:

"The folder iTunes cannot be found or created, and is required. The default location for this folder is inside the Music folder"

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #3 –
Bloatware alert #1:  Conveniently installs QuickTime 6.4 for you.

(Sorry, I was skeptical in another thread about iTunes being bloatful just like QuickTime.)

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #4 –
Quote
iTunes for Windows is "the best windows app ever written"


Quite an arrogant statement, considering the 100's of thousands of programs written for Windows, also considering iTunes was rushed into service, I am doubting that statement will hold true.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #5 –
New option in iTunes 4.1 on the Mac:

Preferences -> Importing -> Use error correction when reading Audio CDs

The blurb next to the checkbox says:

"Use this option if you experience problems with the audio quality from Audio CDs. This may reduce the speed of importing."

Neato!

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #6 –
Well I just downloaded and installed iTunes on my laptop running Windows XP.

First time I have ever used iTunes. It looks almost identical to the screenshots of the Mac version that I have seen. Same type of interface.

Sounds really good from what I have heard so far. I justed ripped an album and encoded with AAC 128kbit and was very very impressed with the quality for such a low bitrate. Since I have always used Musepack --standard, this is a huge surprise. I can definitely hear problems with the highs (such as high-hats on drums), but overall I have never been more impressed with a 128kbit lossy file before. Very surprised with the stereo separation, I was worried about that.

What are the DRM restrictions (if any) for ripped AAC files (not the ones downloaded from the iTunes Music Store). Speaking of which, I haven't tried but I probably will soon.

I really like the interface, especially for managing playlists and burning CD's.

Also I noticed a feature to keep the volume level for songs the same. Curious how that works.

What is everyone's experience with higher bitrates? With AAC is there a huge gain going to 160kbit or 192 kbit?
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #7 –
iTunes for Windows cannot read tag from mp4 file created with Nero and tagged with tg.exe. (foobar and dbPowerAmp can read tags fine)

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #8 –
I just installed it, and it's pretty sexy looking. It speaks to my creative side for some reason. I hadn't been this excited about installing any piece of software ever. It hasn't been a disappointment, really, as it's about what I expected: pretty-looking, and as functional as iTunes for Mac. It's not as powerful as Foobar or Winamp, which means that I will probably not use it for most of my music usage. I'm a sucker for a sexy interface, so I like it almost for that reason alone. I do miss my hotkeys and Replaygain, though.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #9 –
Quote
What are the DRM restrictions (if any) for ripped AAC files (not the ones downloaded from the iTunes Music Store). Speaking of which, I haven't tried but I probably will soon.

...

Also I noticed a feature to keep the volume level for songs the same. Curious how that works.

No DRM at all on tracks you rip yourself.

...


I think it's similar to replay gain, if you drag in a bunch of files it 'analyzes' them, which takes a while. Don't know if it's better/worse quality.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #10 –
Just installed, I can totally seeing myself spending any and all available extra money (which to say, isn't too much) on buying songs. Good deal and I can find the artists I want. I'm tempted to just buy this live CD from Less Than Jake that I never knew existed (well, it is titled "live from the apple store", so thats understandable).

Problems I've seen though on my computer (which is slower, but faster than recommended or minimum) are pretty much scrolling the iTMS is kind of slow. The response when clicking on "file" or something also seems slower than I might expect. Though, not terrible. Just gotta get used to how the program works.

I'm also scared that if I load up my /Music directory that iTunes will mess up everything up for me automatically.

Then, lets not forget the lack of Musepack, Vorbis, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, APEv2 tag support either. Though, there appears to be this "sound check" feature that is advertised as being like replaygain ("automatically adjusts song playback volume to same volume"). That makes me happy, and there is some "error correction" checkbox for ripping CD's. Maybe later I'll test to see if the rips are identical to the ones EAC creates (on a fairly new CD).

I really wish Apple made some way for developers to add other formats and features. I'm sure I would be more willing to make it my "constant use" application if it had the format support of Fb2k. Though, its main goal is to get iTMS to Windows users and make them want it, and I'd say that goal has finished beautifully (seeing as how my credit card is having a hard time staying in my pocket)

Oh lord, Apple is going to make so much money with this. Full Album's for 10$ (okay, not all are 10$, and those "partial albums" that still have all the songs on it but you have to buy song by song suck). Sure you're supporting the RIAA a little (not quite as much as before I think). Having it all already tagged and a high quality rip in a pretty good quality format, being able to preview. So hard to resist, it's such a good deal (if it were lossless and at the same price, I wouldn't be eating next week).

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #11 –
Has anyone done any listening tests on AAC files produced by iTunes? Also noticed there is a new Quicktime version (6.4) that you have to install with iTunes, I assume iTunes uses that to encode. Curious if there has been any improvements with the quality over previous versions of iTunes and quicktime.
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #12 –
Hmm... I'm beginning to think that iTunes is merely a very powerful front-end for QuickTime. Can anyone else confirm or deny this?

