iTunes 9: What’s hot, not and new
Apple continues to build out the features (and fluff) in their does-everything jukebox, content, store and device management application. With Jobs and his famed “reality distortion field” off stage, let’s take a closer at the guts of today announcements to separate the digital wheat from the marketing chaff.
“We’ve sold over 8.5 billion songs,” said a thin yet healthy looking Jobs. “But a more amazing stat is that we’ve recently crossed over 100 million accounts on iTunes. All with credit cards,” he added gloating a little.
That said, the mothership announced the immediate availability of iTunes 9, which brings some interesting new features to the table including iTunes LP, Home Sharing and Genius Mixes, as well as a redesigned store (meh) and improved syncing.
“iTunes 9 is a great iTunes release, with innovative features that make using iTunes better than ever and iTunes content richer than ever,” said the Apple CEO. “iTunes LP, for example, lets artists share more of their creativity with fans and gives music lovers the feeling of being immersed in an entire album with art, lyrics, liner notes, photos and videos.”
Features and fluff in iTunes 9
• iTunes LP: A rich, immersive experience for select albums that combines beautiful design with expanded visual features like live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos, album credits, etc.
— Initial releases including Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, Norah Jones’ Come Away With Me and The Grateful Dead’s American Beauty• iTunes Extras: Now available for select movies including Twilight, Batman Begins and WALL-E.
• Home Sharing: Allows users to easily transfer music, movies and TV shows among up to five authorized computers in your home
• Genius Mixes: Created using the results of over 27 million music libraries based on over 54 billion songs as submitted user and analyzed by Genius.
• Improved syncing: iTunes 9 and iPhone OS 3.1 together allow apps organization right in iTunes (yeah!), plus syncing music, photos, movies and TV shows can be done by artist and genre and sync photos by Events and Faces.
• iTunes Store on iPhone: Choose from 20,000 pre-cut ringtones for $1.29 each.
The changes in iTunes 9 are clearly a mixed bag. Although Home Sharing and improved syncing — organize those apps! — are hot, whereas iTunes LP, Extras and $1.29 ringtones are just marketing come ons and not particularly imaginative ones at that.
Honestly, the album all but died in the ’80s because people stopped buying them. That is, we grew up and realized paying those extra dollars got us even more junk content, stuff that couldn’t pass a sniff test in the first place, than an ordinary LP record could hold.
Put a bullet in the album already.
And, a $1.29 for a ringtone? There’s no reason pay the filthy effing record companies again when you can get iPhone ringtones for free.
What d’ya need?
iTunes 9’s system requirements aren’t too egregious with any 1GHz or faster G4 and up Mac supported. Installation requires 237MB (on my Mac), and you’ll need at least 1GB RAM and 16MB VRAM to play HD video.
On the software side, the latest iteration of Apple’s does everything jukebox application requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later, as well as QuickTime 7.6.x and Safari 4.x.x. That said, HE-ACC requires QT 7.6.4 and OS X 10.5.x.
So, how much does all of this weigh? iTunes 9 tips the scales at 82.8MB and you can get your copy here (form).
Download, install and dissect what’s hot and not in iTunes 9, and be sure to share you impressions in the comments below…
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September 9th, 2009
Itunes 9 appears to be faster than the sluggishness of itunes 8. If speed was the only thing they added, that would be enough for me.
September 11th, 2009
I’ve noticed it, too, However, as opposed to the other iLife apps, iTunes hasn’t been rewritten in Cocoa, which makes ya wonder where the boost is coming from…