Merely days after
iTunes 9.2 hit the pipes in order to enable iPhone 4 syncing,
Apple's software team has pushed out the first "minor" update since with 9.2.1. Truth be told, the list of changes, fixes and tweaks is rather lengthy for a simple point-point update, with this one allowing users to organize apps on the iOS 4 home screens into folders using iTunes, organize and sync PDF documents as books, etc. As for fixes? For starters, it'll "disable older versions of some incompatible third-party plug-ins" (thanks?), while also addressing "minor issues with dragging and dropping items, a performance issue when first syncing to some devices with iTunes 9.2" and other general speed issues that users were reporting. As for iBooks 1.1.1, that one still seems to be propagating through the iTunes server factory, promising support for books with audio and video, improvements for PDF documents and other miscellaneous bug fixes. Feel free to toss your impressions of the new builds in comments below, but don't blame us if your eagerness ends up breaking something you love dearly.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
posted July 19th 2010 6:07PM
Yay?
Apple post which means 100 responses or greater guaranteed.
@1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA
Only if the anti-Apple trolls come over here and stir shit up because they're too stupid to, you know, just not click on an article that they allegedly don't care about.
@Fr3sh2De4th
Yay is right! The iBooks update makes PDF viewing much more pleasant. I have all my textbooks on my iPad, so this is very welcome.
Now all I need is multitasking. Come on 4.0!
@Fox Con Who Said anything abt "Apple Hate" comment? I actually like most of their products, but I guess you can say I'm against the iPhone.
@1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA 46 and counting.
@Fr3sh2De4th I'm against your face. Literally. Oh, yeahhhh.
@Fr3sh2De4th
Then ignore anything on here about the iPhone
Posted from my iPhone :P
@1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA Mostly about people complaining about an Apple post and wondering why Engadget posts so much news about Apple... perhaps if people stop clicking links and stop commenting....perhaps...
@Fr3sh2De4th
Never liked the fact that iTunes gets installed with a couple pieces of phantomware on your computer. iTunes is NOT a 121 MB application on it's own, but it won't let you just download iTunes (And no I'm not talking about Quicktime).
@Fr3sh2De4th
I hope they made speed improvements for iBooks. It was very slow and buggy on my 3rd generation 32GB iPod Touch on iOS4. I guess maybe it was optimized for iPhone 4 and iPad, but still.
Stanza may not be as pretty looking, but it is quick, snappy, and more pleasant to use in my experience.
The real problem is that we're still using a shitty jukebox app to manage all the content on these portable Unix computers. Pathetic.
@Arayta Yah i agree, iBooks is slow in current rendition, I also have 32 gb 3rd gen iPod touch with ios 4, not 4.1, for some reason mine isn't updating? But yah even on the iPad iBooks was a teeny bit slow, even froze once when a non tech guy with a moto droid was looking at my neighbors that he was borrowing from work, then again, while playing with the iPad (non tech guy), he managed to select the whole webpage and crash safari, so maybe it was his fault iBooks was slow, I just installed iBooks 1.1.1 and then checked to see if there was a post on it, and there was, haven't used iBooks since updating a minute ago yet, but I'll see if it's good
@1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA,
Yes, but 80 of those 100 will be douches complaining about an Apple Post.
@JohnnyDiggMe Does it fix the antenna issue?
@Information Central
Well I guess technically you don't *have* to use iTunes after you activate your iDevice. You can still rearrange things and purchase content on the device itself without the use of a computer, but backing up your stuff just makes sense in case something goes wrong.
But I do agree that you shouldn't even have to activate it in the first place; it should be usable out of the box.
@Jack Yep, they see a Apple post and say, hmmm, I'm bored, I guess I'll go a spread a little hate (If this world is already filled with to much hatred) I guess I'll talk about antennas and dropped calls, maybe I'll get some attention, even though I don't know what I'm talking about, but it sounds good and my Engadget friends will back me up in my mindless rants.
@1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA
uhhh... He's right. Why downrank him?
@1 Infinite Loop Cupertino CA
Look at the most commented / top stories.
Engadget readers and commenters LIKE apple stories, as do I.
There are more Apple haters than commenters obv, but most of them already own or have owned an apple product that they like.
I remember when I was an Apple hater, I had an iPod touch 3G (still do actually) and I hated on Apple, but only did it because I wanted the little guys to have a chance too.
But then I grew up, and just simply stopped hating, and had a positive open mind.
@Mikeserena
"hate"? isn't that a bit much? when did brand loyalty get elevated to the level of protected status alongside gender, age, religion, and sexual orientation? they're not all helpful, perhaps, but people should be allowed to call out shortcomings in devices, including those they don't even own (free speech operates on a different principal than the app store). it may annoy you, but a level of simmering discontent helps keep the industry honest. in my experience, fixes were few and far-between before the advent of the tech blogs. we've all learned to be better and more careful consumers in the process. i'll keep reading the invisibles, thank you very much.
What is everyone talking about? I am far from an Apple hater, just read my post history idiots.
What? Why is there no news that as of now there is not ONE Android phone shipping with 2.2 by default.
The drones must be really upset. :(
@magadget
This article isn't about android, dumbass.
@magadget Possibly because it's not true?
@magadget
Engadget is just happy that Steve said Engadget thinks its the best phone on friday. SO you know gotta kiss that ass! go Macgadget!! YAY!!
@magadget LOL Nice.
I really wish Apple would increase the performance of iTunes. It's really slow. I'm running it on a new computer as well. The Zune software runs very fast how ever.
@Grubasaurus Rex
You're on Windows, right?
@Grubasaurus Rex
iTunes runs well on my mac.
