iTunes 8

[Lory]

I'm in the process of upgrading to iTunes 8, cos it keep asking me, do I want to upgrade? but all the times I've ever upgraded before, I can never see what's different

Can anyone tell me what the 'new upgrades' do?

[ducasi]

I'm in the process of upgrading to iTunes 8, cos it keep asking me, do I want to upgrade? but all the times I've ever upgraded before, I can never see what's different

Can anyone tell me what the 'new upgrades' do?

The new 'Genius' feature is pure genius!

[straycat]

I'm in the process of upgrading to iTunes 8, cos it keep asking me, do I want to upgrade? but all the times I've ever upgraded before, I can never see what's different

Can anyone tell me what the 'new upgrades' do?

Have a read of this

It does look a little different when you first fire it up - although I confess I straightaway put it back into the standard browsing view and hid the Genius sidebar, so now mine looks just the same.

I think the 'Genius' bar is potentially the most exciting part of it - it's a music suggesting system that seems to work in a similar fashion to Pandora, but I haven't actually tried it yet. When I do, I'll post what I think of it...

[Lory]

I've been doing a million things at the same time here, so its just firing up genius as I type.

The strange thing was, it didn't recognise my account I know its correct, anyway, I've made another one - not sure if that was the right thing to do but hey ho!

[straycat]

Well - I have to say - I've now tried Genius, and ....

will be turning it off for good. Or at least until they make it useful.

Nothing like Pandora. Pandora based its recommendations on the musical characteristics of the track, and on the preference you'd already expressed. Genius .... seems to give me back other 'top' tracks by the same artist, or of the same genre. Pointless - I can find those myself. No real correlation of musical properties.

Time to resume the search for a Pandora proxy....

[straycat]

Erk!!!!

Warning for all current iTunes users, before you think about upgrading (if you haven't already)
I may be jumping the gun here, but all options for changing your importing options appear to be gone. SOOOO - you can no longer import as MP3, or change the import quality... and you can no longer convert to MP3.

If these facilities are important to you, I suggest you don't upgrade.

OTOH - the new visualiser is absolutely stunning

[straycat]

Erk!!!!

False alarm. All is well. They just moved the options

They're now under General Settings -> Import Options.

The visualiser is still stunningly beautiful

[ducasi]

Erk!!!!

Warning for all current iTunes users, before you think about upgrading (if you haven't already)
I may be jumping the gun here, but all options for changing your importing options appear to be gone. SOOOO - you can no longer import as MP3, or change the import quality... and you can no longer convert to MP3.

If these facilities are important to you, I suggest you don't upgrade.

Look for the "Import Settings" button in the General preferences.

[Sugarfoot]

I am thinking of upgrading to Itunes 8, mainly because my version 6 will no longer allow me to download some tracks that I want.

I have some concerns:

I have heard there are some problems with blues screens and crashes etc.

Is there anyway of saving the installed itunes so that you could at least revert back if there are problems with the upgrade?

Is anyone experiencing problems with version 8 using windows XP or vista.

[Villemo]

I am thinking of upgrading to Itunes 8, mainly because my version 6 will no longer allow me to download some tracks that I want.

I have some concerns:

I have heard there are some problems with blues screens and crashes etc.

Is anyone experiencing problems with version 8 using windows XP or vista.

I just downloaded it the other day, and I have Vista.
Might just be my computer needing some maintanance, but I have had several blues screens of death since I installed it
Also, it wiped all my history from Internet Explorer
On top of that, it didn't recognize my account... I think I'll just take it off again.

[gamebird]

I was a bit concerned with genius - I have one or two not-completely legitimate tracks on my i-pod and wondered if it might hold that against me so I turned it off PDQ. If anyone knows otherwise...I like the idea of it and would quite like to try - basically I'm nervous that the apple-man might come and get me

[Agente Secreto]

I was a bit concerned with genius - I have one or two not-completely legitimate tracks on my i-pod and wondered if it might hold that against me so I turned it off PDQ. If anyone knows otherwise...I like the idea of it and would quite like to try - basically I'm nervous that the apple-man might come and get me

Apparently Genius anonymises the information downloaded to Apple and does not associate this with your iTunes account. Probably no way to tell if you have slightly dodgy tracks anyway - I don't think there is any way of telling on an MP3 where it came from originally.

