Looks like iTunes 10.4 works on 10.6 and even 10.5 (including G5s). But still only runs 32 bit under 10.6? What the hell, is that so hard to make that work?
Hopefully it will run a bit better since it's cocoa, but having a 64 bit app but only on the newer OS is just dumb and smacks of intentionally trying to cripple it on the older OS.
What's the obsession people have with making things 64 bit? Beign 64 bit doesn't mean its faster unless you actually have files big enough to take advantage of it, if you don't then it's just slower. I guess if you use iTunes for films then it will be faster for that, apart from that though everything else will be slower with speed improvmements just being a result of actual coding improvements.
question about iWork for Mac.. Is there only one release of iWork apps, which will always be upgraded via the same app? I'm not sure if I'm asking this the right way. In other words, when iWork 11 comes out, will it be an entirely new app, to download from the Mac AppStore? I want iWork but don't want to buy it twice.
Beign 64 bit doesn't mean its faster unless you actually have files big enough to take advantage of it
That's false. 64 bit code generally runs faster because the intel hardware includes 64 bit registers (and there may be other reasons as well).
And this is borne out with benchmarks, I have yet to see an app that doesn't run at least a little bit faster in 64 bit mode. That includes things like Safari which gets a nice boost from running in 64 bit even though most users are never going to get to the point where it's using more than 4 gigs of ram.
Why the defense of Apple's failing to get this right?
10.6 is a 64 bit OS. Almost every other Apple app in 10.6 is 64 bit. What possible reason would there be for a 64 bit app to only run in that mode on the newer OS? I guess it's possible that the code in iTunes is so old and kludgy that they couldn't update it all to 64 bit and they're piling on yet another kludge to make it sort of be a 64 bit app in a way that only works on 10.7, but I certainly hope they're not in that bad of shape.
That's false. 64 bit code generally runs faster because the intel hardware includes 64 bit registers (and there may be other reasons as well).
And this is borne out with benchmarks, I have yet to see an app that doesn't run at least a little bit faster in 64 bit mode. That includes things like Safari which gets a nice boost from running in 64 bit even though most users are never going to get to the point where it's using more than 4 gigs of ram.
Why the defense of Apple's failing to get this right?
10.6 is a 64 bit OS. Almost every other Apple app in 10.6 is 64 bit. What possible reason would there be for a 64 bit app to only run in that mode on the newer OS? I guess it's possible that the code in iTunes is so old and kludgy that they couldn't update it all to 64 bit and they're piling on yet another kludge to make it sort of be a 64 bit app in a way that only works on 10.7, but I certainly hope they're not in that bad of shape.
It seems very strange that a company willing to pour resources into something that will only last a little while (like Rosetta) and not iTunes. Perhaps, amid rumors of iPods being slashed away, that iTunes will disappear soon? i.e. Music integrated into the MAS.
seems unlikely, but so did iTunes not being 64-bit like 2 years ago.
edit: at least on Macs ... on Windows I don't see what they can do
That's false. 64 bit code generally runs faster because the intel hardware includes 64 bit registers (and there may be other reasons as well).
It depends entirely on what the application is doing. A 64-bit application can also run slower than its 32-bit equivalent due to issues like the increased pointer size. An application is not guaranteed to automatically become faster after porting to 64-bit.
It depends entirely on what the application is doing. A 64-bit application can also run slower than its 32-bit equivalent due to issues like the increased pointer size. An application is not guaranteed to automatically become faster after porting to 64-bit.
So what's a specific example of an app running slower in 64 bit, I have yet to see one. Even apps like Safari are measurably faster in 64, the difference was benchmarked when it first shipped.
And if some apps would be faster in 32, why does apple have all of their apps default to run in 64? Including this new iTunes on 10.7 - it's simple enough for someone running Lion to make the comparison - does it run faster in 64 or 32? I'll bet the difference isn't huge but 64 IS faster.
So what's a specific example of an app running slower in 64 bit, I have yet to see one.
The increased memory usage can affect cache performance.
Quote:
Even apps like Safari are measurably faster in 64, the difference was benchmarked when it first shipped.
Yes, Safari's Javascript engine benefits from 64-bit mode.
Quote:
And if some apps would be faster in 32, why does apple have all of their apps default to run in 64? Including this new iTunes on 10.7 - it's simple enough for someone running Lion to make the comparison - does it run faster in 64 or 32? I'll bet the difference isn't huge but 64 IS faster.