@Grubasaurus Rex
iTunes, safari, finder, quicktime they all instaopen and are fast as hell
@Fox Con Hey, Apple installs all kinds of extra services, updaters, plenty of other programs run great on new pcs. It's Apple's fault their stupid iTunes with the ridiculous counter intuitive interface doesn't run well on PCs. And I know you're going to say how you have no problem using iTunes, but you've been in Apple's brain washing league a lot longer than the rest us. Intuitive means you don't have to have used their products for years to make use of it.
@Fox Con
Now if they could just make Safari stable... It's like the day isn't complete unless it crashes at least once.
And I stopped updating iTunes after 9.0.2... It's like 2wice a month I get a notice iTunes has a new version. Can't we wait awhile between updates?
@Grubasaurus Rex
You mean on Windows?.
iTunes works perfectly fine on Macs.
No I will not buy a thousand dollar plus computer to make iTunes run faster.
@Jack
Does not matter if he is on Windows or not.
Itunes runs like utter dog shit. Most iPhone/ipod users run windows. Apple needs to learn how to program properly. Microsoft office runs fine in osx. Firefox Chrome all run fine on osx and osx. Itunes only runs good on osx
@Fox Con
Well all those programs are coded for by the same company that made your OS. Not to mention that iTunes is actually more or less integrated into the OS itself, and Finder is just the filesystem browser. You saying those programs opening up and running quickly on a Mac is like me saying opening folders and Windows Media Player is really fast on my PC.
We're talking about iTunes on Windows here. Which is really, really slow. Hell, it opens up in around the same time as freakin' Photoshop CS3 on my laptop. That's just ridiculous.
@DefPoet
itunes is a resource hog. Even apple uses it to test processor issues.
@DefPoet
Microsoft Office for Mac is shit.
@Grubasaurus Rex I have no speed issues on my pc with iTunes
@Grubasaurus Rex yes, iTunes on Windows is nightmarishly slow. Especially if you try doing multiple things at once, like if you go and try to buy and app while you iPhone is being backed up in the background. It could be some locking problem or other multithreading related implementation problem that does not exist on Mac, for example, because they use proper POSIX threading or even multiprocessing there.
So Apple please - either make the Windows version fast ... or make a Linux version :D (which in turn should be a much easier port than Windows as the architectures are so similar).
@DefPoet "Microsoft office runs fine in osx"
I'm not one to feed the trolls but as someone who's corporation locks him into Exchange I must say that Microsoft Office Entourage (Outlook on the Mac) is the the worst app I've used in the last 2 years. GodFinger on the iPhone comes close but it's not quite so bad. Dreamweaver is third BTW.
Can't talk a much about Excel or Word because they are useless to me.
@Grubasaurus Rex Zune is faster than iTunes? They run about the same on my 3yo quad-core setup (Q6600). Safari runs well too (not sure the haters like trying things as much as they like spewing their hate of Apple products). Sure, neither is Foobar, but they are both equally bloated IMO.
@Grubasaurus Rex
EVERYTHING runs fast when compared to iTunes.
Every media player built by Microsoft(Zune, WMP, WMC) launches and becomes fully usuble in a heartbeat(Except for WMC which has an animation which you cant skip).
It bothers me to no end that Apple, the company that cant live without throwing shit MIcrosoft's way, cant make iTunes perform faster.
@Jack That's a given. Both iTunes and Safari suck on Windows. Things have gotten better over the years with iTunes but Safari is just a disaster.
@Grubasaurus Rex
I have to agree. Apple should do the decent thing and rewrite the Windows version of itunes from the ground up. Get rid of the "Adobe type" bloat, the background services, the installers and respect the Windows UI to the letter. With their market share in music downloads there's no excuse. Itunes should run like a ferret on Windows not like a tortoise.
Jobs, You were slamming Adobe for it's flash software on non Windows machines (justified in most cases). Well let's see what Apple's got when it comes to itunes on Windows.
@Hex Lol, no, last time I checked, Firefox or Chrome were not made by Microsoft...*sigh*. Fanboys never seem to read posts.
And your next point regarding iTunes intergrating itself with the browser is silly.
I don't know how tightly it is integrated, but it just points to sloppy programming. It's as bad as Microsoft arguing that Internet Explorer is an "integral" part of their operating system. It's not - OSes don't provide a browser, they provide an interface between the bare-level hardware and other software applications, APIs, etc. Nowhere in OS theory does it say, Thou shalt provide a browser, or an audio player.
Either way, the Windows port of iTunes has historically been a shonky job. Perhaps Apple just doesn't care *that* much about Windows to invest any serious effort? *shrugs*. Who knows.
Then again, some people have their doubts on their programming prowess anyway. See their intial efforts with submitting Webkit patches back to the KHTML team.
Also, your last point about Windows Media Player - that's ridiculous. That's like saying Microsoft has a top-secret, super-fast path to open a file browser, that it lets it's own programs use, then other generic programs use a slower one. Do you realise how silly that sounds?
Go read up on MSDN, and look at the API they expose. It's the same thing.
Cheers,
Victor
@Grubasaurus Rex
running a half year old i7 here.
I can load Photoshop and After Effects CS5 at the same time faster then iTunes.
iTunes is the single slowest loading app on my computer, I would be happy to switch to SongBird or something, but I have a iPhone and I like it, and it ONLY works with itunes
@Grubasaurus Rex still can't drag or minimize itunes when my iPhone is syncing either :( ANNOYING!!!!!!!!!!
@waitingforthebeat
I can use whatever software I want, and use Entourage on OS X.
"as someone who's corporation locks him into Exchange"
That may be the problem. I don't have to use Exchange.
For what it's worth though, the new Outlook for the Mac coming soon is supposed to be a lot better at working with Exchange.
@Grubasaurus Rex Another question. Why do you have to wipe your iPod when you connect to a new computer with iTunes?? I don't understand Apple's tactics here.