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #13 –
Quote
Then, lets not forget the lack of Musepack, Vorbis, FLAC, Monkey's Audio, APEv2 tag support either.

Since iTune seems to require QuickTime, I'm going to assume that it uses QT to do all the encoding and decoding.

That said, Ogg Vorbis support is available for QuickTime from here.  This may enable support in iTunes.

Once I get home, I'm going to install all the stuff and check into this more closely.  I'll post back with my findings.

Edit: Oh yeah, for the Mac users, it seems there's a newer Ogg Vorbis QT component available here.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #14 –
Finaly! 
The day i've been waiting for!

Only dissapointing thing is the lack of Ogg Vorbis support.
Stupid thing to ignore, there's support for the format in the Mac OSX version.

Anyone with information about this support?

[edit: thanks to the poster above me  ]

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #15 –
160kbit AAC files sound SOOOOO good with a very limited and definitely not double-blind listening test I tried out...yeah I know, I plan to do an ABX test later on when I get more free time.

Haven't got a chance to compare an iTunes with error checking rip to an EAC rip, but so far listening to the 2 albums I ripped I haven't noticed any audible ripping errors.
iTunes 10 - Mac OS X 10.6
256kbps AAC VBR
iPhone 4 32GB

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #16 –
Quote
Hmm... I'm beginning to think that iTunes is merely a very powerful front-end for QuickTime. Can anyone else confirm or deny this?

More than likely.  If I understand the MacOS multimedia system correctly, QT pretty much backs the whole thing.  All apps encode and decode through it.  I'd guess that they would do the same with the Windows version, rather than rewrite significant portions of iTunes just for Win32.

Of course, if I'm completely off my rocker, someone please smack me. 

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #17 –
Quote
iTunes for Windows cannot read tag from mp4 file created with Nero and tagged with tg.exe. (foobar and dbPowerAmp can read tags fine)

WRONG!

I rip in EAC encode with QuickTime and tag with TG.EXE.

Import with tags works fine with me.

BUT!

Wrong move from Apple here. You'll need to rename your MP4 files to M4A for it to work.

Sad but true.

But at least my MP4 with accented chars works fine tagged with the UTF version of TG.EXE since iTunes got them right.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #18 –
Quote
That said, Ogg Vorbis support is available for QuickTime from here.  This may enable support in iTunes.

Once I get home, I'm going to install all the stuff and check into this more closely.  I'll post back with my findings.

Have you or anyone else gotten this component to work?  I have no idea how to get it to work with QuickTime 6.4 and subsequently, can't get iTunes to play my Oggs.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #19 –
Quote
Quote
iTunes for Windows cannot read tag from mp4 file created with Nero and tagged with tg.exe. (foobar and dbPowerAmp can read tags fine)

WRONG!

I rip in EAC encode with QuickTime and tag with TG.EXE.

Import with tags works fine with me.

BUT!

Wrong move from Apple here. You'll need to rename your MP4 files to M4A for it to work.

Sad but true.

But at least my MP4 with accented chars works fine tagged with the UTF version of TG.EXE since iTunes got them right. 

Err... They're following the MPEG-4 spec. AFAIK, MP4 files are supposed to contain video and audio.  M4A files are just audio files.

I'm very very impressed.  It's not as a crappy as QuickTime, it's completely an OS X equal.  I just hope that people will be willing to make plug-ins for QT for Windows to allow the playback of the other great formats out there.  If this happens I can see iTunes becoming the killer music player on Windows as well.

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #21 –
ogg vorbis works, but is *very* slow. i'll stay with foobar for sure 

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #22 –
Quote
Download oggvorbis.qtx and put it inn your C:\WINDOWS\system32\QuickTime folder.

Doh!!! I put it in the QuickTime Plugins directory.  Quicktime can now play back my Oggs, but iTunes still can't.    I doubt Musepack will be supported either.  It's a nice interface alright, but I don't think it'll substitute for Fb2k for me.  I'd probably fall in love with it if I actually owned an iPod, rather than a Neuros..... Oh well.

EDIT: @ilikedirtthe2nd, how'd you manage to get it to work?

EDIT2: how'd you manage to get it to work in iTunes?

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #23 –
Quote
I can't get the darned program to run (on Windows). It starts, tries to access the Internet in the background (so says ZoneAlarm) but all I see is an error message:

"The folder iTunes cannot be found or created, and is required. The default location for this folder is inside the Music folder"

make sure you have "write" rights on your "My Music" folder and that it is not read only. did the trick for me.

too bad the store is available for US customers only . again Europe is left behind

edit: been testing it for 15 mins now and I must say, this is the type of program that will keep me away from p2p networks. If the record companies want us to not share music illegally anymore, they just have to support iTunes or similar initiatives. I'm already loving it and I can't even buy songs :'( !!!
No inspiration

Apple to release updated iTunes for Mac & Windows

Reply #24 –
sthayashi: Tried to put it in the C:\WINDOWS\system32\QuickTime folder stupid?

It's very slow and there's no support for vorbiscomments.