I didn't suggest Apple shouldn't be moving to 64-bit entirely. One reason is to avoid having to load in 32-bit versions of the frameworks when a 32-bit application is launched. I'm just pointing out that a 64-bit application isn't automatically going to be faster just because it's 64-bit. Apple's own WWDC presentations mentioned this around the time of Leopard's release. Moving to 64-bit on OS X is about being able to take advantage of the modern Objective-C run-time as well as access large amount of RAM.
Funny, I personally know at least 4 died-in-the-wool Windows users who say that iTunes runs just fine on their XP, Vista, and 7 systems. I guess it's just you. Fix your Windows box would be my advice.
Oh it really, really isn't just me. Spend 5 minutes on the internet and see what Windows users think of iTunes. Or better still, read what Paul Thurrot thinks of it. His rants on how terrible iTunes is on TWIT shows are legendary. And he's absolutely right, iTunes is unimaginably terrible.
Here's are some quick examples - when syncing my iPhone 4, iTunes locks up windows almost completely. I can move the mouse pointer, but that's about it. When importing new content into iTunes my system locks up completely until it's finished, and this can take a LONG time. iTunes crashes often, for me about 5-10 times a week. iTunes when sitting dormant occupies at least 200mb of RAM... yes, 200mb for a database app with a couple of codecs thrown in. When playing video this can grow to up to 400mb. Even navigating the store is painful as iTunes can't scroll down a page at any more than 10fps or so.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
As a comparison the Zune desktop app runs flawlessly at 60fps and multi-tasks without a hitch. It also looks beautiful and occupies 80mb tops.
Of course being an iPhone user I'm locked into iTunes hell...
just downloaded the update for snow leopard. riddle me this; if itunes is now "proper" cocoa/64-bit, then why is it incompatible with app extensions such as Afloat? also, the fact that it's 64-bit for Lion only leads me to believe that some OS-level hackery has been employed to make this happen
Or they just did not want to bother testing and releasing a 32-bit version so they made it Lion only...
Or they just did not want to bother testing and releasing a 32-bit version so they made it Lion only...
I don't even see how that would make sense, the same installer and app should be able to run on either OS, and the additional testing of 64 bit on 10.6 should be relatively minor.
I don't even see how that would make sense, the same installer and app should be able to run on either OS, and the additional testing of 64 bit on 10.6 should be relatively minor.
If you make it for 10.6 you have to support 32-bit because 32-bit only machines run 10.6. It actually makes perfect sense...
Difficult to imagine a world where iTunes isn't a piece of festering sewage. Maybe things are better in MacOS now, but in the Windows world iTunes is unimaginably terrible. No other piece of mainstream, mass market software is so crushingly slow, so staggeringly unstable, and so painfully clumsy to use.
simple fix really, get a Mac. Works great just like the Mac version of Safari. Windows is the problem not iTunes.
What's the obsession people have with making things 64 bit? Beign 64 bit doesn't mean its faster unless you actually have files big enough to take advantage of it, if you don't then it's just slower. I guess if you use iTunes for films then it will be faster for that, apart from that though everything else will be slower with speed improvmements just being a result of actual coding improvements.
That's not completely true. The Intel 64 Bit extensions (x86-64) provide a couple of additional GPRs for 64 Bit code (16 instead of 8 GPRs being 64 Bit instead of 32 Bit). In addition the architecture moved from stack-based to register-based calling convention and added PC-relative addressing.
So in this "rare case" just going to 64 Bit (= using the 64 Bit instruction set) provides some performance benefits on Intel CPUs (heard about 5-20% depending on your code) while e.g. going to 64 Bit on PPC hardware didn't help performance wise. In some cases the greater pointer size even degraded the performance on PPC machines while I heaven't noticed that on the Intel platform yet.
May be the other advantages are able to overcompensate this disadvantage on Intel 64.
In case of iTunes IMHO the big problem was that due to the legacy carbon layer task / thread and workload switching was not great.
So if a background task consumed a lot of processing power e.g. for synchronization or encoding and the user wanted to invoke some additional actions on the UI the app and sometimes even the system got sluggish because the demanded shift of resources to the UI or other tasks didn't instantly take place insuring fluent interaction.
Carbon is mostly 10 year old code originally written for single core PPC CPUs, not perfectly integrated in the OS X core system and it's new APIs. Plus it doesn't benefit from newer GPU accelerated UI APIs. It was designed for transition and cross-plattform development (iTunes for Windows).