Is anyone else sick of the way that iTunes seems to want to give you an update every week - I only downloaded V8 the other day and now there is yet another update. And I'm not really getting a feeling of any sweeping improvements for all of this tinkering. Maybe if they included native support for the BPM ratings or something like that. Or perhaps even some simple mixing facility. But no........................

[Barry Shnikov]

Don't use iTunes. Very likely I never will. Apple started off by interfering with host computers for the benefit of anyone but the computer owner, and that was enough to put me off forever.

[Sugarfoot]

OK....What is the best alternative to using itunes for both buying music online and as an all round player and music database?

From what I have read so far it still comes out top despite the niggles.

I have never used it but what are the advantages/disadvantages of something like winamp?

[ducasi]

I just downloaded it the other day, and I have Vista.
Might just be my computer needing some maintanance, but I have had several blues screens of death since I installed it
Also, it wiped all my history from Internet Explorer
On top of that, it didn't recognize my account... I think I'll just take it off again.

I'd be very surprised if iTunes was responsible for any problems you have with Internet Explorer. It has enough problems of its own, it doesn't need any help from Apple.

The initial release of iTunes 8 did cause BSODs for some Vista users – probably a clash of drivers – but a fairly swift update resolved the problem.

Just make sure you have iTunes 8.0.1.

[Villemo]

I'd be very surprised if iTunes was responsible for any problems you have with Internet Explorer. It has enough problems of its own, it doesn't need any help from Apple.

The initial release of iTunes 8 did cause BSODs for some Vista users – probably a clash of drivers – but a fairly swift update resolved the problem.

Just make sure you have iTunes 8.0.1.

Mine says 8.0.1.11, so that should be the latest version.
The BSOD might be due to other computer issues (like a severely outdates virus program...), but it's just strange that I had several in a row right after I downloaded ITunes.
As to the fact it was not recognising my account... well I figured that one out... And realized what's on my Ipod now is not from my account, but a friends'... No wonder it wouldn't transfer over...
Not used to being my own IT person

[Sugarfoot]

Well I finally went for it. I backed everything up and added all latest patches to XP etc.

First attempt to intall froze and I had to restart. No problems after that. so far I am quite impressed with verson 8.01. It certainly has improvements over the old version 6 I was using.

Not tried the Genius thing yet, but it sounds a bit like Pandora that everyone was raving about until you could not use it outside the USA. Correct me it I am wrong on this.

[straycat]

Not tried the Genius thing yet, but it sounds a bit like Pandora that everyone was raving about until you could not use it outside the USA. Correct me it I am wrong on this.

It's an attempt to deliver what Pandora delivers. Unfortunately, it's absolutely rubbish, IMHO. I keep it turned off, and keep hoping that Pandora survives and gets its licensing sorted out for this country again.

[robd]

Is anyone else sick of the way that iTunes seems to want to give you an update every week

Am considering an update from 7.5 to the latest version so I can get the latest software for my Touch and wanted to check for possible issues hence the thread bump.

I think the frequency of updates is due to the way iTunes serves all the different models of iPods out there so changes to the iPod range, either new models or new software for existing models tends to lead to a new version of iTunes. I don't see it as a problem as I work to the principle that unless I have an iTunes problem or there's a feature listed in the new version that I really want then I just ignore the upgrade requests and stick with the version I have.

[ashenfie]

I've been doing a million things at the same time here, so its just firing up genius as I type.

The strange thing was, it didn't recognise my account I know its correct, anyway, I've made another one - not sure if that was the right thing to do but hey ho!

I think that might cause you problems in the future. My PC hard disk broke some time ago. Anyway I downloaded all the music I had purchase from my account, so If you loose your account the you could lose some of your music!