I haven't tested it much yet, but from my first impressions it seams to be a great leap forward (at least the 64 Bit Lion version). May be there is is still some compatibility code for older hardware left.
Edit: Just saw there ware already a lot of sufficient answers posted while I was sidetracked with other stuff.
Funny, I personally know at least 4 died-in-the-wool Windows users who say that iTunes runs just fine on their XP, Vista, and 7 systems. I guess it's just you. Fix your Windows box would be my advice.
Nope, all the Apple software on Windows is horrible, the worst of the bunch is Safari
The number one application that crashes my Mac is iTunes, I am hoping 10.4 is better, but not holding my breath.
The divide between users who like and dislike iTunes is very interesting to me, and I wish I could explain it somehow. When some posters here say they are having problems with iTunes on Mac and/or PC, or even that they hate iTunes, I take them at their word.
Conversely, in my experience using iTunes on no less than 6 Macs over the years (both mine and my wife's) we have never had an issue with iTunes. Not at all. It has never caused our Macs to freeze up, and I think has only unexpectedly quit one time across all these machines. It has been very solid. Even when I have had failing hard drives, or overheating/fan issues, iTunes has never so much as given a hiccup.
I do wish that Apple wouldn't cram so much into one application, or at least I wish they had renamed it at some point so that the name more accurately reflects its function, but it has been a great application. If it happens to get a speed boost from 64 bit mode, then that will be great. But even if it doesn't, I enjoy using it.
Conversely, in my experience using iTunes on no less than 6 Macs over the years (both mine and my wife's) we have never had an issue with iTunes. Not at all. It has never caused our Macs to freeze up, and I think has only unexpectedly quit one time across all these machines. It has been very solid. Even when I have had failing hard drives, or overheating/fan issues, iTunes has never so much as given a hiccup.
Same here, except the Mac Mini I played a lot with plugins. In my experience it's the same problem I had with Firefox. At a specific amount of plugins FF gets slower and more and more unstable.
Problem isn't that pronounced with Safari and the new extensions.
Edit: This was meant for crashes. I experienced hiccups and beach balls when switching between multiple applications or on heavy load processing syncs etc.
Comments
Looks like iTunes 10.4 works on 10.6 and even 10.5 (including G5s). But still only runs 32 bit under 10.6? What the hell, is that so hard to make that work?
Hopefully it will run a bit better since it's cocoa, but having a 64 bit app but only on the newer OS is just dumb and smacks of intentionally trying to cripple it on the older OS.
What's the obsession people have with making things 64 bit? Beign 64 bit doesn't mean its faster unless you actually have files big enough to take advantage of it, if you don't then it's just slower. I guess if you use iTunes for films then it will be faster for that, apart from that though everything else will be slower with speed improvmements just being a result of actual coding improvements.
Beign 64 bit doesn't mean its faster unless you actually have files big enough to take advantage of it
That's false. 64 bit code generally runs faster because the intel hardware includes 64 bit registers (and there may be other reasons as well).
And this is borne out with benchmarks, I have yet to see an app that doesn't run at least a little bit faster in 64 bit mode. That includes things like Safari which gets a nice boost from running in 64 bit even though most users are never going to get to the point where it's using more than 4 gigs of ram.
Why the defense of Apple's failing to get this right?
10.6 is a 64 bit OS. Almost every other Apple app in 10.6 is 64 bit. What possible reason would there be for a 64 bit app to only run in that mode on the newer OS? I guess it's possible that the code in iTunes is so old and kludgy that they couldn't update it all to 64 bit and they're piling on yet another kludge to make it sort of be a 64 bit app in a way that only works on 10.7, but I certainly hope they're not in that bad of shape.
That's false. 64 bit code generally runs faster because the intel hardware includes 64 bit registers (and there may be other reasons as well).
And this is borne out with benchmarks, I have yet to see an app that doesn't run at least a little bit faster in 64 bit mode. That includes things like Safari which gets a nice boost from running in 64 bit even though most users are never going to get to the point where it's using more than 4 gigs of ram.
Why the defense of Apple's failing to get this right?
10.6 is a 64 bit OS. Almost every other Apple app in 10.6 is 64 bit. What possible reason would there be for a 64 bit app to only run in that mode on the newer OS? I guess it's possible that the code in iTunes is so old and kludgy that they couldn't update it all to 64 bit and they're piling on yet another kludge to make it sort of be a 64 bit app in a way that only works on 10.7, but I certainly hope they're not in that bad of shape.
It seems very strange that a company willing to pour resources into something that will only last a little while (like Rosetta) and not iTunes. Perhaps, amid rumors of iPods being slashed away, that iTunes will disappear soon? i.e. Music integrated into the MAS.
seems unlikely, but so did iTunes not being 64-bit like 2 years ago.
edit: at least on Macs ... on Windows I don't see what they can do
That's false. 64 bit code generally runs faster because the intel hardware includes 64 bit registers (and there may be other reasons as well).
It depends entirely on what the application is doing. A 64-bit application can also run slower than its 32-bit equivalent due to issues like the increased pointer size. An application is not guaranteed to automatically become faster after porting to 64-bit.
It depends entirely on what the application is doing. A 64-bit application can also run slower than its 32-bit equivalent due to issues like the increased pointer size. An application is not guaranteed to automatically become faster after porting to 64-bit.
So what's a specific example of an app running slower in 64 bit, I have yet to see one. Even apps like Safari are measurably faster in 64, the difference was benchmarked when it first shipped.
And if some apps would be faster in 32, why does apple have all of their apps default to run in 64? Including this new iTunes on 10.7 - it's simple enough for someone running Lion to make the comparison - does it run faster in 64 or 32? I'll bet the difference isn't huge but 64 IS faster.
So what's a specific example of an app running slower in 64 bit, I have yet to see one.
The increased memory usage can affect cache performance.
Even apps like Safari are measurably faster in 64, the difference was benchmarked when it first shipped.
Yes, Safari's Javascript engine benefits from 64-bit mode.
And if some apps would be faster in 32, why does apple have all of their apps default to run in 64? Including this new iTunes on 10.7 - it's simple enough for someone running Lion to make the comparison - does it run faster in 64 or 32? I'll bet the difference isn't huge but 64 IS faster.
I didn't suggest Apple shouldn't be moving to 64-bit entirely. One reason is to avoid having to load in 32-bit versions of the frameworks when a 32-bit application is launched. I'm just pointing out that a 64-bit application isn't automatically going to be faster just because it's 64-bit. Apple's own WWDC presentations mentioned this around the time of Leopard's release. Moving to 64-bit on OS X is about being able to take advantage of the modern Objective-C run-time as well as access large amount of RAM.
Funny, I personally know at least 4 died-in-the-wool Windows users who say that iTunes runs just fine on their XP, Vista, and 7 systems. I guess it's just you. Fix your Windows box would be my advice.
Oh it really, really isn't just me. Spend 5 minutes on the internet and see what Windows users think of iTunes. Or better still, read what Paul Thurrot thinks of it. His rants on how terrible iTunes is on TWIT shows are legendary. And he's absolutely right, iTunes is unimaginably terrible.
Here's are some quick examples - when syncing my iPhone 4, iTunes locks up windows almost completely. I can move the mouse pointer, but that's about it. When importing new content into iTunes my system locks up completely until it's finished, and this can take a LONG time. iTunes crashes often, for me about 5-10 times a week. iTunes when sitting dormant occupies at least 200mb of RAM... yes, 200mb for a database app with a couple of codecs thrown in. When playing video this can grow to up to 400mb. Even navigating the store is painful as iTunes can't scroll down a page at any more than 10fps or so.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
As a comparison the Zune desktop app runs flawlessly at 60fps and multi-tasks without a hitch. It also looks beautiful and occupies 80mb tops.
Of course being an iPhone user I'm locked into iTunes hell...
just downloaded the update for snow leopard. riddle me this; if itunes is now "proper" cocoa/64-bit, then why is it incompatible with app extensions such as Afloat? also, the fact that it's 64-bit for Lion only leads me to believe that some OS-level hackery has been employed to make this happen
Or they just did not want to bother testing and releasing a 32-bit version so they made it Lion only...
Sure, in theory anything can happen, but in real world use the vast majority of apps are faster.
Whether or not iTunes is one of those apps is easy enough to check, just compare performance on 10.7 between 32 and 64 bit.
Twice resulted in Update error.
Ther's a bug somewhere?
Or they just did not want to bother testing and releasing a 32-bit version so they made it Lion only...
I don't even see how that would make sense, the same installer and app should be able to run on either OS, and the additional testing of 64 bit on 10.6 should be relatively minor.
I don't even see how that would make sense, the same installer and app should be able to run on either OS, and the additional testing of 64 bit on 10.6 should be relatively minor.
If you make it for 10.6 you have to support 32-bit because 32-bit only machines run 10.6. It actually makes perfect sense...
Difficult to imagine a world where iTunes isn't a piece of festering sewage. Maybe things are better in MacOS now, but in the Windows world iTunes is unimaginably terrible. No other piece of mainstream, mass market software is so crushingly slow, so staggeringly unstable, and so painfully clumsy to use.
simple fix really, get a Mac. Works great just like the Mac version of Safari. Windows is the problem not iTunes.
What's the obsession people have with making things 64 bit? Beign 64 bit doesn't mean its faster unless you actually have files big enough to take advantage of it, if you don't then it's just slower. I guess if you use iTunes for films then it will be faster for that, apart from that though everything else will be slower with speed improvmements just being a result of actual coding improvements.
That's not completely true. The Intel 64 Bit extensions (x86-64) provide a couple of additional GPRs for 64 Bit code (16 instead of 8 GPRs being 64 Bit instead of 32 Bit). In addition the architecture moved from stack-based to register-based calling convention and added PC-relative addressing.
So in this "rare case" just going to 64 Bit (= using the 64 Bit instruction set) provides some performance benefits on Intel CPUs (heard about 5-20% depending on your code) while e.g. going to 64 Bit on PPC hardware didn't help performance wise. In some cases the greater pointer size even degraded the performance on PPC machines while I heaven't noticed that on the Intel platform yet.
May be the other advantages are able to overcompensate this disadvantage on Intel 64.
In case of iTunes IMHO the big problem was that due to the legacy carbon layer task / thread and workload switching was not great.
So if a background task consumed a lot of processing power e.g. for synchronization or encoding and the user wanted to invoke some additional actions on the UI the app and sometimes even the system got sluggish because the demanded shift of resources to the UI or other tasks didn't instantly take place insuring fluent interaction.
Carbon is mostly 10 year old code originally written for single core PPC CPUs, not perfectly integrated in the OS X core system and it's new APIs. Plus it doesn't benefit from newer GPU accelerated UI APIs. It was designed for transition and cross-plattform development (iTunes for Windows).
I haven't tested it much yet, but from my first impressions it seams to be a great leap forward (at least the 64 Bit Lion version). May be there is is still some compatibility code for older hardware left.
Edit: Just saw there ware already a lot of sufficient answers posted while I was sidetracked with other stuff.
Funny, I personally know at least 4 died-in-the-wool Windows users who say that iTunes runs just fine on their XP, Vista, and 7 systems. I guess it's just you. Fix your Windows box would be my advice.
Nope, all the Apple software on Windows is horrible, the worst of the bunch is Safari
simple fix really, get a Mac. Works great just like the Mac version of Safari. Windows is the problem not iTunes.
The number one application that crashes my Mac is iTunes, I am hoping 10.4 is better, but not holding my breath.
The number one application that crashes my Mac is iTunes, I am hoping 10.4 is better, but not holding my breath.
The divide between users who like and dislike iTunes is very interesting to me, and I wish I could explain it somehow. When some posters here say they are having problems with iTunes on Mac and/or PC, or even that they hate iTunes, I take them at their word.
Conversely, in my experience using iTunes on no less than 6 Macs over the years (both mine and my wife's) we have never had an issue with iTunes. Not at all. It has never caused our Macs to freeze up, and I think has only unexpectedly quit one time across all these machines. It has been very solid. Even when I have had failing hard drives, or overheating/fan issues, iTunes has never so much as given a hiccup.
I do wish that Apple wouldn't cram so much into one application, or at least I wish they had renamed it at some point so that the name more accurately reflects its function, but it has been a great application. If it happens to get a speed boost from 64 bit mode, then that will be great. But even if it doesn't, I enjoy using it.
Conversely, in my experience using iTunes on no less than 6 Macs over the years (both mine and my wife's) we have never had an issue with iTunes. Not at all. It has never caused our Macs to freeze up, and I think has only unexpectedly quit one time across all these machines. It has been very solid. Even when I have had failing hard drives, or overheating/fan issues, iTunes has never so much as given a hiccup.
Same here, except the Mac Mini I played a lot with plugins. In my experience it's the same problem I had with Firefox. At a specific amount of plugins FF gets slower and more and more unstable.
Problem isn't that pronounced with Safari and the new extensions.
Edit: This was meant for crashes. I experienced hiccups and beach balls when switching between multiple applications or on heavy load processing syncs etc.